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Yes, Millennials Will Embrace Napa, Bordeaux and Burgundy Wine
Assuming we don’t fall victim to a zombie apocalypse between now and 2045, what are the odds that in that year the likes of Rolex, Aston Martin, Chanel, Cartier, and Four Seasons will have gone belly...
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Imagine a Get-Out-of-Jail-Free Card For Wineries and Retailers
In a recent article at Wine Searcher, Writer Liza Zimmerman attempts to answer the question, what would the American wine marketplace look like if wholesalers (the middle tier of the three-tier system)...
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A Tale of Wine Incompetence, Crookery and Comedy
This is a tale of incompetence, crookery, fraud and good old fashioned comedy: 1978 Romanee Conti “I immediately knew that the 1978 Romanée Conti was counterfeit and that there were four significant...
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In Pursuit of the Top Five New Wine Organizations
With the In Pursuit of Balance organization shuttered and the American wine world now completely unbalanced again, it occurs that there is room and need for new organizations to form within the wine...
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Women, Men and Wine—What’s the Problem?
Monika Elling, a wine marketing consultant out of New York, recently reminded us in a Harpers article that women are under represented in the wine trade, particularly in the distribution tier. This is...
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Will Sonoma County Nix Food With Wine?
There is a move afoot in Sonoma County, as there is in Napa Valley, to put some sort of restrictions on winery marketing. As far as I can tell, the premise is that if we restrict how wineries can...
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Is Wine Made in NY With Napa Grapes a “Napa Wine”?
Someone is about to get screwed. If a winery in New York purchases grapes from a Napa Valley vineyard, has the Napa Valley grapes refrigerated and shipped to its winery in New York, then crushes,...
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Drizly: Working to Restrict Your Access to Wine
In an interesting interview with Spirits Business published yesterday the CEO of Drizly—the delivery service for booze—predicted that online sales of alcohol could reach between $7-$15 billion over the...
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Which Presidential Candidate is Best for Wine?
Of Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Gary Johnson and Jill Stein, who is the person best suited to promote and protect the interests of the American wine industry and American wine consumers? This was the...
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Open Letter to the Marijuana Industry from the Wine Industry: BEWARE THE...
DEAR MARIJUANA INDUSTRY: Whatever you do, don’t allow America’s alcohol wholesalers anywhere near your growing and soon-to-be-legal industry. As someone who has worked in the wine industry for over a...
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Wine Lovers—Please Step Up To Help One of the Good Guys!
Greg Walter isn’t just one of the good guys of wine, he’s one of the really important guys of wine. He has more that 35 years of communicating about wine under his belt. He has served as one of key...
View ArticleA Satisfying Documentation of Wine Fraud
I think the success of “Sour Grapes” has a great deal to do with our innate desire to see the rich and famous taken down a notch. And that’s exactly what happened to many a rich and many a famous...
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Will the Wine Industry Survive the Pot and Food Pairing Trend?
“I think in five to 10 years as the laws change, you’ll see many high-end restaurants adopt cannabis programs much like the wine programs they currently offer. After all, allowing patrons to smoke or...
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Wine, Price, Value and Feeeeelings
I was told today that the wines of one my Wark Communications winery clients was “overpriced”. The person who told me this was wrong. It’s not that the wine was overpriced. It was that the wine cost...
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High Priced Napa Wine and the Promise of Quality
In a previous post I commented on the factors that go into determining if a wine is overpriced. I almost immediately got emails that painfully explained that no matter the fact that all these expensive...
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Will the Replanting of Napa Vineyards Bring Diversity?
As Napa grape growers replace their vines, will the composition of varieties planted in the region change to accommodate the recent broadening of tastes? This is the really interesting question that...
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Franchise Laws—Chronic Injustice in the Alcohol Business
If one were to make a list of the various chronic injustices that exist in the alcohol industry, it would be a long one. But, if you were to rank those many injustices, it seems unquestionable that the...
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Why Are Napa Valley Wineries Seeking to Harm Wine Drinkers?
In 2015 LESS THAN on half of one percent of Napa Valley’s grape crop was sold to out-of-state wineries and home winemakers. And the vast majority of those grapes that were made into wine in another...
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Help Fight…For the Love of Wine
If you live in Michigan or know someone who lives in Michigan, if you love wine, if you believe wine lovers and wine retailers deserve fairness in commerce, if you hate when special interests screw the...
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The Age of the Mundane (Wine Edition)
The speed with which the Age of the Mundane overtook us was breathtaking. And now here we are. Seemingly stuck in the midst of a culture that celebrates and collectively participates in the dull,...
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