Mar 13, 2018
Leave it to Rob McMillan to dig into the big questions: “What Will The Wine Business Look Like in 2028?” It’s an interesting read. In it, Rob is most concerned with how we (the wine trade) will sell wine. His primary observation is this: “I think we are coming to the end of the elevated growth in the tasting room and club models we’ve been managing for the past decade.” In support of this, he provides, among others, these predictions:…
Dec 28, 2017
On October 23 of this year, I wrote that wine.woot, the remarkably vigorous winery-direct retail outlet, would be forced to shut down, seeing as it was purchased by Amazon. Wine.woot would suffer the same fate as the AmazonWine marketplace that was forced to close after Amazon purchased hundreds of retail wine licenses with its acquisition of Whole Foods. And state laws don’t allow retailers of wine to take anything of value from producers of wine, which is what both AmazonWine and…
Dec 20, 2017
The year 2012 was fascinating. A number of issues came to the fore and had an important impact on the wine industry. Looking forward to 2018 I have a few hopes and wishes for developments in the Amerian wine industry. All of the following, if they came to fruition, would be very good for the wine industry, for wine drinkers and for me. What about you? 1 – More Cabernet Franc produced in the style of Washington’s Owen Roe 2…
Dec 13, 2017
These aren’t so much “predictions” as they are observations of movements I expect to see extended in 2018. Well, there are some predictions in here. All of these developments and trends would have an important impact on the wine industry as well as the wine consumer. The Continuation of Wholesaler Consolidation The past two years have seen a huge consolidation in the middle tier with the largest American wine wholesalers combining. I thoroughly expect this trend to continue in 2018….
Dec 5, 2017
Wine News in 2017 was big and varied. Lots of big changes and big events. Some of it was predictable. Other news, well not so predictable. Here are my Top 10 Wine News Stories of 2017. They are not presented in any order of importance and they tend to focus in part on California’s wine industry. WINE COUNTRY FIRES DEVASTATE The fires scarred everyone in Napa and Sonoma. The land will recover, but the personal, economic, and psychological toll will…