Mike Veseth's Blog, page 25

Wine and the Dry January Syndrome

January is just around the corner and that means Dry January, the month when many people pause to assess their alcohol consumption. If a lot of people have been indulging as much during the covid pandemic as their social media feeds suggest, Dry January could be particularly traumatic this time around.

Not Just January Any More

But it is a mistake to think of the interest in low- and no-alcohol beverages as being strictly seasonal. The  marketing gurus at Heineken beer haven’t invested a fortune...

Portuguese Wines in the Age of Discovery

A 1971 television advertisement for Mateus Rosé invited viewers to pour themselves a glass of the popular wine and take an imaginary trip to Portugal.  I have been wishing that it was as simple as that this pandemic year when travel is general is so difficult and the idea of a trip from the U.S. to Portugal and back seems out of the question.

Discovering WoW

There are more than a few reasons to wish that a Star Trek transporter could beam us down in Porto, for example. The World of Wine  (WoW) ...

Anatomy of Georgia’s Wine Export Surge

[image error]Exports of wines from Georgia (the country the cradle of wine not the U.S. state the cradle of Coca Cola) have surged in recently years, a fact that is both well-deserved and timely. Georgia deserves the increased recognition of its wine sector both because it really is the cradle of wine, with literally thousands of years of history, and because the wine industry and government have invested heavily in recently years to raise standards and promote products in key markets.

Ticking All the...

Flashback: Malbec & Maradona



Diego Maradona was more than just a great football player, the best of his generation by many accounts — the best ever according to some. He and his complicated life meant a great deal more to people in Argentina and around the world, so his recent death at age 60 had greater meaning, too.

This book review from 2012, which links Malbec, Argentina’s signature grape variety, with Diego Maradona, has been getting renewed attention among Wine Economist readers, so I thought I’d re-publish it as a ...

Thanksgiving Flashback: Great Seattle Wine Heist



It’s Thanksgiving week here in the United States, a time to relax, enjoy, and be grateful. But that’s not always easy to do in these difficult times.

Do you need something to take your mind off worries about the election, Covid-19, and the Seattle Seahawk’s unpredictable defense? We have just the thing: a dramatic wine crime story. Here is a flashback to Thanksgiving 2013: The Wine Economist’s report on the Great Seattle Thanksgiving Day Wine Heist.

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Wine Economist: CSI Fine Wine Edition

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Wine, Tariffs, & Globalization

The wine trade has always been as global as transportation technology and political economy have allowed. So it is no surprise that the economist David Ricardo sought to make his theory of international trade based on comparative advantage clear and obvious by choosing an example that all his readers would appreciate — Portuguese wine exchanged for British wool.

A World of Wine

If you want to get a sense of wine’s global reach today I suggest you visit your local upscale supermarket or wine sho...

Vino-ligopoly: Zero-Sum Wine Game Strategies

Last week’s Wine Economist column was a thought experiment. What if the Covid recession was a game changer like the oil crisis of the 1970s? Both crises undermined fundamental economic assumptions and generated long-lasting impacts. In particular, drawing upon the work of MIT economist Lester Thurow, the oil crisis changed the nature of the game from positive-sum growth to zero-sum competition for shares of the pie.

Maybe the parallel is off base and maybe the game hasn’t really changed. But let...

Wine, Covid-19, and the Zero-Sum Dilemma

Last week’s Wine Economist column presented a “Guide for the Overwhelmed” that analyzed the current crisis in terms of its perfect storm of component parts. This week begins a short series of articles that try to put the pieces back together in order to better see the outlines of the future of global wine in the post-Covid era.

Zero Sum Economics

MIT economist Lester Thurow’s 1980 book on The Zero-Sum Society argued that America and the world had reached a turning point. An era of growth, where ...

Wine 2020: A Guide for the Overwhelmed

I’ve been thinking about what the global wine industry will look like when 2020 finally draws to a close and I’m feeling overwhelmed. So many challenges. So much to digest. Maybe you feel overwhelmed, too?

I did an internet search for “Tips for the Overwhelmed” and, well, it only made things worse.  So many tips for so many problems. One website had 44 ideas for what do to when you are feeling overwhelmed. Too much!

Here’s what has provoked these thoughts. Rabobank’s Stephen Rannekleiv and I wil...

Save the Dates: Wine2Wine 2020, WineFuture 2021, Unified Symposium 2021

The Wine Economist’s World Tour will be back on the (virtual) road in the next few months. Here are preliminary details about upcoming events that might be of interest to readers of this newsletter.

Wine2Wine 2020

The 7th edition of Wine2Wine, Focus 2020, will take place November 23-24, 2020. Usually held in beautiful Verona, this year’s program will be virtual.  The wine business in the post-COVID-19 era is the over-arching theme.

Focus 2020 features a quite fantastic group of speakers and top...