Mike Veseth's Blog, page 16

Two New Guides to Global Wine

Two new guides to the global wine scene are scheduled for release next Tuesday, October 11 and this coincidence of release dates provides an opportunity to compare their different approaches and to consider the problems that such books necessarily confront today.

Hugh Johnsons’s Pocket Wine Books 2023 (general editor Margaret Rand) is  the latest annual edition in this best-selling series. The new third edition of Wine Bible by Karen MacNeil is as big as Hugh Johnson volume is slender. Both book...

Flashback: Lawyers, Wine, and Money

Recent Wine Economist columns have reflected on the Judgment of Paris and its impact on the Napa Valley.  I couldn’t help myself thinking back to 2010 and the column below, which I present here as a “flashback.”  Where do “lawyers, wine, and money” come into the Napa picture? Read on to find out.

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Stag’s {Stags’} (Stags) Leap

Originally published April 4, 2010.

The Stags Leap District Winegrowers Association has invited us to their V2V (Vineyard to Vintner) program later this month and we are...

Dry Creek Valley and Napa Valley’s Road Not Taken

Last week I wrote about the Napa Valley and the Judgment of Paris. What would Napa look like today, I asked, if the Judgment of Paris hadn’t happened? Or if California wines had not done so well in the famous Paris blind tasting?

I think Sue and I stumbled upon a possible answer a few weeks ago when we were in the Santa Rosa area, where I spoke at a meeting of the Allied Grape Growers. The alternative history of Napa — the road not taken — is there for you to see … and it is very appealing.

If y...

The Judgment of Paris and Napa Valley’s Road Not Taken

A journalist recently asked me to comment on the impact of the famous 1976 “Judgment of Paris” tasting of California and French wines. The California wines were very competitive, according to the scores given by the panel of French judges, and wines from the Napa Valley actually topped both the Cabernet and Chardonnay lists. Amazing.

Time magazine reporter George M. Taber was the only journalist in attendance and his exclusive story about the unexpected American victory was a shot heard round th...

Wine Book Reviews: “Dragon Vine” and “Vine and Prejudice” (a Scienza)

Here are two brief out-of-the-ordinary wine book reviews for your late-summer reading pleasure: “Dragon Vine” (or “Dragonvine”) and “Vine and Prejudice.” Special thanks to guest-reviewer Pierre Ly.

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Steven Laine, Dragon Vine (iUniverse, 2022). Reviewed by Pierre Ly.

Carmine Cooper had never planned to take over the family winery. But when his father dies in a wildfire during harvest season, he puts his Master’s degree in architecture on hold to finish the vintage and decide whether to sell th...

Using Food to Drive Wine Sales the Italian Way

The conventional wisdom holds that wine and food are a match made in heaven — wine was food in many cultures in the past and still is in some places.

We would call food and wine complements in economics terminology. Products that are complements tend to be purchased together. Beer and pizza. Hot dogs and mustard. Burgers and fries. Get consumers to buy more of one and the sales of the complement will follow.

Problems with the Conventional Wisdom

There are always problems with the conventional w...

Wine Book Review / North Adriatic: Three Countries, One Terroir

Paul Balke, North Adriatic: Friuli Venezia Giulia – West Slovenia – Istria – Kvarner.   Wine & Travel Atlas.  Order the book via email: paulbarolo@gmail.com

Anyone who has seen Charles & Ray Eames’s famous 1977 video of “Powers of 10” (see below) understands that the way you see the world depends in part on how you choose to look at it.

In the video an everyday scene is examined first from steadily expanding scales (rising by a power of ten each ten seconds) and then deconstructed by repeatedly ...

Anatomy of the Provence Pink Wine Tide

I don’t have to buy rosé. That’s not how I’ll earn enough to buy a little stone house overlooking the Mediterranean. Nor do I have to put up with the incredulous expressions on my clients’ faces when in the shop I recommend a rosé. “What do you take me for, a hick?” their expression demands. Or “Try that one on the next sucker, mister.” Or, “Let’s move on to something more serious.”

In the course of my buying trips I run across excellent wines with a rosé color. I don’t look for them. They appea...

Wine and the No-Recession Recession

Are we headed for a recession here in the United States? Or are we already there? What about the future — the second half of 2022 and 2023?

If you follow economic news reports you have encountered all sorts of answers to these questions. And you can be forgiven for being a little confused and maybe quite a lot frustrated that the answers to these important questions are not clearer.  Herewith a brief guide for the perplexed with implications for the wine sector.

The Recession Question

The “rule-...

Wine and the Dollar: Big Mac Index Update

The Economist newspaper’s most recent analysis of global exchange rates was released a few days ago and the results are noteworthy, especially for those of us in the wine trade where exchange rates are an important factor in both import-export flows and in the cost of imported bottles, corks, equipment, etc.

No News is News?

Exchange rates are in constant motion — most currency values change at least a bit — and sometimes quite a lot more! — on a daily basis. It is a fact of life in internationa...