Mike Veseth's Blog, page 34

Războaiele Vinului Short-Listed for International Wine Book Award

[image error]Războaiele Vinului, the Romanian version of my 2011 book Wine Wars, has been short-listed for the 2019 Gourmand International award for best wine book translation. Here are the books up for this prestigious award.

Austria: Georgischer Wein, Anna Saldadze, Claudia Tancsits (Leopold Stocker)
China: Dictionary for wine lovers, Bernard Pivot (East China Normal University) 9787567575172
France: L’anglais commercial du vin, Laetitia Perraut (Cafe Anglais)
Italy: Viaggio in Anfora, Kato Keiko. Masuk...

Who Moved My Wine? The New Wine Buyers Who Play “Beat the Clock”

“Beat the Clock” was a television game show that made its debut on March 23, 1950 and ran in its original form until 1961 (it returned in several variations over the years and is currently available in a format featuring child contestants).

The show’s lasting appeal lies in the fact that even simple things become difficult, sometimes comically so, when the clock is ticking and the pressure mounts. If you remember the chocolate factory scene in “I Love Lucy,” you already know what I mean.

Who...

Thinking Outside the Wine Box about Climate Change & the Future of Wine

[image error]Miguel Torres recently warned that the wine industry is not doing enough to fight climate change and there is no doubt that he is right. There is a lot happening, as the recent Porto conference on climate change and wine makes clear. Wine is ahead of most other global industries. But it is not enough.

Inconvenient Truth

One reason climate change does not get even more attention in our industry (and I think that this is true of other sectors as well) is that we tend naturally to focus on the d...

Which Wine? Navigating the Retail Wine Wall’s Fluid Map

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What’s the best way to organize supermarket products to facility consumer purchases? Over in the canned vegetable aisle, the system is pretty simple. All the canned green beans there. All the canned corn here. Easy to find what you want. Easy to compare.

Over the in the breakfast cereal aisle an entirely different geography applies. The corn flakes are found here, there, and elsewhere, not all in one spot. That’s because most of the products are organized by producer. All the Post cereals he...

Anatomy of the Rising Import Threat to U.S. Wine

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The rising threat posed by imports is a frequent topic of discussion when I meet with California winegrowers. With the volume of domestic sales declining in several market segments (especially below $10 retail), it is natural to be suspicious of the impact of international competition.

Home Court Advantage

Imports account for about a quarter to a third of US wine sales, a proportion that been relatively steady for the last few years but is higher now than it was 25 years ago. Recent Nielsen...

Rethinking the Business Side of Climate Change and Wine

 

Last week’s column about the Porto conference on Climate Change and Wine struck an optimistic note. Powered in part by the Porto Protocol the big international gathering showed that the wine industry is moving the needle on climate change, both in terms of mitigating the impacts and addressing causes.

Sue and I learned a lot from the experts who spoke on the science and technology aspects of climate change and wine, but of course it was the business side we were most interested in.  If you...

Field Notes from the Porto Conference on Climate Change and Wine

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Sue and I were in Porto earlier this month for the global conference on climate change and wine. The event started with a day and a half of presentations and discussions directed at climate change solutions for the wine industry and then concluded with a half-day summit on climate change more generally.

The highlight of the summit was a presentation by Al Gore, the prominent climate change activist and former U.S. Vice President. Gore’s presentation was intense, focused, and inspiring. Sue c...

Precept Wine and the Willie Sutton Recipe for Market Growth

[image error]At the conclusion of the State of the Industry session at the Unified Wine & Grape Symposium each January Nielsen’s Danny Brager announces his Bronze, Silver, and Gold medal wineries. The medals aren’t for the best wine or even for the most wine (Gallo would win that one every year).  The prizes are for market success as measured by sales growth. Here are the 2019 winners.

GOLD – Delicato Family Wines, Riboli Family Wines, Precept Wine

SILVER – Deutsch Family Wines and Spirits, Jackson Family...

Global Rosé Market Q&A

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Interest in Rosé wine is on the rise. The most recent Nielsen numbers (as reported in Wine Business Monthly) show that sales of Rosé wine in the U.S. market is growing by more than 40% per year — the fastest growth rate of any category.

Producers want to better understand the Rosé phenomenon, which explains why both the Unified Wine & Grape Symposium and the Washington Winegrowers convention featured specialized Rosé seminars this  year.

This column aims to add to the discussion by bringing...

Ten Years of Open That Bottle Night

[image error]By Sue Veseth, Contributing Editor

In 2009, a group of people with a love of wine and connections to the University of Puget Sound decided to celebrate Open That Bottle Night. Our wines on that February evening included a sparkling wine and a Cabernet Sauvignon from Washington State, a classic Bordeaux, a Chateauneuf du Pape, a California port-style wine, and a Sauternes. The only “rule” of our gathering was that each participant had to bring a story with his or her wine.

At that first OTBN d...