Archive for the ‘Wine Consumers’ Category
Wine, or at least the high end of the wine market, finds itself in a post-recessionary phase. This is the only message one could take from the ShipCompliant/Wines & Vines presentation given yesterday at the ShipCompliant Direct Shipping Seminar and Users Conference For the 12 months ending April 2011, the volume and value of wines shipped from winery to consumer is up 11.5 percent. This is in contrast to the overall American wine retail market that, according to IRA data…
My first serious encounter with the Petite Sirah grape variety and the varietal wine that it is made into came when I was working public and media relations for historic Russian River Valley producer Foppiano Vineyards back in 1990. To this day, that encounter remains among the most interesting of my career. I knew very little about Petite Sirah except that there was very little Petite Sirah produced. At first glance it seemed like an archaic variety of grape, but…
AN OPEN LETTER TO AMERICA'S STATE ALCOHOL REGULATORS AND ADMINISTRATORS Dear Alcohol Regulators and Administrators: Once again, as you have every year since 1934, you are gathering together under the auspices of the National Conference of State Liquor Administrators for the annual conference of America's administrators and regulators of state liquor laws. This year you find yourself in Vegas. My understanding is that there are a number of accomplished poker players in your midst so this venue is appropriate. However,…
We all know how to make reservations. And most all of us know how to make them on-line at this point. We reserve hotel rooms, tables, seats at shows, transportation options and much more. The reason we reserve anything is because there is only a limited number of the things we need and the reservation guarantees us a place or a thing? Are visits to winery tasting rooms somethng to be reserved? Increasingly, in Napa Valley and other wine country…
Every now and then I receive emails from folks who want to offer me advice on my writing and on the focus of this blog. I always appreciate this kind of correspondence…even when done anonymously. This happened again yesterday in response to a blog post on the very close relationship between the Texas Alcohol Beverage Commission and Texas Wholesalers. The email, sent from an anonymous Gmail account, got off to a good, solid start: "Until you actually work at a…
