As I enjoyed my morning coffee, I was saddened to read something that, while I basically knew was true, I didn’t want to have validated. Just as I make the effort to go to Peet’s to get my Sumatran coffee and don’t drink Folgers or Nescafe because I know that they use inferior product multi-sourced from lesser areas and as such it doesn’t taste as good, I would like to believe that people select their wines with some similar level of discernment. Well, burst my bubble… Continue reading »

There’s no doubt that California, despite her current economic woes, is a special and desirable place to be. The diversity of the state is amazing and reflected in everything- culture, cuisine and, of course, wine. I was proud to be asked to be a key note speaker at the 75^th Anniversary of the California Wine Institute, the non-profit trade organization representing the member vintners in legislative, commercial, and various marketing activities. The amazing Nancy Light heads up the communications efforts and always has good information to share, much of which is always eye opening (well, at least to me).

Recently she put out a wonderful document full of trivia, factoids and good information which you know caught my eye. Some of the cool stuff pointed out: Continue reading »

The reality in most of Western Europe is that wine areas carry with them laws, rules and regulations which are overseen by boards- Consejo Reguladors in Spain, Instituts National in France and the like. These organizations oversee the methods, procedures and regulations governing wines in an area, whether at a national level or a regional level. Some would argue that they are too restrictive (permitting and forbidding specific grapes, growing methods, yields and the like) while others would claim that the reason so many of their wines maintain typicity and specificity are because there are hard guidelines on what can and can’t be done. Continue reading »

I won’t bore you with the obvious- times are tough and people are trading down- regardless. Doesn’t matter what the product is, folks are simply looking for less expensive alternatives. In wine this has meant moving in price point windows (the $ 40 drinker having $ 20 bottles with greater frequency) while in food it means perhaps doing more of your grocery shopping at Costco and less at Whole Foods and… grabbing a meal at a restaurant chain versus your standby more expensive indy spot. Continue reading »

In wine, I think the answer is, by and large yes. But in the real world… not so fast.

We’ve all witnessed the long documented rise and fall of so called critter wines in the market. Outside of Yellowtail and perhaps Monkey Bay, critter wines are markedly on the decline. That’s not to say that cute packaging isn’t still the rage.  A quick look at the retail shelves of supermarkets and larger retailers will illustrate the panoply of design takes on the wine label, that make wine increasingly more fun, edgy and easy for consumers. Thought there are few less fuzzy/four legged/scaly animals on the tickets staring out at potential customers, there are fun and playful images abounding on labels from California, Australia, Argentina, Spain and even France all making an effort to make wine more accessible and less intimidating and, by and large, doing a good job. But in wine, critters… they are a fading… Continue reading »