The California governor recently allowed the counties to reopen. This was probably because of a combination of hospitals seeing fewer patients and lawsuits against the state's tight shutdown. Anyway, maybe things will stay open for good now, maybe not. Sonoma and Napa Counties are both reopening now.
First of all let me say that I am an old white guy. That's the same demographic that gives points and gold medals to wines.
Unless you're in the wine biz you probably missed the huge sale of wine brands between the two biggies in the U.S. wine market, Constellation Brands and Gallo. Gallo just bought 30 brands from Constellation including Clos du Bois, Mark West, and Ravenswood. Gallo now owns over 30% of the U.S. market. That's big, too big.
Maybe it's not just about giving your body a workout after the holidays. Something that might be a little more enjoyable is improving your sense of smell and taste with practice. Why? To help with your wine enjoyment, of course, but also with anything else you consume.
We've heard about wineries and the economic pain with lack of visitation. Some have been helped by more shipping via their websites. The other parts of the hospitality industry in the wine country are hotels and restaurants.
Everybody likes predictions and the nice thing about them is readers forget what you predicted when it doesn't come to pass. Besides, I need a break from all the stupid crap going on now. Extrapolating from what is already going on is easier so this is more figuring out which trends stay, which ones go.
Naked Wines is a 12 year old online wine retailer based in the UK. It's a different sort of wine club and you can read about how they run their business elsewhere if you wish. They've been quite successful, but nothing like "pandemic successful."
With all the stay at home orders and people ordering everything online their fiscal half year that ran from last April through September saw an 80% growth in revenue over the previous year.
Their UK offerings of Christmas specials during the December lock down brought in so much traffic that it temporarily crashed their website.
This new year starts dark, but improves as the vaccines are rolled out. It's just that no one knew at the time how the new mRNA formulation would change everyone's sense of taste and smell. Suddenly chardonnay tasted like soap, cabernet like candy corn.
