Missing Barrel Tasting This Year?

  The Wine Road's Barrel Tasting event, usually the first two weekends of March, is another victim to the pandemic. Yes, it's such a popular event it takes two weekends! The barrel tasting is a chance to try wines right out of the barrel before they are ready for bottling.

  For 2021 several wineries are participating in a very unique event where they pull wines out of their libraries so rather than sampling a 2020 wine you might be tasting something from 2011.

  It's all done the first weekend of March, in their outdoor tasting areas, with regular tasting fees, and following the Covid safety protocols.

  The event from Sonomamag.com

Wine in Single Serving Cans

The Feds in the TTB agency control all things alcohol. They recently ruled to allow small single serving packaging of wine to be sold individually. This means you'll see single cans of wine being sold by wineries in sizes such as 250 ml (about 8 fl. oz.).

In the past you could buy small cans in 4-packs. Maybe now we'll see something other than, you know, pink Barefoot in cans. Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Gris should be very popular next summer. Having some cans of red table wines or Pinot Noir around would be okay, too.

The caveat is a possible shortage of aluminum cans. With first the craft beer industry switching largely to cans and then hard seltzer's popularity there has been a big increase in demand.

This Might Change Alcohol Advertising

 A big shift in the American alcohol industry.

Will you soon see an ad with a group of women drinking Bud while watching TV? Probably not, but for seltzer, wine, and some spirits you may see more ads directed towards female consumers.

Click on to enlarge

 

Tough Year for Many Wineries and Growers

The local vineyard owners are taking a hit now and the wineries will later as the 2020 harvest was about half what it should have been. Why? Pandemic and wildfires. Wine grapes were damaged by fire, left hanging on the vines because of smoke damage, or rejected by wineries because of suspected smoke taint.

Article from the Press Democrat

E-commerce Retail Sales

You can easily pick out the Great Recession and the Covid recession and see the difference in the two. This is all retail, not just wine.
Click on the graph to enlarge.

 

Sonoma County's Moon Mountain Distict

Moon Mountain became its own American Viticultural Area in 2013. It's a sub-appellation of Sonoma Valley and the grapes from there were labeled as Sonoma Valley up until then. That was weird in that the Moon Mountain vineyards sit a few hundred to a couple thousand feet above the valley floor. The elevation changes the weather and the soil -- two things that affect a wine's flavor.

Bucking the Alcohol Trend

 During Covid the consumption of alcohol has dropped 8% in the key world markets. In a couple countries, South Africa and India, the government even banned alcohol sales. Holy hell, and you thought you had it bad!

 Bucking the trend, Canada and the U.S. increased their consumption by 2%. Way to go!

Sonoma Valley Natural Wine

Natural winemaking is a low-intervention method of making wine. Generally, you ferment organic grapes with natural yeast and don't add chemicals. The wines are different so you have to try for yourself. There is no legal definition on what is a natural wine so buyer beware -- purchase from someone you know of someone you've read about making natural wines.

Sonoma Valley has a longer history of natural wine than more because of one winery, Coturri.

The new guard of natural winemakers from Sonoma Index-Tribune

An interview with Tony Coturri from Sprudge.com

The Bacigalupi Family of Sonoma County

One of the hard-working wine families of Sonoma County, the Bacigalupis, have a slightly different story in that the women of the family are running the business. 

An article from the Napa Valley Register talks about the generations of Bacigalupis and their part in the Judgement of Paris in 1976 that changed American and New World wine forever.

Bacigalupi Vineyards & Winery