Wine Book Review: Impossible Place Meets Improbable People

August 25, 2026 By in book reviews, New Zealand, Wine Competitions 1 Comment

Forged in Fire: An Impossible Place meets Improbable People by Michael F. Spratt. Available from Amazon.com. and Mary Egan Publishing.

Michael and Ann Spratt planted their first vines on Waiheke Island in 2000, and so the unlikely story of Destiny Bay Wine began. They didn’t really come to New Zealand to make wine, but one thing led to another the way things sometimes do. And so they began.

Inexperienced (in terms of winegrowing) Americans growing red Bordeaux grapes and making wine on a hilly little island near Auckland, New Zealand. What could go wrong?

People, Places, Things

Sue and I visited Waiheke Island in early 2004. We were in New Zealand doing research for the global wine chapter of my book Globaloney. We took the ferry from Auckland to the island and toured a bit. I remember visiting one winery and being surprised and impressed by the wines. Add accidental and unexpected to improbable and impossible.

The Spratts were not the first to make wine on Waiheke Island, but it must have been a struggle to get recognition at first, especially given the wine world’s focus on Marlborough and Central Otago. Michael Cooper mentions Destiny Bay and the Spratts in the 2008 edition of his Wine Atlas of New Zealand, but he doesn’t have much to say one way or another. Early days.

The Judgement at Cape Mentelle

But there was a lot to say a few years later, in 2017, when a Destiny Bay wine won what is known as The Judgement at Cape Mentelle, a blind-tasting of the best Bordeaux-type wines from Australia, France, the United States, and elsewhere. Destiny Bay, from that little island near Auckland, was the top wine! A signal achievement and clear recognition.

Forged in Fire is the story of how those first vines turned into a world-class vineyard and outstanding wines. Actually, that’s wrong. The book  is not a story, but a collection of stories. Some of the stories are personal and family. Some are technical, presenting sort of mini seminars on how things are done and how they should be done to make the best wine the best way. Other stories give a sense of the business side of wine.

The Stories Unfold in Four Acts

The stories are divided into four acts, each of which has several chapters or scenes.

  • Act I: The Anomaly. An impossible place meets improbable people.
  • Act II: The Doctrine. Standards, stewardship and the price of perfection.
  • Act III: The Crucible. Seasons of heartbreak, hardship, redemption and triumph.
  • Act IV: The Legacy. Protecting the planet, celebrating patrons and a glimpse into the future.

Spratt has so many stories to share that they don’t all neatly fit into the narrative structure of the book, so the final third of the volume is made up of stories saved from “the cutting room floor.” I guess you’d call them additional material for the “director’s cut.”

There is nothing easy about overcoming the many challenges winegrowers face and building a successful business and fulfilling life. I appreciate it when the protagonists have the talent, determination, and patience to write books that give us a peek behind the curtain. Caro Feely’s books about Chateau Feely in France are my favorite in this genre. Now I can add Michael Spratt’s Forged in Fire to that bookshelf.

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The Wine Economist reviewed an earlier book by this author,  Michael F. Spatt and Mark L. Feldman, Grape-a-hol: How Big Business is Subverting Artisan Winemaking and the Future of Fine Wine.

It’s Not Easy Being Pink

August 18, 2026 By in wine, wine markets 4 Comments

Sue and I have been sampling some interesting Rosé wines from France and this got us to thinking about the challenges and opportunities for pink wines in today’s market. Here is our report. (Click here to read an earlier survey of the Rosé market.)

Anatomy of the Pink Wine Market

It isn’t easy being a pink wine in today’s wine market. Rosé wines have had to fight all sorts of battles to get where they are today. As a category (according to NIQ data reported in the July 2026 issue of Wine Business Monthly) pink wine sales ($1,099 million in the last 52 weeks) lag behind red wine ($8,197 million) and white wine ($7,302 million) in the measured U.S. market.

Pink wine sells at a lower volume than red or white and at a lower average price ($7.42 per bottle equivalent for pink versus $10.66 for red and $8.58 for white wine). Pink wine sales still peak in the summer months (although I suspect this is less a factor than in the past), so the wines are sometimes put into the category of “swimming pool wines.”

Rosé wines also suffer more than most categories from a sort of color curse. Pink can be pretty, often beautiful, so they are generally packaged in ways that accentuate color. This is an advantage, of course, but also a problem because the color varies for all sorts of reasons, and consumers naturally try to draw conclusions from it. All things being equal, the experts tell me, Rosé color is not a reliable indicator of quality or other sensory factors. But if you have enjoyed a deeply tinted Rosé once, you can be forgiven for imagining that other darker wines will taste just as good.

50 Shades of Pink

These days there seems to be a preference for very pale wines, especially from Provence. Some of them are so light in color that you might mistake them for white wines. But light color doesn’t necessarily foreshadow light flavor.

Deeper colors are avoided by some consumers. I wonder if it is a residual White Zin effect? Perhaps once upon a time they tasted one of those inexpensive sweetish White Zinfandel wines and projected these qualities onto the entire category? I find this puzzling because I remember when Tavel Rosé was very popular.  It had a deep hue and was more full bodied that most pink wines today. I think it would be a hit if consumers gave it a chance. But I seldom see it on store shelves today.

Certainly some wine drinkers look down their noses at pink wines. There must be a reason, don’t you think?

Many Faces of French Rosé

The French Rosé wines we have been tasting this summer are nothing to look down on. We tried two wines in the $15-$20 price category from Barton & Guestier and two in the $50+ category from Domaines Ott. Taken together they say a lot about the diversity of Rosé wines and how product differentiation can address various problems of being pink.

B&G has celebrated its 300th anniversary and their selections are variations on classic themes. The B&G Rosé d’Anjou from the Loire Valley draws on a garden party theme with its deeper hue and colorful label. We love Rosé d’Anjou, but don’t see much of it on our store shelves. Maybe it is that color curse?

The B&G Côtes de Provence “Tourmaline”  presents that classic pale Provence pink, but in a festive limited edition bottle and label featuring artwork by Montreal-based French artist Isaure Atelier. These are wines that match perfectly with the season. They remind us that there is a reason people think of Rosé in seasonal terms.

Then there are the pink wines from Domaines Ott, which show a different side of the pink wine world. These wines are defined by the tension between minerality and salinity more than punchy fruit. That’s a tension we really enjoy because it makes them especially useful with food.

The Domaines Ott 2025 Château de Selle Rosé (AOC Côtes de Provence) paired perfectly with a pasta and pesto dish made with basil from our garden. The Domaines Ott  2025 Château Romassan Rosé (AOC Bandol)  was terrific with a Niçoise salad. The wines were distinctive and I am not sure you would have guessed that they are Rosé wines in a blind tasting because they are so unstereotypically savory. Really interesting!

It’s Not Easy, But Do We Have to Make It Hard?

It isn’t easy being pink, I guess, because Rosé wine has all the challenges and complications of wine in general plus the color curse. But maybe it isn’t necessary to make life difficult. If you are looking for the simple, delicious summer wine, it is right there waiting for you. And if you are looking for something more, it’s there too.

In other words. When Pink is all there is to be it makes you wonder why. But why wonder why?

Wine vs Coffee: Thinking Like Alan Greenspan

August 11, 2026 By in Uncategorized 4 Comments

Alan Greenspan was famous for many things, most of all because of his long tenure as chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Economists like me remember Greenspan for his deep knowledge and understanding of economic data down to the micro-level. He could see how the business world was interconnected better than most, spotting macro-trends by closely monitoring purchases of new brooms and patterns in men’s underwear sales. Amazing.

Here at The Wine Economist, we sometimes try to think like Alan Greenspan would if he were focusing on the wine industry. Here’s our most recent attempt.

The Coffee Cost Conundrum

Have you noticed what’s happened to coffee?  The price of coffee has risen dramatically, driven by a perfect storm of forces ranging from uncooperative Mother Nature to Trump tariffs. It’s a real problem for coffee addicts like me.

So how have buyers responded to higher prices? The Econ 101 answer is simple. Buy less coffee. Buy cheaper coffee. Buy coffee substitutes (tea? Diet Coke?). Buy less of coffee complements (like cream and sugar, for example, or maybe jelly donuts if you are into that sort of thing). The conventional wisdom about coffee demand is pretty straightforward.

So it is interesting (this would please Greenspan) that at least some of the effects are unexpected. According to the Financial Times, the head of Italian coffee roaster Lavazza reports that consumer demand has shifted from cheaper ground coffee products to more expensive whole bean coffee. That’s not how higher prices are supposed to work!

And the shift is not small. Lavazza’s U.K. market whole-bean coffee sales increased 20.3 percent by volume and 36.8 percent by value in the last year. Unit sales of expensive machines that grind and then brew whole-bean coffee rose by 33.5 percent.

Lavazza speculates that many consumers are simply buying less but better (premiumisation, we call it on planet wine). But there’s also this: It seems like part of the pattern is an attempt to recreate the on-premise experience at home(and for less)  with better beans and equipment. It’s a substitution effect, but substituting home-brewed off-premise coffee for the more expensive on-premise product while trying to maintain the experience.

So What Does This Have to Do with Wine?

I know what you’re thinking. That’s interesting, Professor, but what does it have to do with wine? Well, here’s the Greenspan connection

The Drinks Business reports that, “Restaurant wine pricing in the US has become “a particular pain point” for the category, with some venues now taking six-times markups on bottles, according to Gino Colangelo, founder and president of Colangelo & Partners, the New York-based wine PR agency.”

“Now restaurants are taking six times markup,” he said, pointing to a real-world example of a Prosecco with an ex-cellar cost of around €1.70 a bottle appearing on a New York wine list at $60. “Prosecco producers are flabbergasted… it’s like, how can my wine be $60 a bottle?”

Restaurant wine pricing strategies are a complex topic, as we’ve learned from reader comments on previous Wine Economist columns. Markups differ for bottles versus by-the-glass, they differ for different price points, and of course they differ by region and type of establishment. In fact, you might say that the thing that restaurant wine price strategies have in common is that they are different.

My favorite strategy is from a European restaurateur who says he marks up wine by the same margin that he marks up food. The only difference is that customers can easily use a smartphone to calculate the wine markup but they seldom think to do the math on the food.

So a six-fold markup is not universal, but I am not alone in seeing higher prices for bottles and glasses of wine. What’s the consumer reaction? The Econ 101 answer is clear. If wine prices are higher, consumers purchase less wine, cheaper wine, wine substitutes, and they cut back on wine complements like appetizers and bar munchies.

We see fewer bottles on tables but perhaps that’s both the cause of the higher markups and their effect. Lower volumes induce higher prices, which cause lower volumes, etc. etc. Not a good dynamic.

Now let’s go beyond Econ 101. Thinking about the coffee situation, maybe there is also a shift from on-premise to off-premise consumption. The Drinks Business report cites evidence for “pre-loading,” for example.

…  increasing numbers of Americans are now drinking at home before heading out – so-called “preloading” – specifically to avoid paying inflated markups on wine and cocktails once at the table.

Another possibility is what I call the Lavazza Effect. Higher restaurant wine prices increase the total cost of dining out for quality-conscious foodies. It makes sense that they might shift to home consumption, saving money on wine and spending it on a Food Network-inspired elegant meal at home. This might partly account for the fact that sales of $25+ wines have held up a bit better than the rest of the market.

The loss of wine sales at high-end restaurants may be Costco’s gain? Maybe there is a marketing opportunity here? Just trying to see the situation like Alan G.

Wine as Liquid Memories: Nederburg Edelkeur 1977

August 4, 2026 By in South Africa, wine, wine history 2 Comments

One of wine’s superpowers is that it can trigger memories and allow us to share them with others. It’s almost magic. Pull the corks and release the liquid memories.

Sue and I recently celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary and pulled two corks to pair with the meal. The first bottle was the Donnafugata Sul Vulcano Etna Bianco DOC to pair with scallops and fresh corn salad. We picked this wine because we first enjoyed it in Sicily, which we visited this year to celebrate 50 years together. This wine helps us think about where we are now and where we are going next.

The dessert wine was from 1977 (as close to 50 years as we could get from our little cellar). It is a Nederburg Edelkeur from South Africa. I received the small bottle as a gift when I spoke at the Nederburg Auction in 2012.

The Edelkeur was still vibrant after 49 years and paired nicely with a bit of orange-scented Cioccolato di Modica IGP from Sicily.  This wine helps us remember where we began and how we have evolved over the years. Nice way to celebrate an anniversary, don’t you think?

Here is an excerpt from a 2012 Wine Economist column that tells the story of the Nederburg wine and what makes it (and the memories) so special.

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Excerpt from “Extreme Wine South Africa: Nederburg Edelkeur”

The Wine Economist / October 30, 2012

Wine Gets Personal

This is a personal story for me because my small cellar now holds two half-bottles of Edelkeur from the 1977 and 1979 vintages. They were given to me by Carina Gous, Distell Business Director of Wines, as a token of thanks for giving the keynote address this year at the Nederburg Auction. I’m looking forward to sharing these wines with Sue (and perhaps one or two special friends) on an appropriately special occasion several years in the future.

Edelkeur was the personal vision of an extreme wine person, Günter Brözel, one of South Africa’s most honored winemakers who was Nederburg‘s cellar master for 33 years until his retirement in 1989. Brözel’s extreme idea was to create a Noble (made with Botrytis infected “noble rot” grapes) Late Harvest wine that would express the elegance and power of South African terroir in much the way that German Trockenbeerenauslese, French Sauternes and Hungarian Tokaji represent their respective wine producing regions. The only things that stood in his way were Mother Nature and the South African wine law.

Mother Nature is easy enough to understand. Late harvest wines are tricky to produce because the grapes need to stay on the vines long after the usual harvest and they are subject to damage from birds, mold and other problems. Making a Noble wine is even harder and requires both luck (in the vineyard) and lots of harvest labor. You can’t count on making a noble late harvest wine every year and indeed the first Edelkeur vintage in 1969 was not followed by a second until 1972.

Extreme Wine Law

So Edelkeur required an act of nature to make, but an act of Congress? Well, not literally Congress, but it’s a fact that South African wine laws prior to the 1969 vintage did specifically forbid this kind of wine. The rules permitted (and protected) sweet fortified wines but outlawed the production of natural (unfortified) wines with more than 30 percent residual sugar. Tokaji Eszencia often has as much as 50 percent to 70 percent residual sugar (90 percent in the 2000 vintage!). Brözel was going for an extreme and the law got in his way, so the law had to be changed. And it was.

But not all the laws yielded to Nederburg’s cellar master. The most reliable way to get late harvest grapes (because Mother Nature’s part is reduced) is to harvest them earlier and dry them on racks, concentrating the flavor that way. (Just as the most reliable way to make Ice Wine is to pick unfrozen grapes and then … freeze them!) But Nature’s Law prevailed here and so the grapes for Edelkeur are left to hang exposed to and expressing wild nature before being finally picked and vinified.

A Special Stage 

And so finally Brözel was able to make Nederburg Edelkeur but that created another problem: how to distribute the tiny amount of this precious wine that law and nature permit. After some early trial and error, it was decided that a special stage was needed and this became the now-famous Nederburg Auction, where a juried selection of rare South African wines are offered up once a year to the international wine trade. Some of the 1972 vintage was sold at the first Nederburg Auction in 1975 and the link between the auction, Edelkeur and the best of South African wine has been going ever since.

The “first five” founding wineries — Nederburg, Delheim, Groot Constantia, Overgaauw and Simonsig — are now joined by many others, the Auction Selection wines determined through rigorous blind tasting panels. It’s an honor just to be selected for the auction and to have your bottles wear the “Nederburg Auction Selection” ribbon.

The auction today does much more than just allocate one extreme wine. It honors an extreme wine person’s vision and draws international attention to South Africa’s best wines.

Back to the Wine

So what does the wine taste like? Well, I’m not going to open my bottles for several years, but I was able to taste through several vintages of Edelkeur on the first day of the auction and they were memorable and gave a hint of how this wine can age. I don’t rate wines or write reviews, but I found this CellarTracker tasting note for the 1976 vintage that sums up my opinion.

Brown with a bright yellow rim. Fabulous nose – intense citrus, caramel and leather with a very slight flor touch. Amazing attack. Citrussy sweetness. Amazing life. Huge depths of flavour. Great length. Excellent

One of the people I was tasting with that day had this reaction: “They shouldn’t sell these wines; they should hold them back.” She didn’t care about the money, she just knew that the wines would get better and better and that it was a sin to drink wines like the 1979 and the 1977 so young.

She’s right, I suppose, because certainly the wines will continue to develop for many years, but I think she’s wrong, too. Yes, the wines will get better with age, which is why I’m not rushing to pull these corks, but putting some of them up for auction isn’t really about the money or maybe even [just] about the wines themselves. There’s something bigger going on here — defining the identity of South Africa and its wine and honoring the passion of the wine makers — and that’s what makes it really extreme.

“The Swirled Cup” Takes Flight! Nota Bene July 2026

July 28, 2026 By in Nota Bene, popular culture, wine 3 Comments

Nota Bene is a periodic Wine Economist column that briefly highlights stories that might otherwise escape attention.

The Swirled Cup Takes to the Air

If you are flying on Delta Airlines now through September, check your seatback entertainment system for three episodes of The Swirled Cup, Andrea Robinson’s documentary series about the rise of wine in the last half century and the people who made it happen. The series was inspired by the 50th anniversary of the Judgement of Paris, but the stories it tells go far beyond that storied event. Click here to view the series trailer.

Andrea writes that

After several years of filming in vineyards, wineries, kitchens, restaurants, and wine regions around the world, I’m so excited to have the first 3 episodes in the in-flight entertainment/DeltaSync system. The series celebrates wine, food, farming, travel, cultural connection, and, especially, the people who give them meaning. In that vein, you’ll see central voices like Danny Meyer, Kevin Zraly, Bobby Stuckey MS, Piero Antinori, and Laura Catena (to name a few!), as well as the architects of the globally transformative Judgment of Paris tasting in their own words from my one-on-one interviews, top culinarians, and many in the industry’s next generations as well.

I’m incredibly grateful that Delta believed these stories deserved a place among the journeys they help people make every day. If you are flying Delta between now and September (thank you!), I’d love for you to search for The Swirled Cup and see the episodes.

Sue and I plan to tune into The Swirled Cup on our next flight. In the meantime we are watching the trailer and imagining where Andrea’s journey will take us next! Andrea Robinson is a wonderful storyteller and the positive story of wine needs telling. Now more than ever.

Did Wine Win the World Cup?

Let’s start with a question. How did Team Wine do at the recent World Cup? Were we even in the game? It depends on how you look at the situation.

Wine-producing countries did very well, as usual. In fact, they dominated the competition.

Spain versus Argentina was an all-wine final match. France and England played for third place in a sparkling (wine) shootout. Wine won the World Cup big time if you look at it this way.

But was the wine industry able to exploit the opportunities that the World Cup created to sell more glasses and bottles or to make strong impressions on global consumers?

The World Cup is a marketing competition as much as a soccer tournament. We all know about the great success of Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing. The producers had a plan and executed perfectly, gaining worldwide attention for their product and apparently creating a headache for TSA as international visitors stuffed their bags with ranch dressing. Gooooooooooooooooal for Hidden Valley Ranch!

Beer had a good World Cup, we are told, at least in some locations. Stories are told about loyal fans of the team from Scotland who drank all the beer in Boston and maybe a bit more.

How did wine do? Was much of an effort made to exploit the opportunity? The only wine-related story I have seen is about David Beckham. He was caught on camera sipping a very large glass of red wine in his luxury box in Miami. The English press called him out for unsportsmanlike conduct. An English soccer legend shouldn’t drink wine at a game! Only a pint of beer will do.

Not exactly an own goal for wine, I guess, but not exactly a hat trick either.

Over a Barrel?

Fast and furious. That’s how the stream of wine business news has been coming this year. Many folks in the industry feel that they are “over a barrel,” victims of forces beyond their control.

Most of the reporting has understandably been focused on vineyards, wineries, distributors, and retail sales. Still, the impacts of market shifts extend much further, affecting all sorts of related products and services. In assessing the situation, it is important to take into account the whole product web.

Barrels are a good example, as the “2026 Barrel Survey Report” (download pdf here) in the July 2026 issue of Wine Business Monthly makes clear. The barrel industry is obviously affected by recent wine market shifts, but in ways that are conditioned by the particular nature of the product and the industry’s institutional structure. Here are some highlights of the WBM report.

  • Wine production has fallen across world markets and winery margins are increasingly squeezed. It is no surprise, therefore, that demand for wine barrels has decreased and wine producers have sought to reduce costs. The WBM survey shows that 35 percent of responding wineries plan to purchase fewer barrels in 2026 compared with 2025, a substantial increase over the previous two years’ data.
  • Less wine production means less need for barrels. Then there is the issue of shrinking margins. How do producers economize on barrel expense? You might expect a shift to cheaper barrels, use of less new oak, and longer use of existing barrels (keeping them in service for four years instead of three, for example).
  • Using a smaller proportion of new barrels both saves money and is in tune with some style shifts seen in the market. And extending the useful life of barrels is happening, too. Interestingly, a movement to cheaper barrels is not a trend seen in the WBM survey. Reports indicate that many wineries are using less oak, but are careful to maintain the quality they desire.
  • WBM reports that the challenges that barrel producers face are exacerbated by the failure of H&A, an important Bordeaux-based barrel-leasing and financial firm that works with both the wine and spirits industry. H&A would purchase new barrels when clients ordered them, leasing them back to the clients. There was also a buyback program that saw H&A sell used barrels to the spirits industry. H&A had more than one million barrels in its system, according to WBM, with 2000 clients worldwide and $432 million in annual revenue. These are all big numbers.
  • The sudden simultaneous decline in wine, Cognac, and Bourbon markets threw a monkey wrench in the system leading to H&A’s bankruptcy. Now there is great uncertainty about who will receive payments and when.
  • Tariffs and the ongoing tariff refund process have also had an impact on the barrel business. Some international firms with domestic cooperages have moved final production of barrels to the U.S. to reduce vulnerability to future levies and increase ability to adapt to local demand.

See the WBM report for more analysis and survey results. There are always useful and informative articles to be found in Wine Business Monthly. The wine industry is fortunate to be served by this fine publication. Required reading.

Resilience! Changing Times Test Oregon Wine

July 21, 2026 By in Oregon wine, wine, wine markets 2 Comments

“Oregon Wine Industry Shows Signs of Contraction” was the headline that caught my eye on the YourOregonNews.com website. The signs were clear enough and familiar to anyone following the wine industry just about anywhere in the world. The surprise was that it was Oregon.

Oregon has seemed like an unstoppable wine force in recent years. The industry rode the general wine boom starting in the 1970s (when Sue and I made our first visits), and accelerated rapidly in the Sideways era, with its focus on Pinot Noir, Oregon’s signature grape variety.

New wineries opened their doors and new vineyards put down roots. Significantly, wine producers in California, Washington, France, Italy, and elsewhere got into the market. Oregon seemed like the right place at the right time with the right wines. What could go wrong?

Changing Times.

But times have changed and Oregon’s winning streak looks to be over for now. The news article reports that

Oregon’s 2025 winegrape production dropped 25% and acreage harvested dipped 12% from the previous year due to declining sales and exports, particularly to Canada.

Signs of contraction were anticipated as the state adjusted from record years of the early 2020s to more sobering market conditions, according to the 2025 Oregon Vineyard and Winery Census Report.

A survey of winegrape growers found: “About 48% of growers sold grapes below the cost of production, 35% cut yield via farming practice changes and 23% removed vines.”

“Fruit was available and high-quality, but buyers were often hard to find. Growers adapted by selling below costs, cutting yields deliberately, dropping fruit on the ground, and in some cases pulling vines or planning to exit,” stated a report supplement.

Declining U.S. domestic sales and rising production costs were the main source of economic distress, but the collapse of export sales to Canada hit hard, too. Provincial boycotts of U.S. beverage alcohol products caused Canadian exports to fall by 83 percent, according to the report.

No Silver Linings?

“Difficult to find any silver linings in the ‘dark cloud’ news about the Oregon wine industry.” That’s what I wrote when I first posted the news story on social media and the situation sure looks bleak.

Pinot Noir seemed like Oregon’s magic pass for a while, but sales have declined along with almost every other wine category (New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc is the exception). Things are so bad (and wine enthusiast budgets so stretched) that the famous International Pinot Noir Celebration was forced to hit the pause button after a successful 35-year run.

So what’s the story? Wine is a risky business and this is the sort of thing that happens when your luck runs out. That’s true enough, but it isn’t why I’ve brought you here today. I want to talk about something that hasn’t changed with the times: Oregon’s strong resilience.

New Directions

No sense sugar-coating the bad news, but it is fair to draw attention to the many efforts that Oregon wine is making to bounce back. White wine sales are holding up better than purchases of reds, for example, and Oregon is best known for its Pinot Noir. What to do? Well, as we learned a couple of years ago when we met with a group of Willamette Valley winemakers, the resilient pivot is obvious: white Pinot Noir. It was delicious. There’s no reason that “blanc de noir” should only apply to sparkling wine. I’ll bet white Pinot sells very well in tasting rooms.

Speaking of sparkling wine, Oregon produces some great examples. Why not draw attention to these wines now? Well, of course, that’s just what resilient Oregon producers of traditional method sparkling wines are doing, banding together under the “Method Oregon” banner. In fact they are hosting an ambitious Method Oregon Grand Tasting Weekend on July 24-26, 2026. More than 50 wineries are working together to connect with thirsty consumers and promote their wines.

Beyond the ABCs

Chardonnay is another Oregon pivot worth noting. Pinot Gris has long been Oregon’s best-known white wine, not Chardonnay as you might expect. Why? Part of the answer is that Oregon Pinot Gris can be really good. Another answer, a wine critic friend suggests, is that the wrong Chardonnay clones were planted in the early days and it has taken a long time to change the vineyards, the wines, and the reputation.

I think the ABC effect is also important. Oregon’s rise overlapped to some extent with the Anything But Chardonnay reaction to a certain buttery style. Many people (Sue and me included) sort of lost interest in Chardonnay.

The current crisis has motivated Oregon producers to focus more intently on their Chardonnay wines and to confront the ABC curse. Sue and I have enjoyed a number of Willamette Valley Chardonnay wines recently and we can see the appeal. The Seven Soils Chardonnay from Rex Hill, for example, was delightful. Sue said that she would be happy to drink it anytime!

We recently received a sample of the Domaine Roy & Fils Iron Filbert Dundee Hills Chardonnay, which forced us to rethink what we thought we knew about Chardonnay in Oregon. This wine, more than most we have sampled, is about place, in this case the Iron Filbert Vineyard. It is a unique expression. Much to think about here. (Domaine Roy & Fils is now owned by Italy’s Frescobaldi family, who seem determined to advance the winery’s vision of Oregon wine.)

Origins of Resilience

The Iron Filbert Vineyard’s name triggered a memory of Oregon resilience. It is possible to argue that the Oregon wine industry owes its early growth in part to a natural disaster. As Benjamin Lewin MW explains in his 2011 book “In Search of Pinot Noir,” Western Oregon was better known for hazelnuts (filberts) than wine grapes until the famous Columbus Day storm of 1962. The storm tore through the fruit and nut orchards, a disaster for the local industry.

Some of the orchards were brought back into production, but many never recovered because the costs were just too high. Some of these distressed orchards were eventually reborn as the early vineyards on which Oregon’s wine industry was built.

A new industry rose out of the wreckage of the old. Oregon wine, it seems is resilient from the ground up.

Simply Irresistable? Sicilia DOC Wines

July 14, 2026 By in Italian wine, wine, wine markets Leave a comment

Sicily isn’t Italy (you can ask anyone), and Sicilian wine isn’t Italian wine either.

Many Sicilian producers have embraced the Sicilia DOC designation as a simple but effective identity. It’s the kind of idea that other wine regions might consider in today’s crowded marketplace. Here is our report.

Einstein’s Law

Everything should be as simple as possible, Albert Einstein said. But no simpler.

I think Einstein was talking about scientific theories, of course, but the idea applies to wine, too. If you make wine too complicated, it is hard to understand (and harder to sell). But make it too simple and it really isn’t wine anymore. It’s just … what? Alcohol, I guess.

I see Einstein’s Law everywhere in wine these days. On one hand, some wine brands push simplification to the point where it is hard to know what’s in the bottle, where it came from, or even who made it. Consumers buy the brand as much as the wine (maybe more).

On the other hand, many wine regions work to needlessly complicate life. Regional indicators (AVAs in the United States, appellations in Europe) are a sort of collective brand that gives the producers in a region an identity. The problem is that, once an AVA brand is established, we often see pressure for sub-AVAs that might benefit particular producers and sub-regions, but risk undermining the whole by diluting the regional brand.

I authored a tongue-in-cheek “Modest Proposal” for U.S. AVA reform a few years ago, but I don’t think anyone got the message. But some regions in Italy have been working to find the right balance between complication and simplicity. Both the Abruzzo DOC (2010)and Sicilia DOC (2011) appellations were established in an attempt to strengthen the broad regional brand, to simplify choice for consumers without going too far.

Simply Sicilia DOC

It is not easy to get producers to invest in a broad regional designation (Sicilia DOC)  when they see their particular interest more closely tied to their own sub-regional brand (Etna DOC, for example). And of course getting consensus on technical and financial issues is harder the larger the group involved.

Maybe this is why the Sicilia DOC took a while to gather speed. My 1999 copy of a Touring Club of Italy wine guide notes that, after several years of negotiation, the much-anticipated Sicilia DOC designation was just about ready. The 2004 edition of the same guide said the same thing. The DOC finally appeared in 2011 and is now an important force.

Sicilia DOC has ridden the ups and downs of the wine market in general, of course, but it benefits now from Sicily’s rising profile, which has spawned a couple of interesting initiatives. Taormina, Sicily, is the recent home of The White Lotus television series, creating what is called The White Lotus Effect for Sicilian wine. Sicilia DOC has worked to take advantage of this association, which has drawn both international visitors and international interest more generally.

Sicily has also benefitted from the post-COVID international travel boom. As a press release explains:

It’s no secret that Sicily has become the “it” destination for American travelers, but that cultural obsession is now officially moving from the suitcase to the wine cellar.

We’re seeing a fascinating “Souvenir Effect” take hold: as Americans return from the island, they aren’t just looking for “Italian wine,” they are hunting for the specific indigenous grapes they discovered on the coast, like Grillo, Lucido, and Nero d’Avola.

Sicily enjoys an embarrassment of riches in terms of regions, grape varieties, and styles of wine. Some producers focus on a particular region or style, but others draw broadly on the resources available. Donnafugata, for example, offers a range of wines ranging  the rich Ben Ryé dessert wine from the wind-blown island of Pantelleria in the south-east to the complex minerality of Sul Vulcano Bianco from the slopes of Mount Etna in the north-east. Completely different. Totally Sicilian.

T is for Tasca

Sue and I learned a lot about the diversity of Sicilian wine during our recent trip by enjoying Sicilia DOC wines from Tasca d’Almerita.

In Palermo we discovered Tasca d’Almerita Fondazione Whitaker Mozia, which is made from Grillo grapes grown in a historic vineyard on the low-lying island of Mozia near Trapani on the island’s west coast. We later visited Mozia and its salt flats and recognized how much the unique terroir is reflected in the wine.

We enjoyed a completely different Tasca d’Almerita wine over dinner in Catania. Tasca d’Almerita Nozze d’Oro is made from Inzolia and Sauvignon grape varieties and commemorates a special wedding anniversary (like the one Sue and I are celebrating this month). Memorable wines.

Back home in the U.S. we were pleased to see that Tasca d’Almerita wines are available here, imported by Heritage Collection, part of Trinchero Family Estates. We are currently sampling several of them, including Tasca d’Almerita Tenuta Regaleali Regaleali Bianco Sicilia DOC 2023, Tasca d’Almerita Tenuta Regaleali Lamuri Sicilia DOC 2022, and Tasca d’Almerita Tenuta Regaleali Rosso del Conte Sicilia Contea di Sclafani DOC 2018.

The bargain-priced Regaleali Bianco really caught our attention. A blend of native grapes from the west coast of Sicily (plus a little Chardonnay), it is both interesting and delicious. A perfect “souvenir” wine? Of course. Simply irresistable.

Lenz Moser’s Mad Mád Mád Mad Wine World

July 7, 2026 By in Flying Winemakers, wine, wine markets 1 Comment

A winemaker from Austria making white Cabernet Sauvignon wines in China. It seemed like a crazy idea. But, as we reported here in The Wine Economist a couple of months ago, it really worked. Crazy, but true.

World Wine Ambitions

The winemaker is Lenz Moser and his Chateau Changyu Moser XV wines made us believers. We had to find out more.

Moser is the 15th generation of his family (hence Moser XV above) to make wines in Austria, but he obviously has world wine ambitions. He spent a decade working for Robert Mondavi, for example, and brought what he learned home in terms of making wines to appeal to international markets. He identifies as a consumer and seeks to craft wines that people will enjoy.

One problem with the Chateau Changyu Moser wines is that they are not currently available in the U.S. market (it’s complicated, but I assume that U.S.-China trade issues are part of the story). So we have been focusing on Moser wines in U.S. distribution.

Gruner Pastures?

It is not surprising that an Austrian winemaker would make wine from Austria’s signature grape variety: Gruner Veltliner. Less probable, I suppose, is that Moser would seek to reimagine the wine as he has done with his New Chapter wines. New Chapter aims to leapfrog evolution, producing “tomorrow’s Gruner today,” by which I think is meant to make Gruner more consumer-friendly without sacrificing its essence.

I admit that I don’t drink Gruner often enough to evaluate the “to the future … and beyond” claim, but I can verify that the wine quickly disappeared over lunch with our friend Mary. A good start to our investigation.

Mád Mad Moser

Our friends Lisa and John recently returned from a trip to Budapest, so they were logical guests to help us get to know Lenz Moser’s line of Hungarian wines, three variations on Furmint from the Tokaj region. How much more Hungarian can you get?

The wines are called Mad Moser (or sometimes Mád Moser) because they are made in partnership with the Mad Wine company located in the city of Mád. Mád Mad Moser for sure.

The first wine we sampled was a dry Furmint (labeled Mád Moser) made in a modern style (think stainless steel). It was distinctive and made us think a bit about where Furmint fits into the Central European wine matrix that includes Gruner and Riesling along with other white wines.

The second wine (labeled Mad Moser) was also a dry Furmint, but quite different from the first, having spent eight months in Hungarian oak casks and barrels. It was more complex, nuanced, drinkable. And it paired really well with our dinner of orecchiette with speck and peas.

The contrast between the two dry Furmint wines was striking and I’d enjoy repeating the experiment. I wish the wine labels provided more information to help consumers know what to expect (not everyone is going to be able to open the two wines side-by-side like we did). I admit that there was a lot of information on the back label, but it was in such tiny print as to be useless even in bright light (I can’t imagine trying to read it in a dimly lit restaurant). I guess I will have to try to remember how Mád differs from Mad and which one we preferred (Mad, I think).

We finished with an elegant Mad Moser Tokaji Aszu 2013, a real treat. It was well balanced and paired perfectly with Sue’s Sicilian almond cookies. A great way to end the meal. John and Lisa commented that the wine was much drier than they expected (a good feature, they said).

Tokaji was once celebrated as the King of Wines and the Wine of Kings, but it is under-appreciated today. Maybe Lenz Moser is a bit mad to try to draw our attention to it and its dry Furmint cousins, but we hope he succeeds.

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The title of today’s column was inspired by Stanley Kramer’s 1963 film, It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.

Flashback: The Judgment of Paris & the Road Not Taken

June 30, 2026 By in wine history 3 Comments

This is a year of celebrations here in the United States. This week, for example, we mark the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Wine enthusiasts have reason to pop a cork, too, because 2026 is the 50th anniversary of the “Judgment of Paris,” the famous wine tasting that drew global attention to the high quality of California wine.

Have you ever wondered how things would be different today if the Declaration had not been agreed upon back in 1776? How would history have unfolded if Britain’s American colonies didn’t break away?  It’s an interesting question. Counter-factuals like this give us a chance to appreciate how the past has shaped the present and how events today might be transforming the future, too. It’s the Back to the Future effect.

Here is a Wine Economist column from 2022 that tries to imagine the present if the Judgment of Paris didn’t happen (or if it happened and didn’t get much attention, as is often the case with wine tasting events). Something to think about over the Independence Day weekend. Cheers!

P.S. Be sure to click on the video below to see what Napa and its wine industry looked like 50 years ago. Amazing!

The Judgment of Paris and Napa Valley’s Road Not Taken

The Wine Economist / September 13, 2022

A journalist recently asked me to comment on the impact of the famous 1976 “Judgment of Paris” tasting of California and French wines. The California wines were very competitive, according to the scores given by the panel of French judges, and wines from the Napa Valley actually topped both the Cabernet and Chardonnay lists. Amazing.

Time magazine reporter George M. Taber was the only journalist in attendance and his exclusive story about the unexpected American victory was a shot heard round the world. His 2005 book, Judgment of Paris is worth reading and even re-reading today.

What if … ?

Would Napa Valley have grown and developed if the Judgment of Paris had not taken place? Well, yes, I answered, there was already a good deal of momentum stimulated by, among other things, the successful opening in 1966 of the Robert Mondavi Winery, the first major new winery in the valley since Prohibition.

In fact, local residents were already concerned about the masses of wine tourists clogging local roads and highways and over-whelming winery facilities back in 1972 when a KPIX Eyewitness News reporter paid a visit to see what was happening. Click here or on the image below to watch the vintage video report.

And there was already international attention, too. Domaine Chandon, the Yountville outpost of the famous French Champagne house Môet Chandon, opened in 1973, three years before the famous Paris tasting.

On the Road Again

So the Napa Valley was already on the road to big things even before the Paris tasting. But just about everyone agrees that the international recognition changed things.

It changed things for Napa and for California, but the impact didn’t stop there. Towards the end of his book, George Taber takes a bit of a global tour, showing us how the world of wine broadened as the result of a number of forces including, of course, the new perspective on New World wine that the 1976 tasting provoked.

Second Thoughts?

Revisiting the Napa Valley years after the Paris tasting, to gather insights for his 2005 book, Taber could see the result of the intense focus that his astute reporting helped create. There was growth, for sure, and lots of new investment, both domestic and by a long list of international wine luminaries including, of course, the Rothschilds who partnered with Robert Mondavi in 1978, just two years after the Judgment, to build Opus One.

Taber was concerned about how the boom was unfolding. Enormous wealth, vanity vineyards, trophy wines. “The Napa Valley unfortunately became another proof of the maxim that nothing succeeds like excess.” And a good indicator of excess, he proposed, was the price of vineyard land. Warren Winiarski paid about $2000 per acre in 1970 for the first Stag’s Leap vineyard, Taber reported.  In 1999 the owner of Far Niente winery paid $100,000 an acre for a 42-acres vineyard, which seemed like a lot. Francis Ford Coppola raised the stakes just a few years later, paying $300,000 an acre, a jaw-dropping price at the time.

Now, of course, $300,000 an acre for Napa Valley vineyards is not noteworthy or exceptional. $300,000 to $500,000 per vineyard acre (adjusting for the value of any production or housing assets) seems to be the norm, with some particular parcels going for even more.  The excess that Taber saw 20 years ago has not diminished.

Money, Taste, and Wine

Naturally this is reflected in the wine. Not all of it, of course, but it is easy to see a pattern. The focus in Napa is increasingly on its signature grape variety, Cabernet Sauvignon. I am sure this is about taste — the best Napa Cabs I’ve tried are really good — but it is also about money, I think.

Cabernet is the grape of Bordeaux, too, and some people are happy to pay much more for Cabernet than they would for Zinfandel, which was once widely grown in the valley but now not-so-much. Sky-high land prices require high grape prices which mean high bottle prices for the wine. King Cabernet is the surest bet, many believe, and so it increasingly carpets the valley floor.

Many of the wines are really distinctive — Sue and I have tasted some real stunners! — but some of them taste the same to my amateur palate. I call them Napa Valley Red Wine. Maybe this is true of all wine regions, even the great ones? In Napa they often sell for more than $100 a bottle and seem to satisfy the thirst of buyers looking for the taste of Napa.

They Think I’m Bragging

I am not the only one who is concerned about how the wines of Napa Valley have changed and how the flood of tourist dollars and investor wealth has led to excess. But whenever I bemoan certain aspects of the Napa wine industry environment to international audiences, they think that I am just bragging. All those tourists and fancy restaurants! All the celebrities and trophy wines! Such economic success and pure opulence!

Napa Valley is a dream to international wine visitors, and for foreign winery owners who long for their own Napa moment, their own Judgment of Paris. Who can blame them?

But what if the Judgment never happened? If you know the story, you can appreciate that it could easily not have taken place (of the results could have turned out differently).  Napa Valley would still have grown the thrived, I think, but it would be different today. What might it look like? Come back next week to see what might have been … and is.

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Thanks to Tony Correia for his help nailing down vineyard valuations. Thanks to Silicon Valley Bank’s Rob McMillan for his help locating the KPIX video, which was originally featured in a very memorable post on Rob’s blog.

Wine Goes to the Opera: Nota Bene June 2026

June 23, 2026 By in Nota Bene 1 Comment

Nota Bene is a periodic Wine Economist column that briefly highlights short stories that might otherwise escape attention.

Wine Goes to the Opera

A recent Wine Economist column examined the relationship between wine and classical music and worried that wine could become like opera, mainly relevant to a shrinking audience of affluent, aging enthusiasts.  Once upon a time wine was for everyone. What happens if it is mainly for elites?

Given these concerns, we were interested to discover that Festival Napa Valley has commissioned an original opera to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Judgment of Paris. Bacchus and Venus are the opera’s main protagonists, supported by characters such as Steven Spurrier, Patricia Gallagher, Mike Grgich, Warren Winiarski, and others.

It’s an ambitious undertaking. Cheers to a successful premiere performance.

Against the Tide: K&L Opens in NYC

There is so much negative news in the wine press these days that signs of growth and optimism are both noteworthy and welcome. So you can imagine the excitement that has greeted the news that California-based K&L Wine Merchants has opened a new shop in New York City.  NYC wine news has been dominated by closings, not openings, in recent years, with the loss of Sherry-Lehmann Wine & Spirits in particular.

What does K&L see in the NYC opportunity that many others do not? K&L CEO Brian Zucker writes that

My father Todd co-founded K&L in California in 1976 on the premise that careful selection and producer relationships could build a sustainable independent retail business. Fifty years later, that’s the model we’re testing in a market where several other independent shops haven’t held up. We built the ecommerce business in the late 90s and early 2000s, and that multi-channel base is part of why we have a thesis about why ours can work.

According to K&L’s press release, “The expansion follows six consecutive quarters of wine sales growth for K&L, even as much of the U.S. wine industry continues to navigate declining consumption, pricing pressure, and shifting demand. With four California stores, a national e-commerce business, the most active wine & spirits auction platform by bids and users, and now a New York location, K&L is betting that the category’s next phase will be driven by more selective consumers seeking value, access, and expert guidance.”

“There’s a lot more demand out there than the headlines suggest. Customers haven’t lost interest in wine, they’ve gotten more deliberate about it, and that’s something retailers can work with,” said Brian Zucker, CEO of K&L Wine Merchants. “Wine’s bigger problem was where prices went leading into COVID and during the consumption spike that followed. That’s working itself out now. We’ve seen significant growth in wine in each of the last six quarters, and it’s accelerating.”

Second Glass Test Update

Regular readers will be familiar with our “Second Glass” test for non-alcoholic wines. The wines have to remind us of the type of wine they represent and be tasty enough that we would happily drink a second glass. We recently met with research assistants Nancy and Michael to apply our test to a few editorial samples we received.

The news is very good. Two wines passed the Second Glass test with flying colors and we are pleased to add them to our “highly recommended” list.

Missing Thorn Sparkling White was simply delicious, with medium body and bright tree fruit flavors. Michael, who was initially disappointed to learn that we would be tasting NA wine, commented that he would not have guessed that the Missing Thorn was missing alcohol. Second glasses all around. Congratulations to the Missing Thorn team.

The Pierre Chavin Signature Zero Sparkling Chardonnay was an even bigger hit with our tasting panel. They appreciated the body and mouthfeel of the wine and the complete flavor profile. The label notes that nine percent of unfermented grape juice is part of the blend and I think this might have had something to do with the positive response. Grape juice is often blended into NA wines to restore some of the sensory elements that the alcohol removal process takes away. Missing Thorn’s blend includes an unspecified proportion of grape juice too.

Pierre Chavin is widely distributed by Kobrand and, at about $20 per bottle, is more affordable than some NA wines we have sampled.

Port Hits the Cocktail Circuit

Prosecco-based Aperol spritz drinks are everywhere these days, proof that cocktails and wine can be a profitable and delicious combination. Port producers have long encouraged enthusiasts to experiment with cocktails as a way of growing their market by introducing new customers to Port’s many pleasures. At one point a famous producer even redesigned some Port bottles and labels so that they would look more at home behind the bar.

Ruud Scholten (a.k.a. The Port*ologist) has written an impressive new book to help cocktail-curious Port lovers and Port-curious cocktail drinkers discover the pleasures of Port cocktails. The book, The Port*ologist: Crafting Port Wine Cocktails, seems at first glance to be a collection of recipes for cocktails featuring all manner of Port wines. On closer inspection, we found a lot more information about Port, Porto, the Douro Valley, and the fundamentals of mixology, too. The book is beautifully illustrated. An impressive package.

It is clear why a Port lover would want to try cocktails, but what’s the appeal for the cocktail set? Well, there is a taste, of course, but more than that there is also the fact that Port wine  has about half the alcohol of many liquors,  so the book’s Port Old Fashioned drink has less “punch” than the traditional drink. This aligns very well with current market trends favoring moderation.

Sue and I love to drink The Portonic, a white Port and tonic spritz, so we are already on board. Next stop is to experiment with other summery white Port cocktails as well as those for the other seasons and occasions based on Ruby, Tawny, and other types of Port. What fun! (Available direct from the publisher or from Amazon.com.)