Archive for the ‘Wine Business’ Category
One of America’s most prolific wine bloggers, Jeff Siegel, has abandoned his long-standing wine blog for the blue skies of Substack, the subscription newsletter format, and making a buck. The trail of free posts, free observations, and free access to “The Wine Curmudgeon” runs from 2007 to 2021. In that time, Siegel grabbed the mantle of champion of the drinker of cheap wine. Now, he wants to make a buck after 14 years of giving it away for free. I…
“Our aim is to democratize wine. The mission is to remove the elitist, stuffy image from wine and bring it to the people.” The odds are 2-1 that any new consumer-facing wine service, app, editorial venture or website will make this above claim about what it is they are attempting to accomplish. More often than not, this “mission” is driven either 1) by the fact that the wines being sold or promoted through the new service are under $30 per…
Apparently fearful Utah might get bypassed by other states in the look-at-our-crazy-alcohol-laws sweepstakes, the state is considering a bill that would finally allow Utahans to buy beer, wine and spirits online. One caveat, the buyer can’t pay for the beer online and must go into the store to pick up and pay for the wine. Come on…That’s just humor. Straight-up humor, right. People often accuse Utahans and particularly their Morman majority of being humorless. But I think this attempt at…
Over the past two election cycles (2017 – 2020) more than $230 million has been spent by the alcohol industry for political influence. The details of campaign contributions and lobbying expenses at both the state and federal level make up the content of “Politics Under The Influence”, a report I recently completed and that is released today: CLICK TO DOWNLOAD “POLITICS UNDER THE INFLUENCE” This new report is based on information available in public databases that track campaign contributions at…
Since the Uber purchase of local alcohol sales platform Drizly for $1.1 billion earlier this month, there has been talk and speculation that the food and people delivery service will be in a position to disrupt the three-tier system of alcohol distribution. While this would be a nice and welcome development, there is virtually no chance of this kind of disruption occurring as a result of this merger. Here’s why. First, it’s essential to appreciate the “three-tier system” for what…
