Mike Veseth's Blog, page 14

Arizona Flashback: Desert (Not Dessert) Wine

Sue and I are in Arizona this week, exploring a wine region near scenic Sedona that is completely new to us. Look for a full report in the coming weeks. In the meantime, we thought you might be interested in this Flashback from 2008, which reports on a previous Arizona wine expedition.

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Desert (Not Dessert) Wine

Wine Economist / March 28, 2008

I spent Friday in the Arizona wine country – south-west of Tucson near Sonoita – with my “research assistants” Michael, Nancy, and Sue. I thought that ...

Got Wine vs Not Wine? Wine and the Generation Gap

We are suffering just now from a bad attack of economic pessimism. It is common to hear people say that the epoch of enormous econoimic progress … is over; that … a deline is prosperity is more likely than an improvement.

The economist John Maynard Keynes wrote these words in a 1930  essay called “The Economic Possibilities of our Grandchildren” and I have been thinking about them quite a lot recently in the context of the wine industry. Keynes was writing in the depths of the Great Depression. ...

Margins? What Margins? The Big Squeeze in Winegrowing 2023

I was talking with a group of California winegrowers just before the Unified Wine & Grape Symposium‘s State of the Industry session a couple of weeks ago and the stories they told me made me understand that The Big Squeeze, which I wrote about around this time last year, is still going strong.

Margins? What Margins?

The Big Squeeze? Many winegrowers have for some time been caught in a squeeze between rising costs and stagnant or sometimes even falling wine grape prices. Your margins are getting ...

Game Over for the Wine Game?

What’s ahead for the wine industry in 2023 and beyond? Speaking at the “State of the Industry” session at last week’s Unified Wine & Grape Symposium in Sacramento, I suggested that the challenges our bvindustry faces today are not unique to wine, so perhaps we can find clues by looking outside the wine box.

The particular case I examined in the short time available was the board game industry. Board games? Yes, you know, games like Risk, Life, and Clue. Once upon a time board games were so popul...

We Are All Terroirists Now: A Tale of Three Distinctive Terroirs

There is a chapter in my new book Wine Wars II: The Global Battle for the Soul of Wine that’s titled “We are all terroirists now” and makes the case that the sense of place that I call terroirism is a powerful force in the world today.

All terroirists?   Really? Terroirists (not to be confused with terrorists)? Well, I admit it might be a bit of a stretch, but how often to do find Richard Nixon, Karl Polanyi, John Maynard Keynes, and Joseph Schumpeter all referenced in a wine book? You might dis...

Wine Book Review: History on a Plate (and in a Glass?)

Andreas Viestad, Dinner in Rome: A History of the World in One Meal. Reaktion Books, 2022.

All roads lead to Rome, they say, so the idea of a history of the world centered in Rome is not ridiculous. And, for food writer and activist Andreas Viestad, all pathways in Rome lead to his favorite restaurant, La Carbonara, so it is the only logical place to begin.

When in Rome …

Viestad (a favorite in the Wine Economist household for his television series New Scandinavian Cooking), takes us through a m...

Wine Hits the Language Barrier

What do we talk about when we talk about wine? How does the way we talk about wine affect the way we think about it? Does the language of wine create a barrier to entry for consumers?

Last week’s Wine Economist focused on what we say about wine in terms of the information revealed on the label. The European Union is implemented new regulations that will require wine to be more like other consumer products with respect to ingredient lists and nutritional analysis.

Should the U.S. follow suit, eit...

Wine Labels and their Discontents

They say that you can’t judge a book by its cover, but people do exactly that all the time. You probably shouldn’t judge a wine by its label, either, but in fact labels can be quite powerful by making a favorable first impression and then, once that initial sale has been made, establishing a memorable identity.

Take a few minutes to examine the range of labels the next time you are at your favorite wine retailer. Note the ones that stand out and make a positive impact and those that seem to blen...

Wine Economist 2022: What Were the Most-Read Stories of the Year?

2022 was a challenging year and it is understandable that many of us are focused on looking ahead to 2023. But before the bells of New Year ring, let’s take one last glance backwards to get a feeling for what Wine Economist readers were concerned about in 2022.

The table above lists the top ten posts and pages of the almost 900 articles on the Wine Economist website, ranked by number of views in 2022 through December 26. The articles marked with a blue bar were originally published this year. T...

Flashback: The Scrooge Report on Holiday Wine Gifts

Here is a Flashback Wine Economist column, which was published ten years ago on December 24, 2012.  Much has changed, but this still seems relevant today. Cheers!

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No wonder economics is called the “dismal science” — sometimes our rigorous analysis threatens to spoil everyone’s fun.

Take holiday gift-giving, for example. The conventional wisdom is that “it is better to give than to receive” and while there is some merit in this if everyone gives (so that everyone receives), I think you can pr...