Wine Sales Growth

  Last week's blog post said wine sales seem to be leveling off based on results from Silicon Valley Bank. Here's a deeper look.

Making Wine for the People (and Hitting a Moving Target)

People who grow wine grapes and make wine, and even those in the marketing side, are constantly aiming for a moving target. Along with that there is usually a long lead time to implement changes. It's not quite as bad as making cars, for instance, where styles, engineering, and technologies change every couple years it seems. But it's definitely more unpredictable than growing soybeans!

The Struggle is Real :)

Sparkling Wines in the U.S.

Sparkling wines are the fastest growing segment of the U.S. wine market.

In the last few years America discovered Prosecco, an inexpensive and very nice Italian bubbly, and its sales have grown 25% over the past couple of years. Why Prosecco? Value.

All sparkling wine sales have increased enough to where the U.S. may surpass the UK as the world's largest importer of sparkling wine (they love their French Champagne). England is even making its own sparkling wines now.

Wine Sales Leveling Off

It couldn't keep going like that forever. Every year since 2009's negative growth during the recession U.S. winery sales have averaged about 10% growth each year -- until 2017. Last year's growth (thru 9/30/17) was just 0.3%. (Info from Silicon Valley Bank).

Does this mean a contraction is coming or just a leveling off?

Sangiovese - A Food-Friendly Wine

Sangiovese (san joh vaze ay) is Italy's most popular wine grape and the Italians know a thing or two about putting food and wine together. What makes a wine a particularly good food wine? One key element is acid. The acidity of the wine is what stands up to food. Lower acid wines get wiped out by many foods. As a byproduct the acidity is a preservative and helps the wine age.

Organic vs Biodynamic vs Sustainable vs Natural Wine

As if buying a bottle of wine isn't confusing enough with trying to interpret what's on the front label especially on many imported wines. Their labels sometimes aren't even in English!  :)

There are corporate-farmed grapes and industrial settings for making many popular, high volume wines. Those producers don't talk about that, but smaller wineries in the premium end like to differentiate themselves with how the grapes are grown and how the wine is made.

Calories in Your Glass of Wine

Among the flurry of studies telling you the health benefits of wine it still comes down to the fact that it's an alcoholic beverage. You have to decide for yourself how much alcohol is healthy for you to consume. What about the calories?

Favorite Places to Visit in Sonoma County

Following up on favorite wineries and restaurants here are places that fall under the "other" category.

Favorite Santa Rosa, Sonoma County Restaurants

Coming after the last post on favorite wineries is favorite restaurants. I've stuck to the town of Santa Rosa in Sonoma County as that's where I'm based and know best. It's not a complete list as there are many other excellent restaurants and I could probably add another 20 restaurants to the list.

Favorite Sonoma (and nearby) Wineries

Well heck, after years of writing this blog I've never actually listed my favs from the area. Will they be close to yours? Probably not. Think of it as another data point to use in selecting where to stop on your next visit.

Is this a "best of" list? Probably not. I can't really define best without a lot of "personal parameters." It comes down to things like the people, the place, prices and my history with them. Plus I don't often go to appointment-only wineries as it's easier to not be locked into time slots though a couple of these are appt-only places, but are easy enough to get into with a quick phone call.

The difference between this list and all the others? This one comes from living in Sonoma County for going on 40 years; not from a wine writer who visits for a week. Also, I don't make any money off this so there's no influence from that.

2017 The Year in Beer

Per the Brewers Association (whose job it is to promote independent craft brewers) there are now over 6,000 breweries in the U.S. That's 700 more than a year ago and double what we had just four years ago. Supposedly 83% of drinking age adults live within ten miles of a craft brewery. If you live in places like Portland, San Diego, or even Grand Rapids that number might be dozens.

Future of Wine

It wasn't that long ago we were wondering what the wine industry would look like in 2025. Suppose we go out 20 or 30 years from now and look at potential external changes and see what their effect might be on the wine in your glass (or container made from recycled materials).