Today marks the 78th anniversary of Repeal of Prohibition, the day the last state necessary ratified the 21st Amendment. It's certainly a day to mark and take account of. It is also, apparently, a day to celebrate absurdity. "Today’s [alcohol regulatory] system balances a competitive industry with local social standards and community desires. It is this system that fuels today’s robust and dynamic licensed beverage industry that creates access to market for start-up businesses."CRAIG PURSER, National Beer Wholesalers Association Craig…
Trying to assess the state of an industry just on your own or within your peer group, one starts to look for signs; runes divining the direction of things. It's all very anecdotal. Here in Northern California in the wine industry, we notice perhaps more cars on the road on weekends; more of them in tasting room parking lots. We look at what wines folks are buying off lists. Are they splurging? We can see what our own wine related…
What an interesting year in wine. Legal battles, political battles, movements rising, technology, new markets, and changes in the media led the news. Here are my top wine stories for 2011 A SMALL CRACK IN THE WALL: Initiative 1183 Takes Washington Out of the Booze Business and Into the 21st CenturyIt has been a long time since a state abandoned its control of the alcohol marketplace and turned it over to the private sector. Initiative 1183 in Washington State did…
Seven years of blogging about wine will produce some interesting changes in a person. With this, my 2,361st post on Fermentation, I mark the seventh anniversary of maintaining this platform. My output over these past seven years amounts to 6.5 posts per week for 364 weeks. I'm not sure what kind of an achievement that is besides perseverance and habit maintenance. However, it has produced in me the formation of some ideas about wine blogging, writing, journaling, the media and…
My recent interest in the work of Robert Parker flows from the recognition that in my 20 years working in wine marketing, this critic has ranked among the most influential forces in the American marketplace. It's a remarkable story insofar as the Wine Advocate was not begun by Robert Parker to so impact the marketplace. And yet, there he stands. In addition, along with the Wine Spectator, Wine & Spirits Magazine and the Wine Enthusiast, Robert Parker has been an…
