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.
Wine Goes to the Opera
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 
Ruud Scholten (a.k.a. 
Five Buck Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon?
Eventually, however, Rex Hill was acquired by A to Z Winery when it found itself in sudden need of production facilities. And then A to Z (and Rex Hill) joined Erath Winery as part of Ste Michelle Wine Estates and its Sycamore Partners, which acquired SMWE in 2021. Sycamore Partners sold the Washington assets of SMWE in 2025, but retains the trio of Oregon wineries.
The folks at 
Canadian Boycott Bites