Countdown to Wine Wars II

May 3, 2022 By Mike Veseth in Shameless Self-Promotion, wine, wine research 2 Comments

Here at Wine Economist World Headquarters we have started counting down the days until the release of Wine Wars II: The Global Battle for the Soul of Wine. The book’s official release date is July 1, 2022, but it is not too soon to put in your pre-order at Amazon.com or Rowman & Littlefield. Wine Wars II will be available in paperback, e-book format, and (eventually) audio-book, too.

Wine Wars II is a major revision of my best-selling 2011 book Wine Wars. I’ll be honest — I wasn’t really planning to revise Wine Wars, but I couldn’t help myself. I re-read the book last year on its 10th birthday and there were some parts that really made me smile — they held up very well over the decade since release.

But there were other parts that made me shake my head. I wouldn’t write that today, I thought, either because so much has changed in the global wine industry or because I have changed — learned so much from all the people we’ve met on our global travels.

So there was nothing to do but write a revised book, which went into Rowman & Littlefield’s production pipeline last year and will come out in a few weeks.

I asked a few colleagues to read the book and write “blurbs” to help promote it. Here’s what they have to say.

Judy Chan, CEO of Grace Vineyard China:

10 years ago, when I first read Wine Wars, I was excited to see finally someone wrote about the business aspect of wine. As a wine producer in China who was new to the industry (and the industry was also very new in China), the book gave me a global perspective to look at my local market. With the updated information in this edition, it would be refreshing for someone who wants to see how the industry has and has not changed.

Elin McCoy, author of The Emperor of Wine, global wine critic for Bloomberg News and U.S. Editor of The Wine Conversation podcast

No one makes the powerful economic forces behind a bottle of wine more fascinating than Mike Veseth. Yet his easy-going, down-to-earth approach to these complex topics also brims with entertaining stories and humor – who else would analyze the appeal of wine brands named Secret Squirrel or Tussock Jumper? This new, 10-years-later, version two of his classic Wine Wars is filled with pithy insights about the world of vino today, such as ‘identity trumps authenticity.’

If you want to understand the future of wine, this book is a must read. It will convince you that climate change, economic risk, and stronger-than-ever global wine brands threaten the soul of wine itself. Are we headed for a dark age? Spoiler alert: Wine Wars II ends on a slightly optimistic note, in Portugal.

Andrea Robinson, Master Sommelier and author, Great Wine Made Simple

What a timely book for business leaders and their advisers! While the book’s context is the wine and wine grape growing industries, the challenges and opportunities pinpointed and deftly parsed easily apply to so many industries and brands. Globalization, climate change, the economic challenges of labor, supply chain, brand-building and brand equity preservation in a digital world—Mike Veseth’s synthesis of their present-day coalescence, and the ‘so what’ of that, seems almost clairvoyant. Wine Wars II is also a fun, punchy read, ripe with storytelling, along with some cool comparative wine tastings to illustrate the points. As an economics and finance-trained banker-turned-sommelier, I found this book to be invaluable for my work with clients and wine industry stakeholders of all sizes and stripes, as well as a delight to read.

Alessandro Torcoli, Director, Civiltà del bere

I’ve always been amazed by Mike’s ability to clearly describe wine dynamics in a global perspective with a deep understanding of local forces. Wine Wars II is a must-read book to anyone who want to feel like a real expert on our marvelous, but a bit tricky world of wine.

Book Reviews: A Hedgehog and a Fox Walk into a Wine Bar …

October 13, 2020 By Mike Veseth in book reviews, wine, wine education, wine research, wine science 3 Comments

So a hedgehog and a fox walk into a bar and they naturally fall into a debate about wine.

The clever fox, as anyone who has studied Isaiah Berlin’s famous essay will remember, knows many things and sees wine in terms of its complex contradictions. The hedgehog knows one big thing and returns to that again and again. The conversation ebbs and flows and many insights are revealed as the glasses are drained and refilled.

That’s the way I imagined this book review column developing although, as you will see, the plan breaks down a bit (for the better, I think) in the end.

The Fox: 50 Shades of Red

The fox in my story is Jamie Goode, the respected wine authority who frequently draws upon his science background to help us analyze and understand the world of wine. That’s what he did in his 2016 book I Taste Red: The Science of Wine Tasting. The literature on sensory science is broad and deep and Goode does what he does better than just about anyone — he makes the science clear and applies it to questions that wine enthusiasts will find interesting and important.

The title of the book — I Taste Red — teases the reader a bit. How can you taste Red? Red is a color, not a flavor. How can that be? But taste is pretty complicated (a foxy kind of thing) and, while we assume that it is all about what goes on in your mouth, sipping and slurping, the brain actually uses a lot of clues to come up with what we think of as flavor.

Sue and I have experienced this in simple but memorable terms on a couple of occasions. We put clothes-pin devices on our noses during a multi-sensory perception demonstration at The Shard in London for Wine Vision 2014, for example, and popped jelly beans into our mouths. Nothing. No taste whatsoever. Then we removed the pins and suddenly flavor overwhelmed us. Where did that come from?

On another occasion we listened to music selected by post-modern winemaking guru Clark Smith. He switched tunes while we were tasting a particular Chardonnay and the flavor of the wine changed in our mouths from sweet to bitter. Incredible. I guess the part of the brain in charge of tasting wine overlaps with the part that enjoys music and sometimes they work in harmony but other times (like this one) dissonance erupts.

Topics covered in Goode’s book include wine and the brain, wine flavor chemistry, individual differences in flavor perception, and why we like the wines we like. He even analyzes the language of wine to see if what we say about wine affects what we think and what we taste — and if cultural differences enter into the picture. This chapter reminds me of my newspaper editor friend David who, upon tasting a particularly nice wine, complained that he couldn’t fully appreciate it until he developed a richer vocabulary.

So the science of taste is pretty complicated and interesting and I recommend Jamie Goode’s book to anyone who wants to know more about it. Which brings me to the hedgehog in this story, who is Nick Jackson MW, author of the new book Beyond Flavour: The Indispensable Handbook for Blind Wine Tasting.

The Hedgehog: To Flavour … and Beyond!

Nick Jackson worked very hard to prepare for the blind tasting part of the Master of Wine exams, but he was unhappy about his progress. He was pretty good at getting the right answer, he tells us, but he wasn’t confident. He couldn’t shake the sense that he was often just guessing. Flavor was his guide and, as the fox knows, flavor is not a simple reliable thing. But what else is there to serve as a guide in identifying wines?

His ah-ha! moment came when he realized that tannins (for red wines) and acidity (for whites) were fundamental building blocks. White wines can be known by their level of acidity, for example, the type of acidity, and the shape of the acidity. Chenin Blanc, for example, has high, bracing acidity with a crescendo shape. Crescendo! Think about that.

Chardonnay, on the other hand, has a more linear acidity structure — it remains the same during the act of tasting, pulling the fruit forward with it. Sauvignon Blanc, on the other hand, has jagged acidity. Think about your experiences tasting these wines. Do these descriptions make sense? Jackson provides similar analysis for tannins in red wine. Structure, in Jackson’s able hands, is a tool that reveals important wine traits — grape variety, region of origin, even vintage, with special sections on sparkling, sweet, fortified, rosé, and orange wine.

Jackson’s book is intended as a guide for wine enthusiasts who are studying for blind-tasting exams like those in the Masters of Wine program. That would seem like a pretty narrow audience, but a peek at the book’s Amazon.com page reveals strong high sales ratings and more than four dozen reader recommendation. Maybe the world of people who need to identify wines in a blind tasting situation is bigger than I thought.

Or maybe there is another reason this book is so popular. I find the focus on structure instructive and that it adds to my enjoyment of wine. I rarely taste wines blind, but I always like to think about them and acid/tannin structure adds a new dimension.

Contradictions?

I said at the beginning that the fox and hedgehog dichotomy doesn’t completely hold here and it is true. I’m not disappointed, however, because that’s actually an important point in Isaiah Berlin’s original essay. While Jamie Goode tells us all the different perspectives that science reveals about wine taste, in the end he has some doubts. All these factors are there, he says, but isn’t a person’s taste ultimately a single thing? Does it really help to break down taste into so many pieces when the actual experience of wine is or should be a harmonious whole? The fox theorist is drawn haunted by a hedgehog ideal.

Jackson makes a convincing case for his focus on structure and his students, many of whom are studying for the MW exam, benefit and sing his praises. But, towards the end of the book, he moves beyond identifying a wine to assessing wine quality. Is this wine good? Excellent? Great? He tells us that many students struggle with moving from objective to subjective. It is a more complicated issue that needs to be approached in a different way.

A hedgehog and a fox walk into a bar and come out a few hours later understanding more than you might guess about wine … and themselves.

Sometimes the Best Wine is a (Non-Alcoholic) Beer

February 25, 2020 By Mike Veseth in alcohol, health, wine, wine research 6 Comments

win “Sometimes the best wine is a beer” is the title of a chapter in my book Money, Taste, and Wine: It’s Complicated. The chapter begins with a situtation that most wine drinkers have experienced. Stranded at a charity reception with only tasteless donated wine to drink, I long for the craft beer that others seem to be enjoying so much.

At really low price points (and sometimes at higher price levels, too), I am afraid that the best wine probably is a beer, at least if you care what you’re drinking.

Recently I’ve had an opportunity to explore another situation where wine fares poorly compared to beer: when you need to avoid alcohol for one reason or another.

Non-alcoholic wines are available but they are not really much of a thing here in the U.S. — at least not yet — although they are getting more attention in Europe. Sue and I learned about Matarromera Group’s innovative “Win” alcohol-free wines during our visit to Spain, for example. Matarrommera sees potential in the non-alcohlic wine market and has made significant investment in production and marketing.

Non-alcoholic wine is a narrow category here in the U.S. I am not sure I would even think to ask for non-alcoholic wine at a bar or restaurant. On-trade people — what is your experience? Do customers request non-alcoholic wine?

Non-Alcoholic Choices Everywhere

But beer is another matter. Every bar and restaurant I surveyed during my dry week offered a non-alcoholic beer option — most at the 0.5 % abv level that qualifies as non-alcoholic (that’s about the same abv as orange juice, for example). And some had 0.0 % options, too. A Whole Foods store we visited had seven different choices, including two 0.0% options.

What did they taste like? Well, the first non-alcoholic beer I tried was an old school O’Douls and it was just like I remembered it. No offense, but I’d rather drink warm tap water.

But at dinner at a French restaurant one night and then an Italian place the next night I was introduced to a couple of German import brands and they were terrific, with the aroma, body and flavor of real beer. I guess the Germans take beer seriously and that attention extends to non-alcholic products.

beer

I really didn’t miss the alcohol and I appreciated the fact that, because they were priced like bottles of beer, these products were considerably less expensive than many of the by-the-glass wine offerings.

Hey Gallo!

I’d still rather have the wine, but I didn’t suffer with the non-alcoholic beers. It is clear that that the non-alcohol beverage market is growing and that some producers are making significant investments in both product development and marketing.

Is there space for a decent non-alcoholic wine in a single-serve container? Yes, I think so. But someone’s going to have to make the investment to establish the market. Hey, Gallo — why don’t you give this a try? You are already expanding your Barefoot brand to include hard selzer in cans. Why not take the next step with a non-alcoholic wine in a single serve can? Barefoot 0.0!

As the week was ending I found an affordable six-pack of Clausthaler Dry Hopped non-alcholic beer imported from Germany. Complex with a rich nose, amber-colored, made with Cascade hops, it seems ideal for a craft beer consumer who wants or needs to avoid alcohol.

And the perfect choice for those times when the best wine is an alcohol-free beer.

What’s Ahead for 2019? Wine Economist World Tour Update

January 8, 2019 By Mike Veseth in Chile, Chilean wines, climate change, Shameless Self-Promotion, Washington wine, wine, wine markets, wine research 1 Comment

The Wine Economist World tour continues in 2019 and I thought you might be interested in the who/what/when/where because I think my speaking schedule reflects some important issues and concerns in the global wine business. Here’s an annotated itinerary.

Unified Wine and Grape Symposium

The Unified Wine & Grape Symposium is the Big Show, the largest wine industry gathering in the hemisphere. About 14,000 people will come to Sacramento for the sessions, trade show, and networking opportunities. The Wednesday morning State of the Industry session draws a huge standing-room-only audience that will be anxious to hear about this year’s special challenges: slowing economy, plateauing demand, surplus stocks, and useful strategies to deal with these problems.

I will moderate the session and present, too, along with Jeff Bitter, Allied Grape Growers, Danny Brager, The Nielsen Company, Marissa Lange, LangeTwins Family Winery and Vineyards, and Glenn Proctor, Ciatti Company. This is a fantastic lineup of speakers with much to say about the industry today and in the future. Not to be missed.

I will be busy again on Thursday morning as co-moderator with L. Federico Casassa, California Polytechnic State University, of “Technology Thursday: From Drones to Chatbots; How the Wine Industry is Embracing Digitalization.” The speakers will examine digital technology in the vineyard, cellar, and beyond, revealing what’s already available, what is coming soon, and what the distant future holds. The distant future, by the way, is only ten years away — the pace of technological change is that fast.

There is much to discuss, so there will be about a dozen speakers including Bob Coleman, Treasury Wine Estates, Nick Dokoozlian, E. & J. Gallo Winery, David S. Ebert, Purdue University, Nick Goldschmidt, Goldschmidt Vineyards, Liz Mercer, WISE Academy, Miguel Pedroza, California State University, Fresno. and Will Thomas, Ridge Vineyards, California. . Each speaker will have just ten “Ted Talk” minutes, so hold onto your hats!

Washington Winegrowers Convention

I will be a busy guy at the Washington Winegrowers Convention & Trade Show in Kennewick, Washington, February 11-14, 2019. I’ll begin early on the morning of the 12th moderating and presenting at the State of the Industry session, which will deal with some of the economic challenges facing the region’s wine businesses today.

Joining me will be Wade Wolfe, Thurston Wolfe Winery, Chris Bitter, Vintage Economics, Steve Fredricks, Turrentine Brokerage, and Jim Mortensen, President & CEO, Ste. Michelle Wine Estates.

In the afternoon I will be part of a session on “Intentional Rosé.”Rosé is the hottest category in wine and so it is no surprise that it gets a full session here and also at the Unified.

I will talk about the global market dynamic and be joined by Megan Hughes, Barnard Griffin winery, Rob Griffin, founder of Barnard Griffin winery, Lacey Lybeck , Vineyard Manager at Sagemoor Vineyards, and Vincent Garge, Maison Henri Garde, Bordeaux. Fred Dex with lead a tasting of Rosé from around the world.

Porto Climate Change and Wine Conference

Sue and I are looking forward to the discussion at Climate Change: Solutions for the Wine Industry in Porto on March 6-7. The focus will be on action, not just talk, which is much appreciated. Al Gore is giving the closing address and a host of wine industry leaders will speak on their concrete efforts to address the challenge of climate change. Climate change is such an obvious risk to the wine industry. It is great to see so many rise to meet the challenge.

I will be moderating and presenting at a session called “Efficiency & Economics: Call to Action,” which I assure you will be more interesting than it sounds. Joining me on the panel are Stephen Rannekleiv, Executive Director, Food & Agribusiness Research at Rabobank, and Malcom Preston, Global Head of Sustainability Services at PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Chile’s National Wine Fair

Sue and I are looking forward to being at Viña Viñamar, Chile on May 15-16 for the Feira Nacional Vitivinicola. I will be speaking about Chilean wine on the global stage, which is appropriate given that Chile is such an important wine exporting nation. Chile is hosting the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meetings in 2019 and I expect that the National Wine Fair will take full advantage of this opportunity. The U.K. and U.S. have long been Chile’s top export markets, but China became #1 in 2017.

British Columbia Winegrape Council Conference

I’ve been invited to speak about the economics of sustainable winegrowing at the BC Winegrape Council Enology & Viticulture Conference and Tradeshow in Penticton, British Columbia in July Sustainability is on everyone’s lips (see climate change conference above), but the transition from theory to practice or talk to action is a challenge. Looking forward to discussing this issue with my BC friends and colleagues.

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Change is the common feature of all these programs. Changing economic conditions, changing market focus (who would have guessed that everyone would be talking about Rosé?), climate change and sustainable practices, and technological change, too. Change is always disruptive and always interesting, too. Hope to see you somewhere along the wine road in 2019.

The Future of Italian Wine is in Good Hands

October 16, 2018 By Mike Veseth in Italian wine, wine, wine awards, wine education, wine research, wine science 1 Comment

award Deborah Gelisi wiped the tears from her face, took a deep breath, and continued with her presentation on the importance of sustainability for Italian wine producers. It wasn’t an easy thing to do.

Deborah’s audience was in tears, too. Her classmates and teachers at the Scuola Enologica di Conegliano. Her winegrower parents. Even her 12-year old brother, the fearless goalkeeper of his youth soccer team. Over at the head table the city’s mayor was misty, the school’s director was teary, Rai Uno journalist Camilla Nata was a little choked up, and I was a pretty emotional myself. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house.

Stories about rooms full tearful people don’t usually feature on The Wine Economist, so you probably have some questions about what was going on and how this relates to this column’s optimistic title. I’ll try to answer the questions one by one.

Who is Deborah Gelisi?

Deborah Gelisi is an 18 year old student at the Conegliano Wine School, which is Italy’s oldest enology and viticulture school and, according to our friend Paul Wagner, probably the largest wine school in the world. Founded by Antonio Carpenè in 1876, it provides education and training for young students who have chosen to work in the wine industry. The school has a long list of distinguished alumni including notable Romeo Bragato, who was instrumental in the development of wine industries in Australia and New Zealand in the 19th Century.

Deborah comes from a wine-growing family. She gets up early each day to work at Podere Gelisi Antonio, then takes the train from Pordenone to Conegliano for classes, reversing the commute in the afternoon for more work and, of course, study. I don’t know when she sleeps.

Why Was Everyone Crying? Bad news?

Deborah was being honored as the first recipient of the “Etilia Carpenè Larivera International Scholarship,“ which will provide her with the opportunity to expand and deepen her wine knowledge through international travel and study and jump-start her career in wine. efx-s

The scholarship was inaugurated this year to mark the 150th anniversary of the founding of Carpenè Malvolti, one of Italy’s most distinguished wine producers. Its founder, Antonio Carpenè was the inventor of the process of secondary fermentation in autoclaves that gives us Prosecco.

Carpenè Malvolti honors its past in many ways, which you will discover if you spend some time at the new visitor center in Conegliano, but as a family wine business it is all about building for future generations. That’s why the photo above shows Deborah with Rosann Carpenè Larivera, the fifth generation of the famous family, along with her daughter Etilla, the rising sixth generation, for whom the scholarship is named.

What’s the Significance of the Award?

It is good to honor students and to provide valuable educational opportunities, of course, but it is important to see this award in broader context. Deborah’s award was part of a project called Generazione DOCG, which aims to invest in the future of the region through its young people. Everyone was crying (and then celebrating) because this isn’t an ending but a beginning, both for Deborah and for the region.

The next generation of Italian wine producers will face many challenges, as we discussed at the VinoVIP meetings in Forte dei Marmi in June. The industry is fragmented, lacking the strong brands that could build help open markets and build margins. It won’t be easy to make progress given intense competition everywhere.

But there is real hope. Rising wine professionals like Deborah Gelisi and her student colleagues can make a difference in the vineyards, cellars, and markets. If Deborah is an indication, they have the knowledge, drive, determination, and entrepreneurial spirit that will be needed.

And they have the backing of their families, communities, and forward-looking wine firms such as Carpenè Malvolti. With this team supporting and encouraging them, it is easy to see that the future of Italian wine is in good hands.

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Congratulations to Deborah Gelisi. Special thanks to Carpenè Malvolti for inviting me to speak at this awards ceremony. It was an honor and a pleasure.

Wine Business 101: Exploring America’s Largest Wine Industry Trade Show

February 13, 2018 By Mike Veseth in wine, wine markets, wine research 1 Comment

unified Contributing editor Sue Veseth is fascinated by wine industry trade shows. She recently attended the Unified Wine & Grape Symposium trade show in Sacramento, California. Here is her report.

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Making wine is not very stuff-intensive, right? Some grapes, a vessel for fermentation, maybe a couple of barrels, some bottles or jugs, closures — voilà!

But modern winemaking, even for small wineries and those making natural wines, can be very stuff-intensive. A good place to start looking at or shopping for all of the stuff for winemaking is the trade show at the Unified Wine & Grape Symposium in Sacramento, California. This is the largest trade show in North America for the wine and grape industry, attracting more than 600 vendors from around the world and more than 14,000 visitors. A lot of people in the industry use the trade show to connect with friends, colleagues, suppliers, and peers in the industry, in addition to shopping.

Some trade shows are focused on particular aspects of the industry. The SIMEI show we attended in Milan, Italy, in 2015, was all about machinery and technology. Smaller regional trade shows may combine winemaking and other agriculture industries. The January 2018 VinCO trade show in Grand Junction, Colorado, was about winemaking and fruit-based agriculture.

Soup-to-Nuts

In contrast, the Unified is a soup-to-nuts trade show: tractors, plants, fertilizers, trellises, bottling lines, hoses and fittings, flooring, waste and wastewater management, vessels and containers of all types and sizes, construction services, irrigation systems, cleaning equipment, chemicals, testing services, software to manage just about everything, bottles, closures, labels, packaging, marketing materials, financial services, transportation, industry publications — and the list goes on. Some vendors have been in the show for years; a few new vendors show up every year. Some vendors may wait several years before scoring a spot.

It seemed to me that the people staffing the booths this year were spending more time talking to customers and passers-by than staring at their cell phones — hooray! Conversely, fewer exhibitors this year insisted on scanning my visitor badge, probably easily realizing that I was looking not buying.

One vendor in particular especially impressed me. This vendor had a dozen staff members, including high-level executives, in a standard-sized, attractive-but-not-flashy booth. But few were actually in the booth. They were always working the floor, with both intense and casual conversations with customers and potential customers. You could tell that this vendor was focused on business.

The raptors are always one of the most popular exhibits. The falcons are used for pest control. It is easy to anthropomorphize and conclude that the birds’ beady stares may be sizing us up — perhaps as lunch?

I also enjoyed looking at the pruning equipment and vineyard supplies that could be useful to the home gardener.

Vegan Fertilizer?

So, is there anything new? Yes, to me anyway. Especially intriguing were two French vendors with vegan products and processes for winemaking. One was showing vegan fertilizer. I had hoped to bring home a sample to try, but the smell was very strong, very fertilizer-y, even packed in multiple layers of plastic zip bags. Alas, it did not make it into the suitcase. Another company offers a range of products for vegan winemaking.

I was not aware of vegan winemaking, but it turns out that many wines I know and enjoy are vegan, at least based on the Barnivore list (http://www.barnivore.com/), although they are not necessarily promoted as vegan. Another “who knew?” moment.

Costs and Benefits

The question always arises: Is it worth it? There were moments when the trade show was jammed (after the State of the Industry presentations, during lunch, and during the regional wine tasting, for example) and other times when the aisles were open and easy to navigate (such as the afternoon of the second and final day of the show). The busy times seemed as busy as in past years but the slow times seemed slower to me this year.

Participating in the show is not inexpensive, for both the vendors and those attending. A lot of people were looking, but how many were buying? Does the activity level reflect expectations about expansions, contractions, or no change at individual wineries and the industry in general? Is it an opportunity to see and be seen?

The answers probably depend on who you are, what you are selling, and what you are buying. But if you want to understand the scope of the wine industry, the Unified Wine & Grape Symposium trade show is a good place to start.

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New York Times wine critic Eric Asimov attend the Unified trade show for the first time in 2017. You might be interested in his reflections on the experience. Spoiler alert — he was also fascinated by falcon pest control.

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Many thanks to everyone who works to make the Unified Symposium and its trade show a success. Special thanks to John Aguirre and Jenny Devine and to photographer Ken Freeze for providing the image above.

Wine Economist World Tour 2018 Update

January 3, 2018 By Mike Veseth in Shameless Self-Promotion, wine, wine research 1 Comment

Happy New Year to all. The Wine Economist World Tour is back on the road in 2018. I’m looking forward to speaking at regional wine industry meetings in Washington, Idaho, and Colorado, plus the big national meeting in Sacramento.

Here are World Tour stops for January and February 2018.

January 2018

The World Tour comes to Grand Junction, Colorado where I will be speaking at the VinCO Conference & Trade Show January 15-18. I’ll be giving three talks: “Secrets of the World’s Most Respected Wine Regions,” “The Future of Small Wineries,” and “Around the World in Eighty Wines.” Looking forward to meeting everyone and learning more about the Colorado wine industry.
Unified Wine & Grape Symposium. January 23-25, 2018 , Sacramento California. I will be moderating and speaking at the “State of the Industry” session on January 24. It looks like this year’s discussion will be especially interesting and informative. I hope you can attend.

February 2018

Washington Winegrowers convention and trade show February 6-8, 2018 in Kennewick, Washington. I will be speaking at the “State of the Industry” session on the morning of February 7.
The Idaho Wine Commission’s annual meeting will be on February 13-15 in Boise. I will be speaking about global trends and local impacts on the morning of February 14.
Local meets global: I’ll talk about “Around the World in Eighty Wines” from the vineyard point of view at a special evening meeting of the Tacoma Garden Club on February 21, 2018.

Hope to see you at one of these events or somewhere else down the wine road in 2018.

What’s Ahead for the Wine Economy? 2017 Unified Wine & Grape Symposium

November 22, 2016 By Mike Veseth in Shameless Self-Promotion, wine, wine markets, wine research Leave a comment

Sue and I are looking forward to the 2017 Unified Wine & Grape Symposium, which is set for January 24-27, 2017 in Sacramento, California. The Unified Symposium is the largest wine industry gathering in North America, drawing as many as 14,000 people for the sessions, trade show, and gatherings.

This year’s conference features a number of interesting sessions, some of which are presented in both English and Spanish. I will paste the program below for your inspection. Three sessions particularly caught my eye this year.

And Now For Something Completely Different

Eric Asimov, the New York Times‘ wine critic, will give the luncheon address on Tuesday January 24. I am thinking that Asimov’s talk will be a bit different from the 2016 lunch speaker — Fred Franzia!

Fred didn’t pull many punches in challenging his audience and gave us a lot to think about. I expect Asimov’s take to be completely different, but equally challenging.

Stephen Rannekleiv of Rabobank and Damien Wilson of Sonoma State University will present an analysis of “The Global Market for Wine” on Wednesday afternoon and I will certainly be in the audience. What a big topic! I’m looking forward to seeing what particular trends they pick out and how they see the wine economy developing given all the economic and political changes going on.

State of the Industry

The “State of the Industry” session will go live at 8:30 on Wednesday morning and I will be back as both moderator and speaker. The program is always interesting and draws a huge standing-room-only crowd as the photo above shows.

Joining me this year are three terrific speakers: Nat DiBuduo of Allied Grape Growers,
Danny Brager from The Nielsen Company and Glenn Proctor of Ciatti Company. I’ll be interested to hear what Nat, Danny and Glenn have to say about the wine industry in 2016 and what’s ahead for 2017 and beyond. They really know their stuff — should be a terrific session. Hope to see you at the Unified. Cheers!

Unified Wine & Grape Symposium Program

Tuesday January 24

7:30 am – 6:30 pm Registration

11:30 am – 1:30 pm Keynote Speaker Luncheon
Eric Asimov, New York Times, New York
Separate Registration Fee Required

2:00 pm – 4:00 pm Sauvignon blanc: Vine to Bottle (includes tasting)
Joint Grapegrowing & Winemaking Breakout Session

2:00 pm – 4:00 pm Focus, Focus, Focus: Listen to Learn
Marketing/Public Relations Breakout Session

2:00 pm – 4:00 pm Finding Value in Sustainability
Business/Operations Breakout Session

4:30 pm – 6:30 pm Welcome Reception

Wednesday January 25

7:30 am – 5:30 pm Registration

8:30 am – 11:00 am State of the Industry
General Session

9:00 am – 6:00 pm Exhibits Open

1:00 pm – 2:15 pm Not Your Ordinary Yeast: Using Innovated Strains and Fermentation Techniques to Increase Wine Quality and Drive Wine Styles
Winemaking Breakout Session

1:30 pm – 3:30 pm Looking Forward: How Grapevine Clean Plant Strategies Can be Improved
Grapegrowing Breakout Session

1:30 pm – 3:30 pm T he Global Market for Wine
Business & Operations Breakout Session

1:30 pm – 3:30 pm Making the Most of Your Message: Building a Bridge Between Winegrowing, Marketing & PR to Effectively Reach Today’s Consumer
Marketing/Public Relations Breakout Session

2:30 pm – 3:45 pm Eggs, Uprights, Puncheons and More: Making Your Best Wine in Unusual Containers
Winemaking Breakout Session

4:00 pm – 6:00 pm Regional Wine Tasting

6:15 pm – 8:00 pm UC Davis Viticulture & Enology Alumni, Students, Faculty and Friends Reception

Thursday January 26

8:00 am – 4:00 pm Registration

9:00 am – 4:00 pm Exhibits Open

9:00 am – 11:30 am Adapt or Go Extinct: Removing Barriers to Our Industry’s Success
General Session

9:00 am – 10:30 am Presentada en español (Presented in Spanish)

Tecnologías de vanguardia para la producción de uva y elaboración de vino
Sesión General en español

Leading-edge Technology in Grapegrowing and Winemaking
Spanish General Session

10:45 am – Noon Presentada en español (Presented in Spanish)

La decisión inteligente de utilizar material de propagación limpio
Sesión en Español de Viticultura

The Smart Decision of Using Clean Plant Material
Spanish Grapegrowing Breakout Session

10:45 am – Noon Presentada en español (Presented in Spanish)

El Arte de Encontrar el Balance Ideal de un Vino
Sesión en Español de Enología

The Art of Finding a Wine’s Ideal Balance (Sweet Spot)
Spanish Winemaking Breakout Session

11:30 am – 1:00 pm Hosted Buffet Luncheon

1:15 pm – 3:15 pm Cooperage Alternatives
Winemaking English Tour

1:30 pm – 3:30 pm Presentada en español (Presented in Spanish)

Alternativas de Tonelería
Tour en Español de Enología

1:15 pm – 2:15 pm FSMA – Food Safety Modernization Act
Winemaking Breakout Session

1:15 pm – 3:15 pm Beyond the Tasting Room: Marketing Your Wines Today
Marketing/Public Relations Breakout Session

1:15 pm – 3:15 pm Vineyard Mechanization: Moving to the “No Touch Vineyard?“
Grapegrowing Breakout Session

1:15 pm – 3:15 pm To Grow or Not to Grow: While the Common Wisdom Is That Growth is Good, is it Really? And if it is Good for You, How to do It?
Business & Operations Breakout Session

1:15 pm – 3:15 pm Mechanization
Grapegrowing English Tour

1:30 pm – 3:30 pm Presentada en español (Presented in Spanish)

Mecanización
Tour en Español de Viticultura

2:30 pm – 3:30 pm Beyond the Bottle: Packaging Innovations for Winemakers
Winemaking Breakout Session

“Wine By Numbers” and the Wine Market Data Trilemma

October 1, 2015 By Mike Veseth in globalization, wine, wine research 2 Comments

Readers send me email every week looking for wine economics data because they frequently get frustrated trying to find current information about wine consumption, production, prices and trade. Lots of data are collected, but it isn’t always easy to sort through and it is often available only at a cost (frequently a very high cost).

Sometimes it seems like there is a wine economics data trilemma (I talk about trilemmas in my new book Money, Taste, and Wine: It’s Complicated). Researchers want the three Cs: data that is current, complete and cheap (free is even better), but it is hard to get all three.

Current and complete will cost you. Current and cheap is sometimes available, but it might not be complete. Complete and cheap, yes, but maybe a bit dated. You can probably think of examples of all three “trilemma” trade-offs.

There may not be a solution to this trilemma, but I am always looking for resources that can help fill in the gaps and I think I have found one in “Wine by Numbers,” which is provided by Il Corriere Vinicola and the Unione Italiana Vini, an association of Italian wine producers whose 500 members account for 70% of the nation’s wine. The website explains its purpose this way

The first web magazine dedicated to the international wine trade. Data and figures of the main exporter and importer countries at a glance: Italy, France, Spain, Argentina, Chile, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, USA, Canada, UK, Germany, Switzerland, Russia, China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Brazil.

The data are exposed in tables and figures with details on packaged wines, bulk and sparkling, showed in volume, value and average price.

Free monthly and annual pdf publications are provided by “Wine by Numbers” and, while they don’t eliminate the trilemma issue, they are great resources for anyone wishing to know more about world wine markets.

Natural Cork vs Alternative Closure Wars: Race to the [Wine Bottle] Top

June 23, 2015 By Mike Veseth in cork vs screwcap, wine markets, wine research, wine science 7 Comments

At the end of my review of To Cork or Not to Cork, George Taber’s informative 2007 survey of the wine bottle closure wars, I vented some frustration. Not with the book, which is great, but with the closures themselves. Taber taught me that no wine bottle closure was perfect, although he had high hopes that competition among closure producers would make the future brighter. Here’s the conclusion of my 2007 column.

[Taber writes that] … finding a solution to the wine closure dilemma is a worldwide problem and global market competition is forcing the stopper makers to innovate and make better and better closures and forcing winemakers to get better, too, since they can no longer automatically blame any flaws in their wines on bad corks. “Unfettered competition,” he writes, “remains a powerful driving force for good.”

I think Taber is right, but for now I’m just standing here in the basement, looking with suspicion at the wine in my little cellar, trying to guess what is going on beneath the lids. Having read Taber’s book, I now know enough to be anxious about each and every bottle!

A Wealth of Closure Choices

Eight years have passed and the closure wars continue. Perhaps the single most-asked question when I speak to consumer groups is about what’s at the top of the bottle, not the contents. “What do you think of screw-caps?” Well, what should I think?

The question continues to haunt the wine industry. Recently two U.S. wine industry monthlies featured cover stories on the closure wars. “Alternative Closures Go Upscale” was the headline on the May 2015 issue of Wine & Vines. while the June issue of Wine Business Monthly featured their 2015 “Closure Survey Report.”

Jane Firstenfeld’s Wines & Vines article “Unconventional Toppers for Top-Shelf Wines” takes the form of a series of brief interviews with premium winemakers who report their use of screw-cap closures (including Van Duzer, Chehalem, Meoimi, Silverado and Sonoma-Cutrer) or synthetic closures (Schug and Eberle).

The article gives a sense of the great variety of alternative closures available (gone are the days of one-size fits all) and the research and trials necessary to assure the best possible fit between wine, winemaker and closure. It’s a good piece of reporting if you have a dog in this fight!

Natural Cork is #1. So are Synthetic Closures. Discuss.

Curtis Phillips presents the results of the Wine Business Monthly survey of winery closure use in his article “Natural Closures Rated Highest.” One colorful graph caught my eye — it showed the results of the survey for five years where respondents were asked which closures they used for their $14-$25 red wines? Options (more than one choice allowed) started with natural cork and moved on to technical cork, synthetic closures, screw caps and an “other,” category that includes Zork and Vino-Seal.

The graph suggests that natural cork is used by about 50% of the wineries surveyed, down from nearly 70% a few years ago. Technical cork is shown rising from about 20% to 30%, while ynthetic closures are roughly stable at a little more than 10% and screw caps are shown rising from about 10% to 30%.

The devil is in the details in surveys like this and to their credit WBM provides details that clarify the picture. The unit of analysis for the survey is the winery whether it is big or small, which changes up the conclusions you might otherwise draw.

Many more wineries use natural cork, but many more bottles of wine here in the U.S. are sealed by synthetic closures. The 10% of wineries that use the synthetics such as Nomacorc include some boutiques (Oregon’s Ken Wright Cellars, for example) and some giants (Gallo), so that about half of all wine bottled in the U.S. comes with a synthetic closure even though only about 10% of wineries surveyed use it.

There is more to the WBM story than this, of course. Winery respondents were asked to give their ratings of closure alternatives and the result is a rising tide — all of the closures were rated higher than they were a few years ago. When it comes to quality in wine closures, the trend seems to be up and up.

Creative Destruction in the Closure World

This did not surprise me because closure manufacturers keep me well-supplied with press releases about their newest innovations and I have been impressed with the way that they have responded to criticisms and invested in improved technology giving wineries higher quality and greater choice. There has also been something of a shakeout taking place over the years, with some producers dropping out of the market, increasing the scale of the others, which further increases the return to new investment.

The race to the top is true for natural cork, as Antonio Amorim and Carlos de Jesus made sure I appreciated when I met with them in Porto last year. Natural cork producers made a terrible mistake when they did not recognize problems in past years, and they paid a high price in lost market share as a result, Amorim told me.

But better consistency, higher technical quality and strong consumer acceptance makes natural cork a competitor in every market, he said. And of course better natural corks force the other closure makers to raise their game, too. Winemakers and wine consumers certainly gain.

If there’s one area where cork closures would seem to have an unavoidable disadvantage over screw-caps, however, it would be convenience. Screw caps are just easier to handle and, with rising technical quality, that would seem to give it a big advantage in some markets at least. Even wine guru Hugh Johnson thinks so. His May 2015 column in Decanter magazine proclaimed that “I am faintly irritated now when I come to open a bottle of wine and find I need a corkscrew.” Gosh! The screw-cap is “incomparably better” than natural cork, he says.

Do the Twist — Like This!

Well, Amorim doesn’t want to lose Hugh Johnson’s business (or anyone else’s) so last year they released a screw-cork closure called Helix. That’s right — screw-cork (see the image above). The cork and specially-made bottle are designed so that the cork screws into (and out of) the bottle slick as can be.

Screw-cork? Amazing.Probably not as important in the grand scheme of things as the technical improvements in cork production at Amorim, but still a great example of how innovation occurs even in centuries-old industries like cork closures. Is this an example of Taber’s idea that unfettered competition is a driving force for for good? When it comes to closures, it sure seems to be true. Here’s to the race to the top!