Mike Veseth's Blog, page 17
July 26, 2022
Villamagna DOC: Leading the Way for Montepulciano in Abruzzo
Villamagna is a tiny appellation by any measure: 85 hectares, seven producers, two wines (Villamagna DOC and Villamagna DOC Riserva). But its importance exceeds its size and points the way forward for Abruzzo and its Montepulciano wines. Sue and I only spent a few hours with the Villamagna winemakers, but we came away deeply impressed with the wines and the people who make them.
About the wines … well, I have been trying to think how to describe them to you and here is the best I can do. Do you ...
July 20, 2022
Listen Up! Wine Wars II now available in audiobook format
My new book, Wine Wars II: The Global Battle for the Soul of Wine, is now available in three formats: paperback, e-book, and (starting this week) audiobook.
You can find the audiobook version (read by Jonathan Yen) at Amazon.com, Tantor Media, or wherever you go for audio information.
It is 10 hours and 34 minutes of behind-the-scenes reports on the hyper-competitive world wine market scene.
July 19, 2022
Quality by Design at an Abruzzo Cooperative Winery
The first thing you notice as you approach Cantina Frentana is the tower, which rises up over the flat landscape and trellised vines like a lighthouse. And in a way it is a beacon, shining a bright light on the future of Abruzzo, Italy’s underestimated wine region.
Abruzzo Lighthouse
The tower, Torre Vinaria, was originally built in 1958-60 with the practicalities of winemaking in mind. A gravity-flow winery, as you probably know, is thought to be gentler on the wine because less pumping is invo...
July 12, 2022
Is Abruzzo the Next Big Thing for Italian Wine?
Is the Abruzzo region the next big thing in Italian wine? That’s the question on our minds here at Wine Economist world headquarters after returning from a media tour of Abruzzo last month. The tentative answer is that Abruzzo has the foundation needed to move up to the next level in the Italian wine hierarchy. Abruzzo is on the rise — let’s see how far it can go!
Abruzzo By the Numbers
From the standpoint of volume, of course, Abruzzo is already a big thing. Abruzzo boasts 33,000 hectares (over...
July 7, 2022
Podcast Alert: Talking about Wine Wars II with Natalie Maclean & Kris Levy
Want to learn more about my new book, Wine Wars II? I recently recorded two interviews that are available as podcasts.
Thanks to Natalie Maclean and Kris Levy for taking the time to chat with me about the powerful forces shaping the world of wine. Click on the images below to hear our discussions.
Unreserved Wine Talk with Natalie Maclean.
>>>
Everyday Wine with Kris Levy podcast available on Spotify and Apple podcasts.
July 6, 2022
A Tale of Two Glasses & Wine’s Triple Crisis
My new book Wine Wars II has just been released — you can order it in paperback or e-book format from Rowman & Littlefield, Amazon.com, and other online and bricks-and-mortar book sellers. The audio version will be released in a few days. How exciting!
Rowman & Littlefield is offering US and UK customers a 30% discount on Wine Wars II publisher-direct purchases for a limited time. See details below.
This week’s Wine Economist offers you a taste of my new book in the form of two brief excerpts fr...
June 28, 2022
The Road to Wine Wars II (and a 30% Discount Offer)
My new book Wine Wars II will be released in just a few days on July 1, 2022, and so. in the spirit of shameless self-promotion, let me remind you that you can order Wine Wars II in paperback or e-book format from Rowman & Littlefield, Amazon.com, and other online and bricks-and-mortar book sellers.
Rowman & Littlefield is offering a 30% discount on Wine Wars II publisher-direct purchases for a limited time. Scroll down to the bottom of this page for details.
Tantor Media will release the audio-...
June 21, 2022
The Big Squeeze: Stagflation and Shrinking Wine Margins
Sue and I are in Santa Rosa this week where I will be speaking to a meeting of Allied Grape Growers, a 500-member grape grower marketing association that sells more than $100 million worth of grapes each year. I am looking forward to learning as much as I can from the growers about what they are seeing in the grape markets today and how they plan to react.
Optimists and Pessimists
There are two schools of thought about what is happening to the economy, both here in the US and around the world. O...
June 14, 2022
Flashback: What’s Up with Italian Wine in the U.S. Market?
Sue and I have just returned from a very quick trip to Italy to explore the wines of Abruzzo, a region that, as I wrote on this page a few weeks ago, doesn’t get the attention it deserves either in the wine world or more generally. This is changing and our multi-part report, which you will find here in a few weeks, will explain how and why.
In the meantime, here is an abridged “flashback” column from 2019 that examines some of the challenges and opportunities that the regional wines of Italy fac...
June 7, 2022
Italy Strikes Back: Wine Diversity in Theory and Practice
In theory wine is an enormously diverse product. There are hundreds and hundreds of wine grape varieties grown all around the world. You could drink a different kind or style of wine from a different place every night of the year and not more than scratch the surface. What fun!
Disappearing Diversity
In practice, however, wine as it is actually experienced often ends up being far less interesting than it could be. Global vineyards are increasingly planted to just a couple of dozen grape varietie...
