Mike Veseth's Blog, page 28
June 18, 2020
China’s 10-Point Scale: Wine Ratings with Chinese Characteristics
A couple of years ago the China Alcoholic Drinks Association announced that it was working on a new wine ranking system to help guide Chinese consumers to the best wines and best values. A recent newsletter from Rob Geddes MW reports that things are moving forward quickly.
Geddes says his China sources indicate the new scale will soon become a national standard. He should know. As an important actor on the Australian wine scene — his annual book of wine ratings is the gold standard when it com...
June 16, 2020
Wine & Coronavirus Recession: Three Questions
This is the Age of Uncertainty (to reference the title of John Kenneth Galbraith’s famous book) both in general and with respect to the wine industry. Everyone’s looking for answers as they confront a murky future. But most answers right now (especially including my own) are at best informed speculation, subject to frequent revision.
If we can’t have solid answers, maybe the next best thing is to try to refine the questions. Herewith my attempt to pin down three important questions about the ne...
June 9, 2020
Down the Rabbit Hole: Wine Takes the Virtual Plunge
The recent pivot to on-line and virtual programs, events, and communication presents challenges and opportunities. How well has the wine industry responded? What does the future hold? Join me on a trip down the virtual rabbit hole to find out.
Can’t Un-Ring a Bell
It has been fascinating to see how quickly we and our wine industry friends and colleagues have adapted to using technology to overcome necessary distancing and business and travel restrictions. There are costs, for sure, in terms of l...
June 4, 2020
Pandemic Mode 2020 Harvest: Southern Hemisphere Wine Lessons
One way that wine differs from beer is that whereas beer can be produced pretty much continuously throughout the year, there is only one opportunity to make wine. A crisis that comes at harvest time is therefore especially disruptive and unwelcome. And that”s exactly what happened to wine producers in the Southern Hemisphere this year.
The International Organization of Vine and Wine (OIV) recently organized an important webinar on the experience of Southern Hemisphere wine producers harvestin...
June 2, 2020
Wine Book Review: Laura Catena’s Gold in the Vineyards
Laura Catena, Gold in the Vineyards: Illustrated Stories of the World’s Most Celebrated Vineyards (Catapulta Editores). Illustrated by Fernando Adorneti (Caveman).
Nicholas Catena had to make a choice. His chosen career as an economics professor? Or the family wine business, Bodega Catena Zapata, which was threatened, along with the rest of Argentina’s wine sector, by shifting and unstable economic currents?
Prof. Catena met Robert Mondavi during a spell as a visiting professor at UC Berkeley a...
May 27, 2020
Wine Goes Up the Down Staircase (Coronavirus Recession Edition)
Wine consumers today seem to be going “up the down staircase” (to evoke the clever title of Bel Kafuman’s best-selling 1964 book). They are buying more expensive wine at lower prices. That sounds crazy! Read on for analysis and a look back to what happened in 2009.
The COVID-19 Wine Boom
Recent consumer trend data from Nielsen and Wines & Vines Analytics present a complicated picture of off-premise wine consumer behavior for March and April 2020. Wine sales at supermarkets and other retail outl...
May 19, 2020
The Return of Mateus Rosé
This columns title is a bit misleading. Mateus Rosé never really went away, so how can it return? But the brand is rebooting, changing with the times, which gives us an an excuse to consider this iconic Portuguese wine and the Rosé wine category it helped create.
Wine Discovery Mode
Lets zoom back five decades to an era when U.S. consumers were in Wine Discovery mode. What were they looking for? Well, many things, but as the 1971 Mateus Rosé commercial above suggest, one side of wines...
May 14, 2020
Ten Under $10 Shelter-in-Place Wine Challenge
[image error]American wine drinkers seem much less cost-conscious (than their British cousins) according to a recent column by Jancis Robinson on good wines for coronavirus lock down era. There is truth in this, but it isnt simply that Americans dont care about cost. British supermarkets trained their customers to look for 3 for £10 bargains for wine and many other things. Thats something they now regret.
Many American wine drinkers learned the opposite lesson. Unsure why seemingly similar products are...
May 12, 2020
May 5, 2020
Wine, Coronavirus & Recession Podcast
[image error]COVID-19: Commonsense conversations on the Coronavirus Pandemic is a series of informative podcasts that help listeners understand the medical, public health, and social, political, and economic elements of the current coronavirus pandemic.
Hosted by Dr. Ted OConnell, they are required listening if you want to broaden and deepen your understand of the coronavirus crisis. I encourage you to click on the link above and sample the growing list of podcast topics.
I was flattered to be asked to...
