How Sherry Went from Boom to Bust to Today

June 10, 2025 By Mike Veseth in Spain, wine, wine history, wine markets 1 Comment

We published an article here at The Wine Economist a few years ago, asking “Can Sherry be the Next Big Thing?” “Probably not,” we said. “But it doesn’t have to be. It is a timeless wine waiting to be re-discovered by a new generation of wine drinkers.”

I’m glad we didn’t go too far in our assessment of Sherry’s potential back in 2017 because Sherry producers who have been around for a while are cautious about booms because they know they can be followed by busts. That was one message we heard when we met with César Saldaña, the President of the Sherry D.O. Consejo Regulador, the industry organization that makes and enforces the rules that govern Sherry production and promotes the product, too.

A Sherry boom? Not a good idea, he told us. Sherry has a history of booms and busts, and what it needs today is stability to build a foundation for the future.

UK Supermarket Boom

Sherry’s most recent boom occurred in the 1980s when British supermarket wine sales were growing so fast. Britain has long been the key export market for Sherry wines, and the surge in sales of inexpensive private label Sherry combined with government subsidies to encourage exports caused the industry to explode. How big was the boom? Vineyard area increased from about 7000 hectares to over 20,000 hectares!

Booms are often followed by busts, and Sherry sales have fallen. The crisis came in 1986-87 when Spain entered the European Union and the flow of subsidies suddenly dried up. Sherry’s diminished reputation made it difficult to command prices necessary to sustain production without government assistance.

It has taken a while, but vineyard areas are finally back in the 6000 to 7000 hectare range again. Consolidation has occurred, with the large bodegas growing and acquiring brands as the number of independent producers has fallen. Cooperatives, which account for about half of total production according to my sources, sell young base wines to the big bodegas where they are aged, blended, bottled, and sold.

Sherry Crystal Ball

What does the future look like for the Sherry industry in this market environment? We will answer this question in more detail next week, when we look at five specific wineries and their particular strategies. But here are some general patterns we observed.

Innovation: Think about Sherry as an ingredient and not just a beverage. Sherry-based cocktails were featured in that Financial Times article about Sherry’s chic appeal, for example, and a popular drink hereabouts is Fino and Sprite or 7-Up. It is called Rebujito.

And then there is Croft Twist Fino Spritz, a delicious white spritz wine that blends Fino Sherry with elder flower, lemon, and mint cordials, along with sparkling water. It reminded us a little of the White Port Spritz drinks we enjoy in Porto. Finally, Sherry can be the base of delicious Vermut (Vermouth) drinks, which is another growing category.

Non-fortified wines. If fortified wines have plateaued, as they have in Spain and also in Portugal, attention naturally shifts to unfortified wines, which are seen as an opportunity for both growth and diversification. As noted last week, Sue and I found the red wines we sampled (made by Alvear and Gonzalez Byass wineries) more interesting than the white wines we sampled with a couple of exceptions (Forlong Blanco from Cadiz, for example).

Spanish brandy. Sherry wines are fortified with spirits, so stills are everywhere in the Sherry Triangle, and brandy production is common. Spanish brandy is popular both in Spain and in the Spanish-speaking world. In fact, I think brandy from Jerez is probably better known and more popular in some places than the region’s signature Sherry wine. It is an important source of revenue for the Sherry producers we met.

Sherry barrels. Forget the wine. Sometimes it is the barrel customers want. If you have ever toured a Sherry house you know that the barrels are painted black, so when you see a bunch of unpainted barrels they really stand out. And we saw many of these barrels because whiskey aged in Sherry barrels is a popular beverage these days. Sherry firms age their wines for a period in new barrels that they profitably sell to whiskey makers. It is interesting that some consumers who would probably not drink Sherry wine want to enjoy Sherry’s influence in this way.

Wine tourism. Jerez is a popular destination with good tourist facilities. The sherry bodegas receive about 240,000 visitors today. The region hosts many fairs and festivals and, when we were there, MotoGP races at the Jerez circuit that once was home to Formula One competitions. You can find Jerez wine tours out of both Seville to the north and Cadiz, a popular cruise ship port, to the south. Many Sherry houses have ambitious wine tours and hospitality programs with restaurants and even hotels (we stayed at the Hotel Bodega Tio Pepe, for example, and dined at the winery’s Pedro Nolasco Restaurant).

Multi-region wine businesses. Finally, we have noticed in Spain (and in Italy, too) the tendency of wine businesses to build a portfolio of wineries across different regions. The ability to fill efficient production and distribution pipelines with a variety of products can be an advantage if done well. The addition of Sherry to a Spanish wine portfolio makes as much sense today as linking Port and Sherry producers together (think Sandeman or Osborne) did at an earlier stage.

César Saldaña is right. Sherry doesn’t need to boom (and bust) to succeed. There are many ways for the industry to broaden and deepen without supercharging sales. Next week, we will examine several case studies to see what paths individual producers are taking to move beyond boom and bust.

Field Notes from a Visit to the Sherry Triangle

June 3, 2025 By Mike Veseth in Spain, wine, wine history, wine markets, wine tourism 1 Comment

Sue and I recently returned from three weeks in Spain. We spent a few days in Madrid (where we dropped in at FEV General Assembly meetings), but most of the time in Andalusia, home of Sherry and Montilla-Moriles wines. Great wines, good food, and welcoming people. We soaked up a lot of information (and wine, too).

This is the first of a brief series of Wine Economist columns about our experiences and what they tell us about these wines and their wine market more generally. We begin with a “field notes” column, a kaleidoscopic collection of observations meant to give you a sense of what we saw and heard on the wine road in Spain. More focused articles will follow shortly.

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Sherry, which is fortified, is from the Jerez-Xérès-Sherry region and made from Palomino, Pedro Ximénes, and Moscatel grapes. The Sherry Triangle is the name given to the Jerez D.O., the only region where true Sherry wines are made. The “triangle” is roughly defined by lines connecting the cities of Jerez de la Frontera, Sanlucar de Barrameda, and El Puero de Santa Maria, where the wineries are located.

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People like to say that wine is made in the vineyard, but in the case of Sherry, what happens in the cellar is key. It is difference in cellar processes more than grape quality or variety that determines what type of Sherry will be in your glass. In this regard, Sherry may be more like Champagne and Port.

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About half of our time in Spain was focused on wine; the other half on the history, culture, and people of Andalusia. We visited five wineries chosen to give us a view of the wine industry’s diversity in this region.

Bodegas Williams & Humbert, the producer of Dry Sack, Don Zoilo, Canasta, and other brands.
Bodegas Lustau, whose Sherry wines are widely available in the U.S. market.
Bodega Gonzalez Byass, maker of a wide range of products both in Spain and around the world, including the famous Tío Pepe brand.
Bodegas Tradición, a relatively young winery making very old wines.
Bodegas Alvear in the Montilla-Moriles region near Cordoba. The Montilla wines are kissing cousins of Sherry, but can’t wear the official Sherry seal.

We enjoyed conversations with many wine industry people including Susana Garcia Dolla of OIVE, César Saldaña of the Sherry D.O. Consej0 Regulador, and Mauricio Gonzalez-Gordon of Gonzalez Byass. We benefited from advice from our friend George Sandeman. Many thanks to everyone who hosted us, answered our questions, and helped us get the most out of our visit.

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We usually taste wines with trade groups, not “civilian” consumers, so we were very interested to see what would happen when we accompanied a typical tour group to Bodegas Alvear. We first tasted a light, fruity unfortified white wine and then three of the traditional wines: Fino, Olorosso, and Pedro Ximenez. At the end of the tasting the question was asked: Which ones do you like? All hands went up for the fruity white. Only a few hands were raised for Fino and Olorosso with a few more for the PX.

The wines were great (Alvear is the oldest winery in Montilla and one of the best in Spain). The wines from Montilla-Moriles focus more on Pedro Ximenez, which grows there the best, with similar techniques but they not generally fortified. Very hot temperatures, very ripe grapes, high natural alcohol levels. That’s the story of Montilla.

The fruity white, which is called “El Rebate” after the step at the entrance of a Montilla house, is meant a welcoming gateway to the world of wine. It was a familiar taste to our touring friends and they loved it.

The Fino and Olorosso presented them with unfamiliar tastes, dryer, nutty, without fruit notes. The excellent PX, an Alvear speciality, was really well balanced, but sweeter than our new friends were accustomed too. Sue and I loved it. Most of our friends didn’t understand it or the other traditional wines very well.

The same wines at a trade tasting would probably have an entirely different ranking from the civilian group. We report these results because they help explain why Sherry (and the similar Montilla) wines are unlikely candidates for broad consumption. They are different and it takes a little effort to understand and appreciate them. It is effort well spent, but a barrier nonetheless.

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Sherry is not one specific wine. Many styles, many aging regimes: Fino, Amontillado, Manzanilla, Oloroso, Palo Cortado, Pedro Ximénez. Cream sherry (made sweet by the addition of rectified grape must or, even better, sweet PX wine) is what people think Sherry is, but isn’t. Lucious PX is sweet but balanced. One of the most memorable tastes of the trip was at a Taberna la Montillana in Córdoba where we were served a Bodegas Toro Alba Don PX 1955 at the end of the meal. Amazing.

However, Sherry is often stereotyped as a sticky, sweet apéritif that granny drinks at Christmas, which might be an insult to Sherry, granny, and Christmas! But most Sherry wine produced is dry, the style preferred in Andalusia. It reminds us of the problem that Riesling confronts. Riesling is too sweet, people say before they have even tasted it. But most Riesling that we encounter today is dry or off-dry.

Some Sherry wines are sweet, of course, just as some Riesling wines are sweet. In Sherry’s case the stereotype probably results from very popular and widely distributed brands like Harvey’s Bristol Cream, which are sweet; people generalize from that experience. Getting people to embrace dry Sherry can be as hard as getting them to try dry Riesling.

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Sue and I had an “ah ha” moment at Bodegas Tradición. We were tasting through their wonderful wines. Did we want to try the Cream Sherry? We hesitated (which is not like us). Maybe not, we said. Cream Sherry has a bad reputation (see above). Well, try our Cream Sherry. And it was great, a blend of Amontillado and PX with superb balance. We had to abandon our prejudice. Back home, we bought and enjoyed some Harvey’s, too. Time to review stereotypes for Sherry and more generally!

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As in the Douro Valley, there is a movement in Andalusia to produce more non-fortified wines using the traditional grape varieties. Sue and I were on the lookout for these table wines during our visit and we were a bit surprised by what we found. We expected white wines because Sherry grapes are white. But we were disappointed with the white wines we found. It seems that Palomino does not ready yield really great wines (I am sure there are exceptions because we only had time to taste a few of them.

The red wines we tried surprised us. First came a Palacio Quemado Crianza produced by Bodegas Alvear from an old vine Tempranillo vineyard north of Seville. Distinctive, wonderful with the traditional foods of Córdoba. Then we enjoyed the Finca Moncloa, produced by Gonzalez Byass in the Cadiz region. It is a special project designed to preserve and promote the native Tintilla de Rota grape. The blend of native and international grape varieties was terrific both times, especially with roast lamb.

Tenuta Licinia: In Praise of Philosophers & their Wines

May 22, 2025 By Mike Veseth in Italian wine, wine, wine markets 1 Comment

If you flip to the back of my 2017 book Around the World in Eighty Wines, you’ll find a list of the wines from my global adventures. I didn’t want to just list them alphabetically or sort by price or critic rating. Organizing them by country of origin didn’t seem right, either. So I invented categories that would link wines with similar characteristics.

The Joy of Lists

The first category, “Wines of the People,” includes Two Buck Chuck, Mateus Rosé, Mouton Cadet Rouge, and Four Cousins Sweet Rosé from South Africa, among others. These are very different wines united by their popular appeal and market success. Do you see the connection?

Next up is “Noble Wines,” and it starts with Chateau Petrus and continues with Henschke’s “Hill of Grace” from Australia and several others. You can probably think of the wines that you’d add to the Noble list. I admit the lists are totally subjective. I’d probably include different wines today. That’s part of the joy of wine (and of lists).

One of my favorite groups is called “Philosopher Wines.” Sometimes we encounter wines that demand more attention than others and provoke a certain amount of introspection, too. You don’t drink them so much as contemplate them. And we are sad when the glass is finally empty.

Philosopher vs Philosopher’s

These are the “Philosopher Wines” and just reading the list (which starts with a 100-year-old Tawny from Seppeltsfield in Australia and ends with Methode Ancienne Cabernet Sauvignon from Springfield Estate in South Africa) gives me a special feeling.

I don’t plan to revise or update my 80-wine journey but, if I were to update the list, I think I’d have to add a new category. In addition to “Philosopher Wines” I’d have “Philosopher’s Wine,” wines made by philosophers. I’ll bet there are more than a few (didn’t Warren Winiarski of Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars study political philosophy at the University of Chicago before he went down the wine rabbit hole?).

This thought is provoked by an online tasting of Tenuta Licinia wines that Sue and I took part in a few weeks ago. Tenuta Licinia is a small (6.5 hectares of vineyards) winery in a part of Tuscany that doesn’t get too much attention. This particular area near Lucignano had a long history of wine that faded in the 20th Century. Now it is coming back.

A Certain Idea of Wine

The project started about 50 years ago as the personal mission of Jacques de Liedekerke, a prominent Belgian attorney. He recognized the potential of certain vineyard plots in the region and, over 20 years, slowly brought them back to life. His vineyards and his mission eventually passed to his grandson, James Marshall, who, like Winiarski, has followed a path from the serious study of philosophy to the serious study of viticulture and enology.

Talking with Marshall via Zoom reminded me (in a good way, I want to point out) of any number of conversations I have had with philosophers during my academic years. There were thoughtful pauses and occasional clouds of self-doubt mixed with sure statements of principle and intent.

Marshall has for sure a certain idea of wine (to paraphrase Charles De Gaulle), which is based on particular sites with their aspects and soil profiles and particular grape varieties and getting the combinations just right. Winemakers, like philosophers, need to have strong principles that they constantly question, I guess.

Marshall has a number of provocative ideas about wine and one that I like a lot is that his wines should be so good that they appeal to novices, people who don’t know much about wine or don’t have much experience with it. This struck me as odd at first because we normally think of novices as having simple tastes that need to be developed over time to appreciate the best wine.

The Magic Words

But then he said the magic words, Chateau d’Yquem. D’Yquem is widely recognized as one of the world’s greatest wines (indeed, it is often named the world’s best). Yet, Marshall noted, it is immediately appealing to both experts and rookies. His goal isn’t to make a Tuscan d’Yquem, but to make wines as delicious and appealing in their own ways as d’Yquem is in its way.

We were lucky to receive four wines to sample. The Tenuta Licinia Montepolli (named for the vineyard) is an IGT Toscana blend of Merlot and Petit Verdot that was elegant and delicious. The IGT Toscana Sasso di Fato, a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, and Petit Verdot, was complex, elegant, and memorable. One of the best wines of the year so far. Both wines were light and bright and refreshing, but serious at their core.

Sue and I agreed that the wines did not especially remind us of their component grape varieties. They tasted like … well, I guess they tasted of the place more than the grape and, if this is true, it reflects Marshall’s intent and his attention to detail.

The Petit Verdot Question

We also received half bottles of varietal Cabernet Franc and Sangiovese and we are working on a sampling strategy for them. But the wine that I would love to taste is the 100% Petit Verdot Sasso di Licinia because Marshall brought it up so often in the Zoom interview.

He really doesn’t like the Petit Verdot, he said a couple of times. Wrong grape, wrong place. Subsoils not exactly right. Not what he wants to do. But it is really good with the local Tuscan steak and in fact a neighborhood restaurant wants him to put some in bag-in-box for by-the-glass sales, which makes sense. Marshall really doesn’t like the idea of bag-in-box any more than he likes the Petit Verdot itself, but the wine is really nice with the steak. That’s a fact. So maybe he should do it.

And so on, around and around. Maybe yes, maybe no. It’s kind of fun to turn it over in your mind and see where you come out. Oh, philosophers, you are so interesting! And some of you make really good wine. I’d love to hear from other philosopher winemakers in the comments section.

Don Melchor & Chile’s Good Value Curse

May 20, 2025 By Mike Veseth in Chilean wines, economic crisis, trade wars, wine, wine markets 4 Comments

Sue and I have been looking for the right excuse to open a bottle of Don Melchor, the famous Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon that was named 2024 Wine of the Year by Wine Spectator magazine. Finally, we decided that the act of pulling the cork was excuse enough, and we enjoyed the wine with a nice steak.

Don Melchor is the flagship winery of Concha y Toro, one of the world’s most respected wine producers. The wine was world class, balanced and elegant, and paired perfectly with a dry-aged steak. I admit that I don’t really know what it means to be “wine of the year,” but this wine (and everyone who helped make it) deserves whatever recognition they receive. Bravo!

Message in a Bottle?

You would think that the year’s top wine could be the wine with the highest score, but if you pay attention to these things, you have already noticed that, while all the highlighted wines have high scores, the final rankings are not simply by the numbers.

Sometimes, it seems to me, the people who put together Top 10 or Top 100 lists (and not just Wine Spectator) want to send a message. Sometimes it is to highlight particular regions or to balance Old World and New World recognition. In 2009, in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, for example, a Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon from Columbia Crest was Wine Spectator’s top wine. It was an excellent wine (a friend opened a bottle for us last year), but I think it was chosen in part to send a message that excellent wines didn’t have to cost a fortune (the release price of the Columbia Crest was just $27) or come from Bordeaux or Napa, either.

In the same way, I suspect that the Don Melchor was chosen at least in part to draw attention to Chile’s excellent wines and the fact that they can command high prices. (The Don Melchor we enjoyed was an editorial sample, but the local Total Wine has it in stock for $140.) Chilean wines have long been filed under “good value,” which is much better than a “bad value” label that some other regions have earned. But I think many producers see good value as a barrier to their quest for higher status. The Wine Spectator award helped in this regard, and the Don Melchor wine has the quality to make the label stick, if you know what I mean.

The Good Value Curse

You can see the good value curse in the numbers. U.S. wine market data in the most recent issue of Wine Business Monthly put the average bottle-equivalent price for Chilean wine at $5.04 for the previous 12 months, lower than the import average of $9.66 and even lower than Australia’s $5.49.

Not surprisingly, measured U.S. sales of Chilean wine are down with the rest of the market, falling 3.6% by volume and 0.3% by value. (These declines are actually less than the overall market’s decline.)

Chile is more dependent on export markets than most other major producing countries, so wine market contractions in the U.S., U.K., and perhaps especially China have been a major blow. Factor in the uncertainty caused by the Trump tariffs and the list of Chilean wine’s challenges grows.

It is, therefore shocking, but perhaps not surprising to see this graph from the OIV database, which shows that the vineyard area in Chile has quite suddenly declined back to levels last seen at the turn of the century. Wine grapes are unprofitable, especially in the O’Higgins region, according to a Department of Agriculture report. Growers are shifting to cherries, citrus, and other crops with better prospects and margins.

Quality and Diversity

Sue and I have sampled many Chilean wines and we have been impressed by both the surprising diversity of wine types and styles and the steady rise in quality. The challenge, or perhaps one of the challenges, is to bring the best of Chile’s wine into sharper focus for consumers who confront a dazzling array of wine choices. Not an easy task, especially in this market environment.

Don Melchor has a role to play here as a sort of beacon to draw consumers closer to the world of quality Chilean wines.

Wine & the Trump Tariffs: A Cloudy Crystal Ball

May 13, 2025 By Mike Veseth in economic crisis, Economic impact, trade policy, trade wars, wine, wine markets Leave a comment

I’ve received emails asking me to write about the Trump tariff regime (and other policies) and how they will affect the wine industry. I have resisted so far because there is not enough information on which to base an argument or opinion. There is lots of speculation, but not yet much solid fact.

Beyond Speculation?

“Wine and the Age of Uncertainty” was the title of my remarks at the State of the Industry session at this year’s Unified Wine & Grape Symposium (which I previewed on The Wine Economist a few weeks before the event). Uncertainty is a constant factor in agriculture in general and wine in particular, I argued, but 2025 is different because there are so many unknowns to consider.

I illustrated this point with the slide above. Looking narrowly at the trade situation, there are lots of questions that need answers in order to get beyond speculation. I highlighted a few of the most important ones in red. None of the questions had firm answers back in January and they still don’t today.

So uncertainty prevails in the realm of “known unknowns,” which are the things that you know you don’t know. And that doesn’t even consider the bigger domain of “unknown unknowns,” which are the things you don’t know you don’t know (but should).

They say that what you don’t know can’t hurt you, but what you don’t know you don’t know can bite you in the butt.

The View from Abroad

How are foreign producers reacting to this unstable trade environment? No surprise, considering all the unknowns, there is no single dominant strategy. A common tactic, both in wine and more generally, has been to get as many products into the country as possible before full tariffs kick in. This will keep the distribution pipeline going at least for a while. It is not a permanent solution, but no one knows what the next step in trade policy might be. Maybe the tariffs will disappear as quickly as they appeared? An import surge buys time even if it comes at a cost.

Sue and I were in Spain last month and we encountered two very different reactions from producers there. Some accepted the fact of tariffs, but were relieved that they would be 10% instead of the 120% rates previously threatened. We can live with 10%, they said, and they are working out the appropriate business model for these circumstances. The wine industry has lots of problems (see below) and a 10% U.S. tariff is not the most serious of them. Ten percent is the new zero, as some have said, and many accept that so long as they can be sure that that’s what will prevail.

But not everyone agrees with this sentiment. We talked to one producer who said his firm was walking away from the U.S. market. Ten percent, 100 percent, 20 percent, what next? The uncertainty is simply too great to justify long-term investment. There are other markets where the risk-reward equation has a better balance.

Zero-Sum Solution?

Several European producers asked if the tariffs were benefiting U.S. wine producers. That’s a natural question if you think about tariffs and trade as a zero-sum game, where my loss is your gain. But in fact wine seems to be a negative-sum game at the moment as the global industry adjusts to a new normal. Demographic shifts do not favor alcoholic beverages generally. Neither do health concerns.

Economic uncertainty is undermining demand for many categories of luxury goods (and wine, for most people, is more affordable luxury than basic necessity). The threat of tariffs only serves to make the situation worse by raising costs and shrinking the already narrow distribution channel.

One way to think about the situation is in terms of what I call “pie economics.” What’s happening to the market pie? Is it growing or shrinking? What’s happening to your share of the pie? Is it getting bigger or smaller?

When markets are growing, distribution issues are often less important. The growing pie can make up for any small cut in your share. But when the pie is shrinking, the dominant strategy is to focus on share. That’s when zero-sum thinking kicks in. But in the case of tariffs, it is really a negative-sum game because higher import costs can sometimes shrink the pie so much that no one is better off.

The wine market pie was already shrinking, of course, so tariffs just make things worse. How it will turn out, and if anyone will be a winner, is still not clear.

So, wine and tariffs? My crystal ball’s all steamed up. Can’t see a thing. How about yours?

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Some say that economics is the “science of unintended consequences” and a recent Financial Times article bears this out in the case of the Trump tariffs. One of the potential winners of the current trade war, according to the article, might be Vinarchy, which was created when Australia’s Accolade Wines merged with Pernod Ricard’s wine operations to create te world’s second largest specialist wine producer.

Vinarchy’s brands will be subject to tariffs on U.S. sales like everyone else, which is not good news. But the anti-American wine sentiment that the Trump tariffs have stirred up might create opportunities, too. They see openings for Jacob’s Creek in Canada, for example, and Campo Viejo in Mexico and the rest of Latin America, for example, as consumers look for alternatives to California wine.

Wine Economist Flashback: Stumbling into Sherry in Madrid

April 14, 2025 By Mike Veseth in Spain, The Next Big Thing, wine, wine markets 1 Comment

Sue and I are traveling in Spain and one of our goals is to learn more about what’s happening in the Sherry industry. It is our first visit to Andalucia, but not our first exposure to the world of Sherry wines. I thought you might be interested in this “Flashback” column from 2017 that reports on our very successful search for Sherry in Madrid. This flasback might especially timely given a recent Financial Times article on “How Sherry Got Chic Again.”

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Can Sherry Be the Next Big Thing?

The Wine Economist / May 16, 2017

tio Can Sherry be the “Next Big Thing” in wine? I know what you are thinking. Sherry? C’mon! That’ll never catch fire in a big way. And you may be right, but give me a chance to make my case before you close the door on the Sherry cabinet.

One of the things that Sue and I wanted to do during our recent visit to Spain was learn more about Sherry. But the itinerary seemed to work against that. No time to jet south to Jerez de la Frontera in Andaluca, Sherry’s home. We would have to piece together our education in other wine regions. With a little luck and some helpful friends, we managed quite well.

Stumbling on Sherry in Madrid

Madrid is a long way from Jerez, but we found Sherry all around us, suggesting just how much it is a part of Spanish culture. Walking the aisles of the historic San Miguel market near the Plaza Mayor, for example, we stumbled upon a market stall called The Sherry Corner where dozens of different wines were offered by the glass at bargain prices. We had fun trying new Sherry wines and revisiting old favorites.

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The Sherry Corner offers a fun self-guided audio tour of Sherry wines. For €30 you get six glasses of different Sherries in a special carrier, coupons for six matching tapas from various market stalls, and an audio program available in six languages. It is quite a bargain when you do the math and it lets you both get to know the wines, experiment with pairings, and take advantage of the amazing tapas on offer at the market.

We found a completely different experience at the restaurant Zahara de Osborne in the Plaza Santa Ana, which was close by our hotel. The restaurant is owned by the Osborne wine group that is famous for its Sherry wines (you can see the Osborne bull staring down from hilltops all around Spain).

The idea of the restaurant was to bring the food and culture of Andaluca to Madrid. We challenged our waiter to create that experience for us and he did a great job choosing the dishes and helping us with pairings. Gosh, the Fino was delicious with a delicately fried whole fish!

Indigenous Sherry Culture

Not that Madrid does not have its own indigenous Sherry culture. There are Sherry bars in several parts of the city. Friends guided us to one called La Venencia, where the Sherry is served en rama, fresh and unfiltered, right from the barrel, which is a style I like a lot. My university colleague Harry uses La Venencia as his office when he is in Madrid (which is a lot) and he made introductions to José and Gabriel who worked the bar that day.

La Venencia has as much depth and character as the wines that are served there. If you have any pre-conceptions, you must check them at the door and accept the bar for what it is, which is true of Sherry wines, too. And then, well, it is a complete pleasure. Sherry really isn’t like anything else you will ever drink and La Venencia is just the same.

I have seldom been anywhere that was so totally itself and I will always associate that strong impression with the dry Manzanilla Sherry wines we enjoyed at La Venecia. osborne

A Little Help from our Friends

We got a little help from friends at Osborne and Gonzalez Byass wineries in our quest to learn more about Sherry. Santiago Salinas arranged for a tasting of Rare Old Sherries when we visited Osborne’s Montecilla winery in Rioja. These were wines for philosophers and poets. It is stunning to discover what great Sherries can become with time. We were inspired by Santiago’s passion for the wines and, of course, by the wines themselves.

Our visit to Finca Constancia near Toledo was organized around a rather extravagant seminar and tasting of Gonzalez Byass wines ranging from their signature Fino, Tio Pepe, on to a special Tio Pepe en rama bottling, and then carefully and thoroughly all the way through the line-up to the sweet, concentrated Pedro Xeménez.

Marina Garcia, our guide on this Sherry tour, was not afraid to draw out the complexities of the wines, which is great. As I told my audience at the General Assembly, sometimes complicated things need to be understood in complicated ways. Our favorite? We discovered the Palo Cortado Sherry style and it made us think. I love it when a wine does that.

Sherry doesn’t have to complicated … or sweet either, for that matter, although many people put the wines in that category. A chilled bottle of very dry fino or Manzanilla is pretty pure pleasure and will change many minds. But you’ve got to try it yourself to be persuaded and that’s a challenge. constancia

Sherry’s Moment?

If you look at the fundamentals, it is easy to conclude that this could be Sherry’s moment. The wines are great and well-priced. They come in a range of styles that variously make great aperitifs, pair well with food, or help unleash that inner poet. Apparently Sherry works really well as a cocktail base, too. Gotta check that out.

Tourism in Spain is on the rise and Spain’s tapas culture cuisine, which matches up so well with dry Sherry, is increasingly popular. Sherry, as much as any wine I know, is a product of time and place, and wears its authenticity proudly. Authentic, affordable, food-friendly. Aren’t these the things that wine drinkers are looking for today?

Sherry’s burden is its reputation as that sweet old wine that grandma drinks. There is so much more to Sherry for those who pull the cork. If enough curious wine drinkers pull enough corks, perhaps Sherry’s “Next Big Thing” potential can be realized!

Is Sherry going to be the next big thing? Probably not. But it doesn’t have to be. It is a timeless wine waiting to be re-discovered by a new generation of wine drinkers.

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Thanks to everyone who helped us with our Sherry research. Special thanks to Susana, Mauricio, Marina, Santiago, George, Cesar, Greg, Harry, Jensen, Gabriel, and José. Thanks to Sue for these photos of the big Tio Pepe sign in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol, the menu at The Sherry Corner, the rare old Osborne Sherries, and the many hues of the Gonzalez Byass Sherry wines.

The Three Faces of the American Wine Dilemma

February 25, 2025 By Mike Veseth in economic crisis, Unified Wine & Grape Symposium, wine, wine markets 8 Comments

We live in a time when problems we face are complicated but many of the answers proposed to address them are very simple. I am suspicious of simple answers to complicated questions, both in general (this was the theme of my 2005 book Globaloney) and when it comes to the American wine industry.

Draining America’s Wine Lake

Wine Economist readers already know about the American wine industry’s general over-supply problem. Despite several short harvests in a row in California, wine inventories remain very high and prices are falling. As Jeff Bitter pointed out at the Unified Wine & Grape Symposium last month, many thousands of acres of wine grape vines have been removed and more grubbing up is necessary before supply has been downsized to balance with demand. Similar adjustments are taking place throughout the world of wine.

I was interested to learn from Jeff that California’s Central Valley is perhaps closer to equilibrium than, say, the Central Coast. This is in part because growers in the valley can more effectively switch to alternative crops, which cushions the blow of vine removal. Indeed, many large growers already farm multiple types of crops, so the switch is a change of ratio and proportion, not a move into a new line of business.

Some growers would like to “furlough” their vineyards, to pause production until the market has stabilized. But, at least in some areas, this is made difficult because of water use regulations. Water rights can be withdrawn if the land is not actively farmed for several years. So in some areas, where alternative crops are not feasible and water rights are tightly controlled, vineyard removals or furloughs are hard to manage. No wonder there are reports of some vineyards simply abandoned! (I have also heard of one vineyard that was offered at a zero-dollar lease to anyone who would keep production going and, therefore, keep water rights safe.)

Unemployment: Cyclical, Structural, Frictional

The wine market situation is complicated in other ways, too. Both Glenn Proctor and Danny Brager talked about the problem at the Unified in terms of structural versus cyclical adjustments and this got me to thinking about the way economists explain unemployment as the interaction of three forces. I will explain briefly since I think these concepts apply to wine, too.

Cyclical unemployment is caused by cycles in the economy. Workers lose their jobs as firms scale back during a recession, for example, and gain them back (or get other jobs) when economic growth returns. Macroeconomic stimulus (tax cuts, interest rate reductions) are tools of choice to address cyclical unemployment.

Structural unemployment is joblessness due to changes in the essential structure of the economy. Changing patterns of trade, environmental shifts, and technological change are some of the causes of structural unemployment. Some newspaper employees, for example, suffer structural unemployment as demand shifts from physical to digital platforms for information, entertainment, and advertising. One of the concerns about artificial intelligence technology is that it might contribute to structural unemployment.

It is significant that policies designed to address cyclical unemployment such as interest rate cuts will do little to correct (and could even accelerate) structural unemployment problems.

Finally there is frictional unemployment, which is joblessness caused by inefficiencies in the labor market, as happens when there are jobs available in one city and jobless workers in another city, but information inefficiencies, high transaction costs, and other barriers prevent them from productive connection. The current housing market, with higher mortgage interest rates and historically high prices, is one source of frictional unemployment, for example. Job market policies tailored to either address cyclical or structural unemployment problems may have little impact on frictional unemployment. There aren’t many easy answers to complicated questions.

The American Wine Dilemma

These concepts apply to the wine industry in America and other countries today. The wine market has long been subject to medium-term (7- to 10-year) cycles, for example, although “wild card” events such as the COVID pandemic have distorted the pattern. Some wine industry folks have never seen the bottom of the wine cycle before. The fact that the previous “boom” part of the cycle was characterized by a ratchet-up of wine prices (premiumization) makes the down cycle more difficult to predict.

There are also structural changes at work. Demographic transition (baby boomer rise and fall) is part of the situation, but so is the structural shift in attitudes and behavior towards beverage alcohol generally. There also seems to be a structural shift in consumer preferences away from red wines toward white wines. It is hard to predict how and when these structural forces might run their course and when or whether they might reverse.

Finally, there are frictional concerns that take many forms around the world, but here in the United States are perhaps most apparent in wine distribution and retailing. Wine distribution pipelines have narrowed in recent years. I have written that every industry organizes itself around its most important inefficiency (or “bottleneck,” if you know what I mean). Distribution is wine’s bottleneck, not growing grapes or making wine. The fact that this bottleneck has narrowed is significant and could well reshape the industry broadly.

The Age of Uncertainty

If you are looking for a simple answer to the dilemma of American wine, you are not going to find it here. The point, as stated above, is that complicated questions seldom have simple answers. Complexity leads to uncertainty because each of the cyclical, structural, and frictional forces is difficult to predict and their dynamic interaction is sometimes best modeled by chaos theory

So, as I wrote here a few weeks ago, we have entered the Age of Uncertainty. In economics, uncertainty equals risk and risk discourages investment, innovation, and growth. Not what the wine industry needs at this moment. But understanding uncertainty and risk is better than charging ahead in ignorance.

American Wine 2025: Field Notes from the Unified Symposium

February 11, 2025 By Mike Veseth in Unified Wine & Grape Symposium, wine, wine markets 1 Comment

Sue and I recently attended the Unified Wine & Grape Symposium in Sacramento, California, North America’s largest wine industry gathering. Attendance was about 10,000 for the meetings, seminars, and the massive trade show. The event is simply too big to summarize, so we jotted down field notes instead to give you a sense of the action. Here, in no particular order, are some of our observations.

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Wine industry trends. White is the new red. Stable sales are the new growth. Wine sales are down in terms of both volume and value. The number of wineries in the U.S. actually fell. Most of the decrease was in the category of “virtual wineries,” which sell wine that is actually made by other companies under contract (a surprisingly common practice).

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Tough times for the nurseries that supply grape plants. One vendor said that if the best year was 100, the current status is about 20. Vineyard acreage in California and elsewhere continues to fall with more removals to come. This is part of a global trend.

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The luncheon speaker was Alecia Moore, better known by her professional name Pink (later that week she performed along with other artists including Stevie Wonder, Billie Eilish, Lady Gaga, and others at the FireAid benefit concert). What’s her wine connection? As she put it, she is a “celebrity winemaker,” but not a marketing play as is sometimes the case. Her Two Wolves vineyard and winery in Santa Barbara County is a serious operation and significant commitment. Many in the audience were inspired by her story and obvious enthusiasm.

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Heard on the floor of the trade show from a first-timer: “How do you take it all in? There’s so much!” Answer: A piece at a time.

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The Unified is an opportunity for those in the wine industry to meet with friends and colleagues. Lots of hugging, hand-shaking, back-slapping, high-fiving. Wine is a people business and this is the place to make and maintain personal and business relationships.

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Bottle weight. Producers are opting for lower-weight bottles, and looking to source them domestically. Shipping costs and schedules — and their uncertainties — are big factors. Heavier bottles are harder to move around. So, shipping and schlepping. Some producers are opting for lighter-weight bottles to maintain a price point. Question: Do consumers (still) think that bottle weight indicates wine quality?

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Multilingual wine. The Unified is designed for the California wine industry, but it is an international event. Languages heard: American English, Canadian English, Australian English, British English, Spanish, Italian, French. No doubt there were even more. There are several Spanish-language sessions.

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The locavore paradox. Many restaurants highlight their locavore credentials. Farm to table. Locally sourced meat and produce. Think global, eat local. But how many feature local wines? Aren’t wines the ultimate product of place? Shouldn’t they have a place on the locavore table?

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There is not much wine actually consumed during the day at the Unified (the nights are a different matter) because it is a business meeting and trade fair, not a consumer-tasting event. We had wine at the keynote luncheon and there were tastings sponsored by regional wine associations on the trade show floor on Wednesday afternoon. This year we focused on New Mexico’s wine industry, which is celebrating its tradition of fine sparkling wines by hosting the first Global Sparkling Wine Summit this summer. Great wine. Learned a lot.

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Sauvignon Blanc. Each year the organizers choose a particular wine grape variety to showcase and this time around it was Sauvignon Blanc. Aromatic white wines are popular right now and Sauvignon Blanc is doing well. The audience heard from several winemakers and tasted wines from California and Washington State.

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Sue never gets tired of walking the trade show floor. So many interesting people, products, and services. It is the American wine industry, deconstructed, and brought together in one very large room.

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New York Times wine critic Eric Asimov moderated a session on the challenge of telling wine’s story in the context of strong headwinds such as the WHO’s finding that no level of alcohol consumption is safe. But is this a challenge or an opportunity? Maybe the wine industry needed a nudge to get its act together and make the case for wine and not just individual wine brands or regions.

Cru Cerrati and Ruchè: Piemonte Wine’s Past, Present, & Future

February 4, 2025 By Mike Veseth in Italian wine, wine, wine markets Leave a comment

What do you remember about the hit 1985 film “Back to the Future”? Doc? Marty? The “Chuck Berry” scene? How could you forget that time-traveling DeLorean sports car?

I don’t know if anyone thinks much about the film’s deeper messages anymore, but the idea that the future is somehow buried in the past is a theme that has long been of interest. It shows up in wine in various guises. Here are two “Back to the Future” stories from the Piemonte region of Northern Italy.

The Return of Cerrati in the Land of Barolo

The Rossi Cairo family has been making wine, especially Gavi DOCG, at their biodynamic farm, La Raia, since 2002. They began a “Back to the Future” journey in 2015 when they expanded their vision to Tenuta Cucco in the prime Serralunga region where the Nebbiolo grape and Barolo wine are firmly rooted.

Tenuta Cucco presented the Rossi Cairo family an opportunity and a challenge in the form of the Cerrati vineyard. Cru Cerrati was well known and respected in the past, receiving special note in Renato Ratti’s Map of Barolo in 1971, for example, and even in the 1990 Slow Food wine atlas of the Langhe, but its glory faded over the years until Piero Rossi Cairo, working with La Raia winemaker Clara Milani, determined to convert the project to organic viticulture and to revive the vineyard and the reputation of the Cerrati zone.

Sue and I enjoyed the opportunity to taste the wines and participate in a Zoom call with Piero Rossi Cairo and Clara Milani. About 80 percent of Tenuta Cucco’s production is exported; the United States is the biggest single market.

The two estate vineyards total about 20 hectares and total production is about 70,000 bottles (6000 cases) each year including white wines (Chardonnay), a traditional method sparkling Pinot Nero, Rosé, and, of course, the reds. The Barolo DOCG Serralunga d’Alba, a blend of grapes from the two vineyards, is the main focus with production of 25,000 to 40,000 bottles depending on the year. Only about 2400 bottles of single-vineyard Barolo wines from Cerrati and Bricco Voghera are produced each year. And 5000 to 8000 bottles of a fresh and fruity Langhe DOCG Nebbiolo are made.

The “no wood” Langhe Nebbiolo was simply delicious, with beautiful color, light body, soft tannins, intense aroma, and complex fruit flavors. If you are looking for a “Baby Barolo,” this isn’t it. But who wouldn’t enjoy a wine like this with cheese and salami or a light pasta? And the Serralunga d’Alba was delicious, too, a great culinary wine because of its medium body and nice acidity. The single-vineyard products are philosopher wines, to be appreciated at a relaxed pace. We haven’t decided which one we like best, but are very much enjoying the opportunity to study them.

Ruchè Renaissance

Wines made from the Ruchè grape variety are full of contradictions. Wine Grapes tells us that “Varietal wines tend to be headily scented, often with aromas of roses. They can be spicy and the tannins so marked that the wines can sometimes leave a bitter aftertaste.” Roses, spicy, bitter — not something you find every day.

Sue and I first stumbled on Ruchè back in 2011 when we attended a food and wine festival in Moncalvo, near Asti. As I wrote then, “I had never heard of Ruchè and honestly didn’t know what it might be until I happened upon the stand of the Castagnole Monferrato group. They were cooking with Ruchè, marinating fruit in Ruchè and selling it by the glass — they were obviously very proud of their local wine. I had to try it and it was great. Suddenly I saw Ruchè everywhere (a common experience with a new discovery) and enjoyed a bottle at dinner in Asti that night.”

Ruchè very nearly disappeared at one point as attention focused on market-friendly grapes such as Barbera and Nebbiolo. As Ian D’Agata explains in the chapter on Ruchè Italy’s Native Wine Grape Terroirs, Don Giacomo Cauda, Castagnole Monferato’s town priest, was obsessed with Ruchè, studied it, collected specimens from scattered small plots, and promoted Ruchè as the region’s signature wine. Ruchè di Castagnole Monferrato received DOC recognition in 1987 and was elevated to DOCG in 2010, putting it up among the elite of the Italian wine world. A long climb from near-extinction to the summit in just 50 years.

But DOCG recognition does not automatically translate into sales. Almost everyone around Castagnole Monferrato probably drinks Ruché, but almost no one does anywhere else. Selling an unfamiliar wine like Ruché requires creativity and determination. So we were intrigued to learn that a local importer, Mallard Libations in Woodinville, Washington) has taken up the challenge so that those who know Ruché will have an opportunity to enjoy it and hopefully help spread the word.

We’ve started our new Ruchè research with the Ferraris Agricola Ruchè di Castagnoble Monferrato Riserva DOCG, which featured medium body, a memorable nose, and more depth than I remember from the wines we enjoyed in Italy. This single-vineyard wine deserves its “Riserva” designation. It is one of five different Ruchè wines that Ferraris produces. We are especially looking forward to trying the flagship Opera Prima Riserva.

Ferraris Agricola takes Ruchè and its history very seriously. Luca Ferraris, a.k.a. “Mr. Ruchè,” has created a Ruchè Museum that chronicles Ruchè’s history and celebrates its rebirth. We have added it to our “must-see” list for our next trip to Piemonte.

Discovering new wines or wine regions is always interesting. Re-discovering (and perhaps even rescuing) over-looked wines and regions is even more satisfying. Innovation, we are told, is especially important in today’s wine market environment. Back to the future can be part of that process.

Non-Alcoholic Wine: Three Questions

January 21, 2025 By Mike Veseth in The Next Big Thing, wine, wine markets 5 Comments

Sue and I continue exploring the world of non-alcoholic (or alcohol-removed) wines. NA wine is one of the few growing categories of wine (if it is wine — see below), so it makes sense to see what’s going on. That’s especially true since NA beer and spirits are booming, too. Here is our report, which examines NA wine from three perspectives.

On Trade: What Does an NA Wine Bar Look Like?

It has become easy to order non-alcoholic beer at a bar or restaurant — there is almost always at least one NA beer option available — and NA cocktails (a.k.a. mocktails) are ubiquitous. But NA wine remains hard to find (at least for us) in on-trade settings. I wonder what an NA wine bar would look like and who would go there?

I stumbled on the answer to this question a few weeks ago when I was researching French Bloom, the upscale line of NA wines that caught the eye of LVMH, the French luxury conglomerate. French Bloom is in limited distribution at this stage and the website features a map of the world to guide you to on- and off-trade points of sale. I was surprised to discover that one of the relatively few U.S. sellers was just a few miles from The Wine Economist world headquarters in Tacoma, Washington.

Soulberry Coffee House and Dry Speakeasy is located about mid-way between the University of Washington/Tacoma campus and the Tacoma Dome district. It is a warm, inviting space that sort of reminds me of a cross between the family pubs that we knew when we lived in England and the original Starbucks concept of the “third space” that’s neither home nor workplace. Soulberry bills itself as an “all-ages after-hours safe space” and that seems pretty accurate.

Soulberry’s owner, Terri Quintana-Jessen, says that she’s a coffee roaster, but Sue and I quickly noticed how much she talked about community and relationships. Coffee brings people together, which must be one of the reasons she is so interested in it. Wine brings people together, too, but alcohol can keep people apart.

Because NA wine is NA, selling and serving it doesn’t come with the burdens and regulations that must be considered for alcoholic beverages. Terri studied up on NA wine, spirits, and beer, and soon her coffee shop was also a bottle shop and “dry speakeasy” featuring a rotating selection of almost 40 NA cocktails. The French Bloom is popular as the base for Sunday mimosas and NA French 75s.

Soulberry is not alone. Dry wine and spirits bars and popping up much as natural wine bars did a few years ago. Is there a NA wine bar in your town? Maybe there is and, like me, you just didn’t know it.

Is NA Wine Really Wine?

Is non-alcoholic wine really wine? I know from previous columns that many readers believe that wine isn’t wine without alcohol. Studies have even shown that some consumers base their buying decisions on the amount of alcohol they can get for their money (more is better!). It is certainly the case that fermentation (which produces alcohol) is necessary for the transformation of juice into wine. But, once alcohol is removed, is the resulting product still wine?

Although opinions may vary, the use of the term “wine” is defined by regulations and therefore differs in different jurisdictions. Some producers are keen to call their NA products wine because they see a market opportunity. With sales of full-strength stagnant or falling, it makes sense to go after a share of the growing NA beverage market. But other producers think it important to defend the term “wine” from being debased or diluted, which might be a slippery slope.

It is interesting to observe the evolution of this debate in Italy, where it has been illegal to affix the name “wine” to anything with less than 8 percent abv. As Wein.plus reported a few weeks ago, The Italian Ministry of Agriculture has recently revised its regulations to allow de-alcoholized wines to use the term “wine,” but not for wines with protected designations. So you can have NA red wine from Tuscany, but not NA Chianti because Chianti is a protected appellation. This explains why the NA Mionetto wine that we found at Total Wine was labeled “sparkling non-alcoholic wine” and not “NA Prosecco.” Of course, the Mionetto brand is so closely connected to Prosecco that a mental association is almost impossible to avoid.

Before the new ruling, Italian winemakers could only call their NA products wine for export purposes. The use of “wine” was reserved for alcoholic wine at home. NA wine regulations are evolving with different interests pushing to liberalize the rules and others pushing back. But the question — is it really wine? — is ultimately up to you to decide.

That said, the OIV recently highlighted its work on dealcoholization of wine, which dates back to a 2012 resolution. The January 8, 2025, press release explains that,

Adopted in 2012 at the 35th World Congress of Vine and Wine in Izmir, Türkiye, OIV-OENO 394A-2012 “Dealcoholisation of wines” includes prescriptions to obtain vitivinicultural products with a reduced or low alcohol content through partial vacuum evaporation, membrane techniques, and distillation. It also specifies that this process must not be used on wines with any organoleptic defects and must be overseen by an oenologist or specialized technician.

The OIV’s framework for wine dealcoholisation provides producers with tools to innovate while navigating technical and market complexities. This progression supports the industry’s goal of quality and authenticity in a changing consumer landscape.

Can NA Wine Pass the “Second Glass Test”?

Sue and I have been trying NA wines and putting them to the “Second Glass Test.” We ask that NA wines (1) remind us of the wines that they represent and (2) be tasty enough that we would welcome a second glass. Our early research was full of failures. Either the wines didn’t remind us of the alcoholic version or they just weren’t to our taste. Often they were flat, lacking the fruit or aroma that were lost in the de-alcoholization process.

That Mionetto sparkler mentioned above did pretty well in the “Second Glass Test,” for example. It reminded us of Prosecco in a general way (could have done with a little more fruit and acidity), but was very nice to drink and was priced in the general range of Mionetto’s regular sparkling wines. We finished the bottle over dinner. The bubbles in NA sparkling wine come from carbonation, not the fermentation process, and in general we’ve found them to be more successful than still NA wines.

Recently Sue and I have been testing NA wines from Chavin Zéro, a French winery that has been in this business since 2010. The wines are being introduced in the U.S. market now by importer Kobrand. These NA wines were created to solve the same problem as French Bloom: what’s a wine lover to drink when she’s pregnant?

Pierre Chavin makes wines in France including a line of NA wines called Chavin Zèro. We focused on two still wines from Chavin Zéro, a Rosé and a Sauvignon Blanc. The Sauvignon Blanc came first and Sue declared it to be probably the best NA still wine we’ve tried so far even though it didn’t line up with our idea of Sauvignon Blanc. (To be fair, there is no universal definition of how a Sauvignon Blanc should taste and smell.) But it was very nice to drink and had better than average fruit and mouthfeel, probably because it contains 12 percent grape juice (concentrated grape must). We’ll add it to our list.

We were intrigued by the very pale pink Chavin Zèro Rosé, which features both an attractive bottle and an interesting blend of Cinsault, Syrah, and Grenache grapes. It was probably the most interesting and confusing wine we have tried so far. It was tasty for sure — no problem with the second glass. And it had the aromas, fruit, and mouthfeel that we have been looking for but seldom finding. But it didn’t taste like any Rosé we’ve ever had. The winery’s tasting note said to expect aromas of yellow fruit and white flowers. You don’t see “yellow fruit” very often in wine descriptions. Maybe the flavor was yellow plum? We couldn’t decide. Sue said it was more like wine, and likely was the best in terms of providing the complete package, but it didn’t remind us of Rosé or any other particular wine.

20 Years Behind Beer?

We finally opened the bottle of French Bloom sparkling wine that we bought at the Soulberry bottle shop. As we reported a few weeks ago, this wine has received a lot of press because of a connection to the Taittinger Champagne family and a highly-publicized recent investment by the LVMH wine, spirits, and luxury brands group. Terri at Soulberry said that her customers gave it high marks.

We shared our bottle of the sparkling blend of Chardonnay and a bit of Pinot Noir with two winemaker friends. Sue and I found the French Bloom to be dry and drinkable, but lacking some of the body, fruit, and aroma that we look for but often fail to find in NA wines. It would be a good base for the kinds of NA wine cocktails that Soulberrry serves.

I think we would have been more impressed by French Bloom when we started our research, but now we expect more, especially for the premium $40-plus price.

The NA wine, beer, and spirits category is growing (see graph), albeit from a low base, and there is a lot of research going on. A recent Economist article charts the market changes and suggests that, while NA wine might be 20 years behind the much more successful NA beer category, it might not take 20 years for it to catch up. Fingers crossed that NA wine drinkers (and producers) will find their respective sweet spots soon.