Roll Over Beethoven Syndrome? Classical Music & Wine’s Identity Crisis

May 5, 2026 By Mike Veseth in popular culture, wine Leave a comment

Jeff Siegel recently interviewed me for a Drinks Insider article called “What Happens if Wine Becomes Just Another Luxury? The Road to Irrelevance.” The article was inspired by a conversation we had about a decade ago (Jeff has a very good memory!) about parallels between classical music and fine wine. Both were once defining cultural elements. Now not so much. Are the two phenomena related? Can we learn anything from comparative analysis?

Here is a Flashback column from 2016 that tries to understand what was happening to wine by looking at what was already going on in classical music. I invite you to read this flashback column and then jump ahead to Jeff’s analysis.

Bach, Beethoven, Bordeaux?

Classical Music & the Terroirists’ Revenge

The Wine Economist / January 5, 2016

The Future Symphony Institute has published an essay that I wrote for them titled “The Revenge of the Terroirists.” It talks about the complicated relationship between fine wine and classical music in the modern world. Because it is very brief the arguments are not fully developed, but I think you will see where I am going with it.

I invite you to click on the links above to read the essay and to learn about the Future Symphony Institute and its ambitious mission.

What Can Wine Teach Classical Music?

The idea for this essay springs from a series of conversations I have been having with Andrew Balio, the principal trumpet of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and the executive director of the Institute. Balio’s mission is to try to help the musical world think through the economic and intellectual crises that confront classical music and to begin the process of rethinking and renewing it for the 21st century.

The website puts it this way: “Our mission is to formulate a strategy for the renaissance of live classical music and to translate that strategy into programs made freely available to everyone they may benefit.”

Balio was interested in wine because it seemed to him that the wine world had resisted some of the forces that are plaguing classical music. Not all wine is great, but there is substantial and expanding support of and interest in the practices, values and traditions associated with authentic wine and wine culture.

And the interest in fine wine is not limited to the rich or the elderly. It is a very broad movement and an expanding one. If wine can do this, he wondered, maybe classical music can do it, too.

The Terroirist Cause

I am interested in this project for three reasons. First, I see Balio and his colleagues as “terroirists” who push back against commodification and unnecessary simplification. I wrote about and championed the terroirist cause in my 2011 book Wine Wars. Second, I am a fan of classical music, especially chamber music, and I hope they will achieve their ambitious goals.

Finally, as a member of the board of trustees of a liberal arts college, I recognize that many of the issues that confront classical music organizations are similar to the challenges facing the liberal arts.

Once upon a time there was broader understanding and appreciation of the value and purpose of both classical music and liberal arts education. But for somewhat similar reasons both have become very expensive to produce and their critical role in civilization seems to have been forgotten by many.

Both sets of institutions need to rethink their business models to address the new reality, but that will not be enough. Both need to engage society in new ways that will renew understanding and appreciation without diluting or distorting the values that made them important in the first place. Both need a strong dose of terroirism combined with thoughtful and effective strategy.

The Future Symphony Institute seems like one place where this might happen. I hope my brief essay will help the Future Symphony Institute as it launches a series of articles examining ways that wine can inform classical music and help move it back to center stage.

Maculan & Tenuta Biserno: Italian Wine Beyond the Stereotypes

April 28, 2026 By Mike Veseth in Family Wineries, Italian wine, wine, wine history 4 Comments

Breganze and Bibbona. Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc. These are not necessarily the first things that come to mind when you think about wines from Italy. But, to paraphrase Walt Whitman, Italian wine is large; it contains multitudes. Embrace stereotypes at your peril.

Sue and I were fortunate to be invited to taste the wines of Maculan and Tenuta Biserno, stereotype-busting wineries that show both the depth of Italian wine and the diversity of family wineries in Italy.

All in the Family

Maculan and Tenura Bisero are both family-owned wineries and the family aspect has been important to their development. Tenuta Biserno is a project of the famous Antinori family. Piero and Lodovico Antinori worked together to develop this property just outside of the Bolgheri zone, and their nephew Niccolo Marzichi Lenza, is the managing director. The Antionri family trace their roots in the wine business back more than 600 years, although their rise as quality producers has taken place in the last 50 years.

The Maculan family’s roots in the Veneto wine sector go back to 1911, not as deep as the Antinori’s, but impressive when you consider the nature of the wine business and the history of Italy during that period. Great-grandfather Gaetona made rustic wines to sell to passing cart drivers. Grandfather Giovanni established the winery, making bulk wine sold in the local market. Fausto, the current winemaker, was sent to the famous wine school in Conegliano and so, about 50 years ago, the trajectory toward higher and higher quality was estblished and the Maculan brand and reputation solidified. This path continues today with Fausto’s daughters, Angela and Maria Vittoria, guiding the enterprise into its second century.

Thinking Outside the Bottle

What types of wine do you think of when you think of Tuscany and the Veneto? Sangiovese-based wines are the Tuscan stereotype and you might imagine Amarone, for example, if you think of Veneto red wines. It would seem that, if you want to honor local terroir, you would necessarily reach for those well-known grape varieties.

It is interesting, therefore that both Maculan and Tenuta Biserno are known for their international varieties, especially Cabernet and Merlot. These are not native grape varieties for Italy, but they have been cultivated in some regions for so long that they are considered traditional varieties. In the hands of talented winemakers like these, traditional grapes can develop wines with distinct personalities that reflect each particular terroir. I like the idea that wines should have personalities like people.

And Now for Something Completely Different

We have met people who enjoy and know something about it, but are happiest when they find familiar tastes and styles. They sometimes seemed confused by the unfamiliar. Sue and I seem to seek out the unfamiliar, which means we are sometimes disappointed, but more often delighted. The wines from both Maculan and Tenuta Biserno delighted us in different ways.

Il Pino di Biserno, for example, was exciting both because ot its complicated aromatic profile and also because it presented an unexpected Italian take on Cabernet Franc. Sue enjoyed charting the path as the wine evolved in her glass over dinner. Interesting and delicious.

Brentino from Maculan surprised as well because its classed Merlot-Cabernet Sauvignon blend was so very Italian in its style. French grapes, Italian sensibility. We really enjoyed it. But perhaps the biggest surprises from Maculan were the sweet passito wines, made from air-dried grapes (hung to dry on long ropes that remind us of farm-raised mussels). Dindarello is 100 percent Moscato dried for one month to produce a wine with 110 g/l residual sugar.

Torcolato is 100% Vespaiola, an ancient variety associated with the Vicenza area. The name probably comes from the fact that the super-ripe grapes attract wasps. The grapes are dried in a special room for four months nd the wine is aged in French oak for a year. Well-balanced and with 150 g/l residual sugar, Torcolato is a unique experience. What a treat!

Sue and I are still working our way through the wines of Maculan and Tenuta Biserno and we find something new to appreciate at every turn.

Affordabiity and Eric Asimov’s Search for Great Wine Values

April 13, 2026 By Mike Veseth in wine, wine markets 7 Comments

Value and affordability are hot-button terms in today’s economy. It seems like the cost of just about everything is going up, including especially the price of gasoline. No wonder consumers are looking for relief, searching for value.

This is not a new phenomenon, either in the wine world or in the economy more generally. The Wine Economist asked the question Is Wine a Good Value? back in 2024 because affordability was so much in the news then. (You may recall that “affordability” was a political campaign issue then as it is likely to be again this fall.)

The Price of Everything and the Value of Nothing

“Is Wine a Good Value?” noted that many consumer goods markets were suffering from a value deficit and wondered if wine might have the same problem. Are consumers buying less wine because they don’t think it’s worth it, given the economic circumstances and likely future prospects?

Some people, according to Oscar Wilde, know the price of everything and the value of nothing. Are wine drinkers like that? If wine costs too much, some argued, consumers can always trade down to cheaper brands. Yes, but there is evidence that many people have learned that lower price is not necessarily better value. We noted that McDonald’s introduction of cheaper menu items in 2024 had backfired. Customers didn’t want to pay less and get less. They wanted better value. (And McDonald’s, having changed its strategy, seems to be experiencing success giving it to them.)

Zoom ahead from 2024 to 2026 and the affordability issue is even more severe. Tariff effects, higher interest rates and loan repayments, rising fuel prices, and other factors squeeze budgets for consumers and squeeze margins for businesses up and down the supply chain. Wine isn’t the only or even the main victim of affordability stress, but it sure has had an impact. I don’t know how much affordability is to blame for poor wine sales, but I am sure it is a factor (especially in the on-trade).

Asimov and Wine’s Sweet Spot

Enter New York Times wine columnist Eric Asimov who, like many critics, has responded over the years to reader requests for help finding wines that are both good to drink and good value for money. Asimov’s latest advice appeared recently in a column titled “How to Find Great Values in Wine.” Good value doesn’t mean simply looking for the lowest price (or even the second lowest price). Asimov writes that,

For years, I have argued that, to spend the least amount of money, the greatest proportion of good values in wine were in the range of $15 to $20 a bottle. For less than $15, it’s difficult to find bottles that are exciting and emotionally engaging, qualities I want in every bottle I drink. Less expensive bottles are almost always sound, but most are boring and one-dimensional. For a little more money, up to $20, I’ve believed, the range of exciting wines increases exponentially.

Wine prices have risen in recent years, both because of the “premiumization” phenomenon and due to other factors such as rising costs and tariffs on imported wine and winemaking inputs. Is the sweet spot still there? Yes, Asimov says, but it has changed.

This has been true for a long time, but in the nearly 15 years since my first list of $20 bottles, the cast of wines has changed drastically. The bottle of Chablis from Domaine Picq that cost $20 in 2012 now costs $35 to $40, while the Langhe freisa from G.B. Burlotto now runs $45 to $50.

At the same time, however, new wines from new producers in new places have entered the market to fill gaps in the affordability matrix.But value is getting harder and harder to achieve.

How long will $15 to $20 remain the sweet spot for these sorts of wine values? It’s a lot harder to find them today. While I will continue to take on this particular challenge, it’s fairer to say $20 to $30 today is what $15 to $20 used to be.

The Value is Out There

“Value is out there. It requires being open to new grapes, different regions and unknown producers but the rewards are worth it,” Asimov says, and I think he is right. But that’s still a problem. Sue and I are willing to take a chance on unfamiliar wines, trusting that the pleasure we get from the successes will more than offset the disappointment we experience from wines that miss the mark.

But how many people, especially rookie wine drinkers, are willing to take that chance? Wine’s value proposition needs to be good enough so that the delight is worth the disappointment at every price point, don’t you think?

Chateau Changyu Moser XV and the Chinese Wine Chimera

March 31, 2026 By Mike Veseth in Changyu, China wine Leave a comment

China is a puzzle to me, at least when it comes to the wine industry there. Every time I think I understand what is going on it seems to change. My problem, I’ve decided, is that like many people, I like to put things (people, countries, wines) into neat boxes. And sometimes that works just fine. But often it is a struggle because people, places, and things are seldom just one thing. They have that chimera quality of simultaneously being many things at once.

The China (Wine) Syndrome

That’s been my experience with the Chinese wine industry. When my first wine business book, Wine Wars, appeared in 2011 many readers were drawn to the chapter on China because the very idea of Chinese wine seemed wrong. My first experience with Chinese wine, for example, was so bad it was memorable. It was a bottle of 1999 Changyu Cabernet Sauvignon that one of my students brought back from a semester in Beijing. Aroma profile: ash tray, coffee grounds, urinal cake. Poor China, if this is the wine they have to drink!

The same chapter ended with a very different idea of Chinese wine. It was Open That Bottle Night and one of the wines was the Grace Vineyards Tasya’s Reserve Cabernet Franc. It was as delicious as the Changyu was disappointing and distinctive, too. Lucky China, if this is the wine they get to drink!

Which idea of Chinese wine was real? Both, of course. And every time I have circled back to the subject I have found another face, another contradiction. No wonder I keep coming back.

Chateau Changyu Moser XV

Recently Sue and I have been introduced to the wines of Chateau Changyu Moser XV, which takes the “chimera” metaphor to a new level. The project, now more than 20 years old, is a Chinese-European partnership between Changyu wines, China’s oldest and largest winery, and Lenz M. Moser, a 15th generation Austrian winemaker. Chinese vineyards in the Ningxia region, European style.

Click here to view a 2018 promotional video about Chateau Changyu Moser XV that explains the project and shows vivid images of the winery and vineyards.

The wines, all Cabernet Sauvignon, also show some chimera DNA. They are, first of all, both reds (as you would expect) and whites. Moser is fascinated by the potential of Cabernet Sauvignon as a white wine and he goes to some effort to crush the grapes and then very quickly separate the skins from the juice before fermentation begins.

To take the chimera idea one step further, Moser makes two versions of each wine. The Chateau Changyu Moser XV Helan Mountain red and white wines see no oak at all. The Chateau Changyu Moser XV Moser Family red and white wines are oak aged. We also received a special wine called “Purple Air Comes from the East.”

Towering over the project is the final element: the chateau itself, which is quite a dramatic European chateau style building, but scenically set in Ningxia province, not somewhere along the Loire River as the photo shown here might suggest.

Variations of the Chimera Theme

How do chimera wines taste? In theory, I suppose, it could go either way. Some of those early Chinese wines we tasted were chimeras of sorts that didn’t work out very well. Since then, however, we have tasted many Chinese wines that could hold their own in any situation. How do the Chateau Changyu Moser XV wines stack up?

To find out we gathered a chimera sort of tasting group. Zari and Greg are experienced wine enthusiasts whom we have worked with before, but their experience with Chinese wines was limited to a few disappointing glasses during a visit to Beijing a few years ago.

Cynthia Howson and Pierre Ly, on the other hand, have traveled to China many times doing research for their book, Adventures on the China Wine Trail. They could evaluate the wines both in general and in comparison to the many other Chinese wines they had tasted.

The tasting dinner was very interesting. The white Cabernet wines were different from what we expected and, because of the subtle oak treatment of the Moser Family wine, different from each other, too. They were an excellent match to a smoked salmon appetizer that Cynthia and Pierre contributed.

The two Cabernet Sauvignon wines were also very different and the consensus was that the richer Moser Family wine was more satisfying and a good match to our mushroom risotto entree.

The highlight of the evening was the limited-production “Purple Air Comes from the East” Cabernet, which Pierre was especially interested in tasting. We’ll probably never have the opportunity to taste this wine again, so we’ll never know how it might age, but it impresses at this point. Zari’s chocolate stout cake was the perfect pairing.

Good News / Bad News

So we get to report good news about the Chateau Changyu Moser XV wines. The bad news is that U.S. readers will probably have to take our word about the wines because they are not (for now at least) available in this market. They are distributed in some European markets and, of course, in China.

There is one final chimera situation to report. Much of the news we heard about the Chinese wine industry is depressing. Wine consumption in China has fallen dramatically from its pre-pandemic peak. Wine sales have fallen around the world, but nowhere, I think, as much as in China. So China wine is in crisis.

But, while there is no denying this fact, it is also true that Chinese wine is thriving in terms of quality, and there are some segments of the industry that seem to be thriving. At least that’s what we found in the case of Chateau Changyu Moser XV.

Note: By coincidence, the top image on the cover of Cynthia and Pierre’s book is a photo that Pierre took when he visited Chateau Changyu Moser XV!

New Jersey’s “Open Source” Cabernet Franc Project

March 24, 2026 By Mike Veseth in emerging wine regions, wine, wine markets Leave a comment

Recently, Sue and I had a virtual meet-up with a group of winemakers who want to raise New Jersey’s profile on the U.S. wine industry scene and are working together to make that goal happen. Winemakers tend to be very competitive, so finding a group of them who want to play the team game is noteworthy.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that New Jersey has an active wine industry with 76 wineries in 2026 according to Wine Business Monthly. After all, New Jersey sits comfortably between the well-respected wine regions of New York (450 wineries in 2026) and Virginia (395 wineries) with Pennsylvania (401) and Maryland (105) next door.

The Rodney Dangerfield Problem

New Jersey wine suffers from the Rodney Dangerfield “respect” problem. Grapes have been grown and wine made in New Jersey since colonial times, but the shift towards quality wine is relatively recent. New Jersey’s wineries have big ambitions in terms of quality, but small scale in terms of production as is often the case in states where a farm winery act shapes distribution channels. You might think of them as the Garden State’s hidden germs.

A small group of these wineries formed the Winemakers Co-Op in 2015 aiming to both improve the quality of New Jersey wines and to further its reputation. The member wineries are

According to their website their goals are:

Member wineries aim to produce benchmark dry wines from estate‑grown vinifera (European) varieties that illuminate the differences in soil and climate that exist throughout the Garden State. Through a series of intimate tasting events, industry outreach and communication with the press, these wineries have established themselves as leaders of fine wine production on the East Coast. By spearheading essential industry research and development, Co-Op members are striving to push the boundaries of quality with each new vintage.

Sue and I got involved when we were invited to sample the Winemakers Co-Op “Open Source” wines. The Open Source project is such an original idea that we just had to say yes. Here’s how it works.

Common Base, Individual Vision

Each year since 2016 the Co-Op members have chosen a winegrape variety that they all produced as the object of a project to showcase the group’s work. Each winery contributes half a ton of grapes, which are combined and redistributed, providing the “open source” or common base of the wines that each individual member makes.

The source material is the same, but of course each winery chooses what to do with it and so a variety of types and styles of wines result. Most winemakers are a bit competitive in my experience, so I imagine there is some effort to make wines that are distinctive while advancing the collective goal.

Certainly that is the case with the current release, which is made from Cabernet Franc grapes harvested in 2022. This is the first time for Cabernet Franc in the Open Source program. Chardonnay was the focus of the early years of the program. Bordeaux and Pinot Noir blends appeared in 2023 and 2024.

It is interesting to see how different winemakers have responded to the Open Source Cabernet Franc challenge. William Heritage Winery, for example, made a white wine by gently pressing whole clusters and fermenting and ageing in stainless steel with six months of lees contact. Unexpected!

Vive la Difference?

The other wines are red, as you would expect, but differ in all sorts of other ways. Variations on a theme and an opportunity for each winery to experiment and explore. But, since we have no previous experience with New Jersey wines, we were sometimes left scratching our heads. The first wine we tasted, for example, reminded us a little of a Napa Cab Franc we tried recently while the second was closer to a Loire style of wine. Are these wines typical of Cab Franc from this region? Or are they more about exploring differentiation?

I’m not sure we’ve seen a project like this before although it reminds me a bit of the Coro Mendocino project. The Coro Mendocino wineries make distinctive wines from a common blend, but not from the same actual grapes.

Production of the Open Source is obviously limited. Each winery makes only about 23 cases of Open Source wine each year. The wines wear special Open Source labels and this year’s Cab Franc wines sell for $45 per bottle. Sue and I were fortunate to be invited to taste through the Cabernet Franc lineup.

You probably want to know which wine we like best. Too soon to tell, because we haven’t tasted them all yet, and in any case taste is very personal. But the most important thing about the Open Source project is something bigger than the individual wines. The most important thing is that the members of the Winemakers Co-op are working together to take their wines and their reputations to the next level.

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About William Heritage Winery
A fifth-generation family-owned and operated estate vineyard and winery located in Mullica Hill, in the heart of the Outer Coastal Plain American Viticultural Area. Bill & Penni Heritage began cultivating grapes on their 150 acres of apple and peach orchards in 1999, realizing the potential of the Garden State wine industry and starting a new chapter for the next generation.

About Beneduce Vineyards
Founded in 2012 in Pittstown, NJ, Beneduce Vineyards is a sustainably-minded, 4th-generation farm on a mission to prove the potential for world-class wines exists in the soils of Hunterdon County. Focusing on small lot production, creating unique wines from 100% estate grown grapes.

About Hawk Haven Vineyard & Winery
Established in 2008 on land in Cape May that has been in the Wuerker family since the 1940s; Hawk Haven is owned and operated by husband and wife team Todd & Kenna Wuerker. Todd is a self-taught winemaker, crafting a diverse set of wines from 16 acres of estate-grown grapes. He has his sights set on becoming the first Garden State sparkling specialist.

About Unionville Vineyards
Set on 89 acres of preserved farmland in Hunterdon County, Unionville Vineyards comprises five estate vineyards spread over three counties, allowing for unique, expressive wines to be crafted from fruit grown in the varying terroirs of central and northern New Jersey.

About Working Dog Winery
Established in 2001 by a group of friends with a shared passion for winemaking, Working Dog Winery has grown into a nearly 20-acre vineyard producing over a dozen vinifera varietals. After 23 years of dedication, the founding members entrusted the winery’s future to Carlee Ludwig, Sharon Kyle, and Kevin Kyle as they entered retirement in December 2024.

About Auburn Road Vineyard & Winery
Founded in 2003 by former Philadelphia-based lawyers Scott & Julianne Donnini, who left the corporate world and never looked back. Jules is a self-taught winemaker, and Scott runs the marketing and operations – together they create old-world style wines with a keen sense of balance that frames the beauty of the fruit.

U.S. Wine Industry by the Numbers

March 10, 2026 By Mike Veseth in wine, wine markets 1 Comment

I am always excited to receive the annual “Review of the Industry” issue of Wine Business Monthly because it is so jam-packed with data and analysis. The 2026 issue (which was distributed at the Unified Symposium’s State of the Industry Session) is especially welcome because it effectively captures major shifts in the U.S. wine industry today. Here are some key takeaways of the WBM report.

Disappearing Wineries

Winery openings often get a lot of attention. Winery closings, not so much. Doors close, equipment is sold off, inventory is quietly liquidated, and memories fade.

If it seems like the number of wines and wineries is always growing it is due in part to the fact that openings are so much more visible than closings. But new wineries enter the market and existing ones exit every year.

Winery closings were impossible to ignore in 2026, according to WBM. The total number of wineries in the U.S. declined by 3% from 11,450 in 2025 to 11,107 at the start of 2026. That’s a decrease in the net number since there are always some openings to offset closings. The winery count has fallen by 512 since the 2024 data were released according to WBM.

The drop in winery count is widespread. There are wineries in every U.S. state and there were winery closings in every state but one: Missouri (253 wineries). Among the states experiencing losses, California (which has the most wineries) experienced the largest drop in winery count, Pennsylvania had the lowest, with the number falling from 402 to 401 according to the WBM data.

Overall, about one winery closed its doors each day of the year in 2025. That’s a lot of wineries, but not necessarily a lot of wine simply because most wine is made by a few large wineries (see below) but most wineries are relatively small.

WBM also provides data for Canadian wineries. Canada can count 831 wineries in 2026, according to the WBM data, down from 860 in 2025. Wine is made in every region except the Yukon Territories. The largest number of producers are located in British Columbia (317 wineries down from 329 in 2025), Ontario (284 down from 292), and Quebec (163 down from 170).

Clash of the Titans

The largest U.S. wineries are very large indeed and many of them are privately owned and do not release production figures. WBM profiles the top 50 wineries and estimates production when published data are not available. I thought it would be interesting to compare 2026 data for the top five wineries with the numbers from 2025 and 2016. Here’s what I found.

Gallo is #1 in 2026. It is the largest wine company in the U.S. and in the world by volume. Gallo produced an estimated 90 million cases of wine in 2026, down from 94 million in 2025 but higher than the 75 million it produced in 2016. Gallo’s portfolio grew when it acquired a host of wine brands from Constellation a few years ago. It has retrenched more recently and pivoted to other beverages such as the hot-selling High Noon vodka-based RTD brand.
The Wine Group: 43 million cases in 2026, 40 million in 2025, but 57.5 million in 2016.
Trinchero Family Estates: 17 million in 2026, 19 million in 2025. It was #5 with 18.5 million in 2016.
Delicato Family Wines: 16 million cases in 2026, 16.3 million cases in 2025. It was #8 with 8 million cases in 2016.
Deutsche Family Wine & Spirits: 12 million cases in 2026, #7 with 13 million cases in 2025. Not listed in the top 30 wineries in 2016.

The rest of the top ten for 2026: Jackson Family Wines (6), Treasury Wine Estates (7), Ste Michelle Wine Estates (8), Bronco Wine Company (9), WX Brands (100).

Constellation Brands, once the largest wine producer in the world, ranks #28 with 750,000 cases of wine produced. It was #3 with 50 million cases in 2016. Although it has retained a number of prestige wine brands such as Robert Mondavi, Constellation is now much more focused on its Mexican beer portfolio.

Bottom Line: The largest wineries are very large indeed, sell wines at many price points, and have considerable resources to deal with the current down market. But even they are not immune to the problems that plague the industry today. The fact that Gallo is down “only” 4 million cases in the last year sort of takes my breath away.

Distribution Bottleneck

It makes sense that WBM’s Review of the Industry issue includes an analysis of wine distributors. In my studies of different industries I have observed that there tends to be one or two major inefficiencies (I call them bottlenecks) in the value chain. Successful firms and even whole industries organize themselves around the problem of breaking through the bottleneck problem.

What’s the bottleneck in U.S. wine? It isn’t growing grapes or actually making the wine. It is getting it through the three-tier system into the hands of those who can sell it.

The two critical features of U.S. wine noted in the WBM report are, first, distribution remains highly concentrated in a few large firms and there is little top line change to report. Even though Republic National pulled out of California last year, for example, it still ranks as the #2 national wine distributor after Southern Glazer’s.

WBM reports that the distribution bottleneck is getting even narrower, driven by declining demand and narrowing margins. Retailers increasingly focus on a smaller number of SKUs that can generate reliable cash flow, which means that distributors must do the same.

As WBM reports, “… there are 1,061 unique wine distributors that operate across the United States. That’s slightly fewer than this time last year and roughly one-third of the number of wine distributors in business a few decades ago. … “It’s not a time for great variety, not a time to drive a thousand different things,” said Southern Glazer’s chief marketing and sales officer Gene Sullivan. “Customers are saying ‘Give me that stuff that matters.'”

Pareto and the 80/20 Rule

The great Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto observed the 80/20 phenomenon in 1896 and it has become a classic management principle reminding us to focus on what’s most important. The rule shows up in many ways. For example, according to my AI intern,

Business: 80% of sales often come from 20% of customers.
Productivity: 20% of your tasks produce 80% of your meaningful results.
Customer service: 20% of issues generate 80% of complaints.
Wealth distribution: Pareto originally observed that 20% of Italians owned 80% of the land.

The WBM report presents a variation on the 80/20 rule when it comes to distribution. Twenty percent of wines produce 80 percent of sales. The remaining 80 percent of wines face an uphill climb on their path to market. That’s not really new, to be honest (and maybe it is more like 90/10 in some cases) but it is maybe even more important now in a shrinking market.

Anatomy of Wine’s Triple Crisis

March 3, 2026 By Mike Veseth in economic crisis, Shameless Self-Promotion, wine, wine markets 2 Comments

Recently, I’ve noticed that Wine Economist posts and pages that reference my book Wine Wars II: The Global Battle for the Soul of Wine (2022) (such as “Countdown to Wine Wars II and Wine Wars II) are getting a lot of attention. I think I know why.

The biggest updates in Wine Wars II is a new closing section called Wine’s Triple Crisis. As I re-read this section (and reflect on current wine market conditions), I see why current readers might be especially interested. I’ve pasted below a very brief summary of this part of the book (clipped from the introductory chapter) so that you can see what it is about.

The environmental and economic crises are clear (and I hope I did them justice), so I want to draw your attention to the third issue, wine’s identity crisis. What is wine (is it just alcohol)? Who is it for (just for boomers or just for the wealthy or just for elites)? What does wine do to us (does it make us happy or does it make us sick)?

The identity of wine has changed dramatically in the last 100 years. No wonder the wine business has changed, too. Here’s that excerpt from Wine Wars II.

WINE’S TRIPLE CRISIS
The global wine industry is in the midst of a triple crisis, and I am not really sure how it will end. The climate change crisis comes first. It affects everything if we consider both direct and indirect effects, so it may seem odd to think of it as a wine crisis. Wine grapes generally can be made to grow under quite extreme conditions; in some colder regions, they actually bury the vines in the winter to protect them and unearth them each spring so that they can come back to life (you might call this Lazarus viticulture). But specific wine grape varieties thrive in only very narrow bands of average temperature, and wine regions defined by particular grapes or wine styles are threatened by relatively small changes in environmental conditions. Wine is, therefore, the canary in the coal mine when it comes to climate change. It will feel the impacts before many other industries, and so it is not a surprise, as I explain later, that wine businesses are among the strongest advocates for progressive environmental action.

The climate change crisis dwarfs everything else in the long run, but because the long run can seem far away and we often misjudge how fast it is approaching, climate concerns do not get the attention they deserve. Indeed, as the global reaction to the coronavirus pandemic crisis has demonstrated, climate change generally isn’t treated with the “drop everything” or “operation moonshot” urgency that real crises warrant. But even if the climate change threat were to disappear tomorrow, wine would still be in trouble.

The second crisis is economic. Wine is a magical beverage, but it is a crazy business. Wine’s economic environment is characterized by cyclical, structural, and “wild card” forces that make it difficult to prepare for or successfully execute a business plan.

Global wine consumption grew steadily for the twenty years that ended in about 2008, the date we associate with the global financial crisis. Rising wine sales were important because they slowly soaked up a surplus of wine. Too much wine? Well, for many years the European Union in effect subsidized wine
production to stabilize agricultural economies, especially in France, Italy, and Spain. Wine farmers were paid to grow grapes and to make wine that could not be sold, so some of it was distilled into industrial alcohol. Yuck! Those policies are history, and European winegrowers turned from government subsidy wine to wine aimed at global markets. This is a good thing, but it happened just as wine production increased in other parts of the world, too. The result: a lot of grapes, a lot of wine, and a lot of jobs and incomes at risk.

Rising global wine sales were most welcome in this context, and when sales dropped a bit in 2008, no one was very concerned. “It’s just the economy, dummy,” they said. “Wine will spring back when the economy improves.” But it didn’t, and the next ten years were what I have called “wine’s lost decade.” Why did wine lose its mojo? There are many possible reasons (I explain them later), but the sudden loss in momentum changes the nature of the game from a positive-sum fight, where a rising tide raises all ships, to a zero-sum fight for market share. And the battle isn’t just between Old World and New World or among the growers and producers in these regions; the opponents are now more diverse and unexpected than ever before.

The reason? Wine’s identity crisis. Wine has never been just one thing. It is, after all, both that fancy French Champagne at the top of the wine wall and that big box of Franzia at the bottom. Wine is healthful (think Mediterranean diet) and dangerous (read the government required warnings on wine labels in the United States). It is culture to some and just another commodity to others.

The cartoon character Pogo famously said, “We have met the enemy, and he is us,” and this is true in a way for wine. The biggest threat to wine’s identity is something inherent to wine’s existence: alcohol. You might think that wine is just grape juice with alcohol, but wine doesn’t taste much like the grapes it is made from except in a few specific cases. Fermentation doesn’t just add an alcoholic kick; it transforms the product in complex ways. It’s the same with the way that fermenting yeast makes bread different from flour and water. So wine as we know it is impossible without alcohol, but it may also be impossible with it if antialcohol forces have their way.

Wine’s identity crisis is significant because it seems like those who see wine as a social or health problem, not an essential element in our culture, have seized the momentum. If wine doesn’t know who it is and what it is and cannot tell its story to the world, then how can it survive?

OTBN 2026: The OG Wine Celebration We Need Today

February 24, 2026 By Mike Veseth in wine Leave a comment

The year was 1999 and Dorothy J. Gaiter and John Brecher (aka Dottie and John), then the wine columnists for the Wall Street Journal, surveyed the social landscape and realized somebody needed to do something to help people get together their hopes, fears, thoughts, and stories over a glass (or two) of wine.

The Birth of OTBN

Why wine? Here at Wine Economist world headquarters we like to say the water keeps us apart but wine brings us together. Maybe that was it. But maybe it had something to do with the fact that, as I wrote in my book, Around the World in Eighty Wines, wine’s purpose is to make us happy. And the world always needs more happiness. The problem, Dottie and John realized, is that wine is too often set aside for special occasions that don’t come around nearly often enough. Something needed to be done!

The result was a global holiday called Open That Bottle Night (OTBN), which is celebrated on the last Saturday in February each year. Yes, we know that every day should be Open That Bottle Night, but in reality that seldom happens. There are all these bottles sitting around, their superpower to bring people together waiting like Aladdin’s genie to be released.

Wineries Embrace OTBN

As Dottie and John reported last year, many wineries have embraced OTBN and made it their own. Some do this for purely commercial purposes, I suppose, because the wine industry is looking for ways to sell more wine, especially now. But I think it is as much pull as push in many cases. Many consumers are thirsty for community and winery OTBN events often provide the connection that they seek.

Fielding Hills Winery in Chelan, Washington, was one of the wineries featured in that article and we asked manager Megan Mitchell to tell us about what OTBN means to the winery. Megan’s parents, Mike and Karen Wade, founded the winery over 25 years ago (her sister Robin was one of my university students). Here’s what she had to say:

At Fielding Hills, we have been “unofficially” celebrating Open That Bottle Night since Karen stumbled upon Dorothy J. Gaiter & John Brecher’s Love by the Glass: Tasting Notes from a Marriage (2003) in the early 2000s. In 2024, we celebrated our 25th harvest by hosting twenty-five events though the year, Open That Bottle Night became an “official” celebration at the winery.

During the evening, we journey back through decades of winemaking and growing seasons, reflecting on what was going on not only in the vineyard but also in the world. On our tasting sheet, I like to put some pop culture references as well as the price of gas and of a dozen eggs….

The fun of it is that you never know what you’re going to get or what people will like. My favorite part of the night is the end, when we conduct a straw poll to see what people enjoyed the most…it’s usually a pretty even split between the old stuff and the new stuff. … In 2026, we are going to pour a vertical of merlot… 2013 (#1 Merlot in WA state), 2014, 2015, and a 100% 2015. I also like to pour a current release (2022) and a barrel sample (2024).

How Do You Celebrate OTBN?

There is probably no wrong way to celebrate OTBN. Since our first OTBN in 2009, we have enjoyed formal dinners, restaurant dinners, informal gatherings, and even a Zoom session during COVID, which was a surprisingly moving experience. In 2011 we were traveling in Argentina and held OTBN on our own. These days we host a potluck where our friends bring wine, a story about the wine, and some food to share.

It is always a memorable experience, but the lasting memories are seldom about the wines themselves. It is usually the stories that stick in our minds. It is as if opening the bottle actually opens something else, something more important. I don’t think I can explain it any better than that.

Sue asked some of our long-time OTBN friends to talk about what OTBN means to them. Here’s what they had to say:

“It’s now like an annual holiday, enshrined as it is on the February calendar,” said Mary. “For me it’s not so much the wine — it is, of course, but ‘wine’ has come to mean many more things: the steadiness of friendship, the nostalgia of memories, the uncomplicated joy of gathering. And so the wine, gaining complexity and texture as it ages, but also a simple pleasure. When I choose the wine now — which, of course, Ron [her late husband] the masterful storyteller always did, so it’s kind of a poignant task — I think of those happy times we had together.”

Ken, who, with his wife, Rosemary, has hosted several times over the years, said that OTBN is a “great opportunity to see cherished friends and share our mutual appreciation of delicious food and wine while listening to some great stories. I always learn more about wine and the people with whom I’m sharing it.”

Richard said, “Every year is a special year, and I am sure this year will be no different. Thank you both for introducing OTBN and including me and Bonnie in the festivities!” He cited two memorable years in particular:

From 2010: That was the night that Ken and Rosemary had their “indentured children” as food and beverage servers. It was their teenaged son’s first taste of Chateau d’Yquem — and Richard’s as well. The son’s assessment: “The wine Mr. C. let me taste was really good.” This also counts as one of Ken’s top memories.

From 2014: Ken and Rosemary celebrated their 25th anniversary by serving 25-year-0ld wines plus wines of their children’s birth years.

Is OTBN a Serious Holiday?

Dottie and John contacted us as they were preparing a recent Grape Collective column on OTBN. They were concerned about celebrating wine when there are so many very serious social, political, economic, and even geo-political issues that demand our attention. Is it un-serious to think about wine at a time like this? Our reply became part of their story:

This will be our 17th OTBN. We have a core group of six people, with others off and on over the years. Our OTBN isn’t just about the wine — its heart is the people and the stories they tell about the wine. Yes, these are indeed difficult times. It seems the things that divide us as a country and a world are even deeper than before. This makes Open That Bottle Night even more important. Wine’s superpower is that it brings us together and coming together over a glass of wine is sometimes the first step to bigger things. Of course we are celebrating OTBN. Now more than ever.

I guess when you think about it OTBN really is a serious holiday, but the trick is not to take it too seriously. Because it really isn’t about the wine. It’s about what the wine can do when we share it with others.

Happy OTBN 2026. Share the wine, the stories, and the love.

Trump Tariffs: Why I’m Waiting for Godot

February 17, 2026 By Mike Veseth in Uncategorized 5 Comments

Sometimes I feel like one of the characters in “Waiting for Godot,” Samuel Beckett’s famous play where nothing much happens and yet suspense somehow builds until … nothing happens again. Whoever Godot is, he never makes an appearance. The wait goes on and on.

It’s a little like waiting for shoes to drop. One … one … one … when will that second shoe hit the floor?

When is a Tax not a Tax?

The object of my frustration is the Trump tariff case that is being considered by the U.S. Supreme Court. The tariffs apply to and distort trade for thousands of products, including wine.

The basic issue is whether the tariffs of 2025 were legally implemented. Tariffs are a tax on imports that discourage imports and raise revenue (about $30 billion per month during the last half of 2025). The Constitution requires that revenue acts must originate in the House of Representatives and therefore cannot be imposed by edict from above. The architects of the Constitution had understandable concerns about taxation without representation, as you may remember from your history classes.

Congress has given the President power to “regulate” international trade in some circumstances, but tariffs are not specifically mentioned in this regard. The law is more commonly applied to trade embargoes, which prohibit trade, but don’t generate revenue of any sort.

Do the tariffs tax or do they regulate? The Administration argues for regulate, but President Trump inconveniently brags about the revenue haul. Experts speculate that the Supreme Court will strike down some but not all of the tariffs on the basis of the regulate/revenue distinction. Stay tuned.

When Will The Supreme Court Rule?

This is the Godot question because we have already been waiting for a while for an answer. The ruling may be released later this week (the date February 20 is often mentioned), but there is no set timetable. The wait could extend into the spring.

How will the Trump Administration respond?

If the Supreme Court rules against some of the tariffs, Administration officials have suggested that they will act quickly to re-impose them under different laws with different justifications. Such action is likely to result in legal action, of course.

This means that the final status of the tariffs could be tied up in the courts for a long time, extending the Godot problem into 2027 or beyond. So February 20, if that turns out to be the Supreme Court decision day, may not be the end of the play but merely the start of the next act.

Follow the Money

If a tax is improperly levied it should be refunded. I’m not a constitutional scholar, but that seems a reasonable principle. So even if improperly imposed tariffs are replaced by new proper ones (if that happens), it seems like the previous payments should be refunded. Do you agree? Or is this some sort of “finders keepers” situation where the government keeps the revenue it should not have collected in the first place?

Making those who bore the burden of the taxes whole is not necessarily an easy task, since costs were often passed on through the value chain. In economic terms, it is a difference between legal incidence of the tax (who wrote the check to the government) and economic incidence (who paid the ultimate cost). If you paid more for a car because of tariffs on steel, aluminum, or imported parts for it, or if you had your hours cut at a factory because of declining profits or sales due to higher costs, then you suffered the economic incidence. Don’t hold your breath waiting for a tariff refund check.

The problem is made more complicated by the vast sums involved. If the government is forced to issue bonds to borrow the refund money, the impact on interest rates and credit availability could be jaw-dropping. I expect the refunds, if there are any, will be tied up in court, too.

Who Really Paid the Tariffs?

Some of the people who favor the tariffs act as though they are a tax on foreign producers or governments, but in fact the tariffs are mainly collected from U.S. firms who then attempt to pass them on to clients and customers or bear them as higher costs. There is only a foreign burden if imposing the tax drives down world prices, spreading the impact abroad.

Last week the New York Federal Reserve Bank research department released a study that found that 90 percent of the tariff burden fell on domestic consumers in the form of higher prices and on domestic firms in the form of higher costs. This is actually a bit lower than previous studies that put the figure at 96 percent.

Much of the burden of the tariffs, however, takes the form of what didn’t happen, not what did, because taxes both raise price and reduce quantity exchanged. Thus a full accounting of the burden must include the lost utility of the final goods that were not imported because of the tariff costs and the lost value of U.S. exports that didn’t happen because imported parts and raw materials were too costly or not available. One reason that the inflation impact of the tariffs so far is so modest is that inflation only measures what did happen while much of the real burden is related to what didn’t happen.

So what’s not happening is important. That’s a real Waiting for Godot situation.

Tit for Tat

But we won’t really know the score until we see how foreign governments and consumers decide how to react to the evolving tariff situation. Checkers is one of the first board games that children learn to play and they quickly learn about tit for tat and the need to think several moves ahead. How will gains and losses be distributed when the dust finally settles?

So there is a long road ahead of us before we know what will happen about tariffs. I hope the insiders are right and that the Supreme Court will get the process started on February 20.

Until then I’ll be here … waiting for Godot.

Five Things We Learned at the 2026 Unified Symposium

February 10, 2026 By Mike Veseth in Unified Wine & Grape Symposium, wine, wine markets Leave a comment

Sue and I have recently returned from the Unified Wine & Grape Symposium in Sacramento. The Unified is North America’s largest wine industry gathering. It is a big conference, so we employ a divide-and-conquer strategy. Sue focuses on the big trade show, I see what’s going on at the sessions, and we both talk with everyone we can in the hallways and receptions.

We don’t have a polished report to present, but here is a collection of field notes that capture the essence of our experience this year.

Stress Test

Just about all of the 1000+ people who attended the State of the Industry session seemed to have one of these 5-inch flexible “stress bottles,” which they squeezed for relief during tense moments. Kudos to sponsor Vintage Crop for helping us recognize that we are in difficult times and we need to find positive ways to channel our anxiety and move forward.

Attendance was somewhat lower this year — understandable given the economic situation — but the overall mood was more positive than you might expect. No one fooled themselves into thinking that good times are around the corner, but the data seem to suggest that the market may stabilize in 2027 or early 2028. What’s it going to look like then? What can we do now to prepare for what lies ahead? Those questions dominated the discussion.

Squeezing the stress bottles might have helped everyone concentrate a bit better on the parts of the situation that they can control, even if there is still much uncertainty.

2. Ask Your Doctor

The Tuesday Keynote Luncheon featured a conversation about wine and health between Drinks Insider’s Felicity Carter and Laura Catena, head of Argentina’s Catena winery and, significantly, also a medical doctor. Catena somehow managed for many years to be both a winemaker in Mendoza and an emergency room physician in San Francisco. I wish I had half her energy, discipline, and focus.

There is a lot of information, misinformation, and controversy about the health effects of wine. Many in the wine business complain about a tilted playing field because they are not permitted to make positive health statements about wine while, on the other side of the debate, anti-alcohol proponents can say just about anything.

The Carter and Catena presentation was packed full of facts and analysis. The large luncheon audience is certainly much better informed now about the risks, trade-offs, and benefits of moderate wine consumption.

But is there a good way to get the message out to the broader consumer market? Of course, according to Sue. Dr. Catena advised consumers to consult with their doctors instead of the internet. There are people with particular medical circumstances or family histories who really shouldn’t drink any alcohol at all. For the rest of us — well, it depends on a lot of things including what we drink, how, and how much. A medical professional who knows the facts and the personal circumstances is best positioned to advise on this as with other health matters.

They also suggested looking beyond scary headlines. Good medical studies are complex, and require the reader to dive deeply into the methodology, the assumptions and biases that may be present, and the results.

3. It’s a Wine World After All

You hear lots of international languages and accents at the Unified. Spanish, of course (see below), French, Italian, Portuguese, British, Australian, New Zealand, South African, and more. Wine is a global industry and the Unified is the largest industry gathering in the western hemisphere. The world comes to Sacramento every year for this big event.

Sue loves to walk the trade show floor connecting with old friends and looking for the new and surprising. Two new booths stood out this year. What was ITA (the Italian Trade Agency) doing at the Unified? We often work with the ITA when they are promoting exports from Italian wineries and regions, but the Unified trade show isn’t where you go to sell wine to consumers; it’s where you go to sell equipment and services to winegrowers and wine makers. And that’s why the ITA was there. Italy is an important wine technology center (as we learned when we attended SIMEI a few years ago), and the ITA was there to support those businesses.

Sue was also surprised when she stopped to inspect some of the most beautiful wine labels she’s ever seen and then discovered they came from China. They are the work of CIR Label, a custom label creator for global brands. The business was founded by designers who had trouble locating label makers who could realize their visions and now it focuses on making clients’ visions come to life. CIR stands for Creativity Into Reality and the creativity was clearly on display. You can see some sample labels here, but the photos don’t really do them justice because the textures of the final product don’t come through very well.

They say they can deliver labels about a week after final approval. Amazing.

The Unified was a bold investment for CIR Label. Sue asked if they had any existing U.S. clients and the answer was no. The booth was pretty busy when we were there, which is a good sign. I hope they come back next year and we can see how their U.S. business has developed.

4. Spanish Spoken Here

You won’t be surprised to know that the U.S. wine industry is multilingual. Spanish is an important language in the vineyards and cellars — and really at every stage and level of the industry. Since the Unified is by and for the entire industry, the development of Spanish-language programming has been a high priority.

The Spanish programming is concentrated on Thursday morning and we heard that there was some anxiety about the gatherings because of the possibility of ICE activity around the convention center. These are tense times. Would people stay away? Fortunately, we are told, participation was very strong and the programs were successful. That’s a good thing because the future of wine needs all the help it can get from all the talented people it can attract and foster. Spanish (and many other languages) spoken here for sure.

5. Heard on the Trade Show Floor

The trade show covers every aspect of the wine industry, from the ground up to the finished product. Attendance here seemed to be lower than in previous years; an organization that sent 20 representatives in the past may have sent only ten to 15 this year. The enthusiasm for the show, however, was in full force.

Robotics, computer systems, and other technologies for both the vineyard and wine production continue to be large presence. Like other agri-businesses, the wine sector is facing worker shortages and increasing labor costs, plus on-going concerns about environmental impacts and water consumption (among a gazillion other topics). Whatever you might need, someone at the trade show will have a technology for it.

In recent years, a few trade show exhibitors included technology for non-alcoholic and low-alcohol wines; not so much this year. Maybe it is still too early to know what lies ahead for NA and LA wines.

And in a year when vineyard owners are pulling up vines, there were several purveyors of plants doing business, an indication that growers are thinking about the future even in difficult times.

This article only scratches the surface of the 2026 Unified Symposium. Reading about it isn’t enough. If you are seriously interested in the U.S. wine industry, you’ve simply got to go and experience it yourself. Mark your calendar for January 26-28, 2027.