Mike Veseth's Blog, page 21

Wine Book Review: Ch’ Ch’ Changing California

On California: From Napa to Nebbiolo … Wine Tales from the Golden State edited by Susan Keevil. Académie du Vin Library, 2021.

Steven Spurrier, through both word and action, has left a remarkable enduring legacy to the world of wine, including the wine book publisher Académie du Vin Library. The Library’s very ambitious wine book list collects both classic works and new contributions (including Spurrier’s own A Life in Wine) that break from the typical “Wines of ____” (fill in the country or reg...

Wine and the Trouble with Halloween

Everyone knows that wine consumption is at least in part occasion-driven. Although some of my friends insist that they don’t really need a reason to pop a cork, for many consumers the act of drinking is closely tied to occasions of one sort or another.

Thus, for example, wine sales here in the US typically peak during November and December when a series of holiday occasions roll by starting with Thanksgiving and ending around New Year. Wine sales and festive occasions are a perfect pairing.

The ...

Wine, Stagflation, and the Risks of the Bottleneck Economy

The New York Times headline warned of fears of a bottleneck recession in Germany. Other headlines in  the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, and elsewhere noted the impacts of production and distribution bottlenecks on specific industries.

Although the parallel is flawed, it is impossible for those of  us of a certain age not to think back to the 1970s when shortages and bottlenecks created the unwelcome phenomenon of “stagflation” — a stagnant but inflationary economy.

Last  week I wrot...

Wine Business Bottlenecks

Everyone in the wine business knows about the problem of bottlenecks — and I am not just talking about the kind you see in this photo. Bottlenecks or choke-points are found throughout the wine product chain and any one of them can make life difficult.

Wine’s Many Bottlenecks

Growing grapes can sometimes be a bottleneck since winegrowers get just one crop a year (apart from tropical viticulture, where multiple harvests are possible), so bad weather, smoke exposure, or labor supply problems can re...

Politics and Wine Trade: Wine2Wine Business Forum

Wine is no stranger to politics and, since everything seems to be political these days, wine trade must be political, too. What’s different about wine politics today? Why is it important? What should wine industry professionals know and do?

Wine2Wine Business Forum 2021

These are some of the questions that I’m thinking about as I prepare my presentation, “Politics and Wine Trade,” for the upcoming Wine2Wine Business Forum 2021, which is being held in hybrid (online/in-person) form in Verona Ital...

Thinking About Laura Catena’s Grand Cru Project

Laura Catena believes we need to think about the concept of Grand Cru vineyards and wines, so she organized a series of Zoom events for trade and media participants built around the idea of the Grand Cru.

Sue and I recently participated in one of the sessions and it provided food for thought as well as some delicious wine to sample — Catena Zapata and Winebow generously provided a line-up of wine samples to help us think about Grand Cru-class wines in practice as well as theory. I will paste our...

Three Faces of Wine Strategy: Porto Perspectives

If you walk along the river in Vila Nova de Gaia, just across the Douro from beautiful Porto, you are in the right place to visit the famous Port lodges and sample different types and styles of Port wine. If you dig a little deeper, you can also learn something about the diversity of successful wine industry strategies that these historic firms have deployed.

I’m interested in Portuguese wine because it has experienced rising sales here in the US market while some other countries have struggled ...

Finding Growth in a Stagnant Market: What Can Wine Learn from Beer?

Although it is hard to pick out trends with confidence in the current topsy-turvy wine market environment, it is fair to say that there is growing concern that global wine consumption has reached a plateau. This is not a new phenomenon, as I wrote back in January 2019, when I pointed out “global wine’s lost decade.”

Where do you find growth in a stagnant market? One strategy, which I pointed out in a March 2019 column about Precept Brands success, is to take advantage of the fact that there are ...

Sparkling Wine Surprises from England to Bali



Many of our friends are surprised when we mention English sparkling wine and it is easy to understand why. England isn’t exactly best known for its sunny weather. When economist David Ricardo wanted to illustrate his famous Law of Comparative Advantage, he used the example of England importing wine from sunny Portugal in exchange for warm wool cloth. English wine exports? Who’d have believed it?

English Sparkling Wine is a Thing

And yet English wine is not just a thing, it is a popular thing. ...

Anatomy of the Prosecco DOC Boom

Prosecco sales have boomed in the last decade, with the volume of Prosecco DOC global sales more than doubling. And, with the advent of Prosecco Rosé, they promise to continue their upward trend.

Booming Sales in a Stagnant Market

Sue and I had an opportunity to reflect on Prosecco’s surging popularity recently when the Prosecco DOC consortio invited us to participate in an online tasting timed to celebrate National Prosecco Week. The program included a webinar hosted by Mike DeSimone and Jeff J...