Top Concerns of the Wine Business

What are the top concerns of 2024 for those in the wine business? Per a survey from innovint.us, the top five are:

1. Maintaining or growing sales
2. Increasing costs to produce wine
3. Traffic to the tasting rooms
4. Brand recognition in the market
5. Losing customers because they are drinking less or not at all

Number 4, brand recognition, can be a problem any time. The rest are specific to today's wine market. Brand recognition, and maybe sales growth, are something you can influence if you have a marketing budget. The others are mostly out of a winery's control.
 

Signs of Weaker Wine Demand

Current thinking in the wine biz says we are in for slowing times. As I've asked before, is it a permanent slowdown or is it related to the Pandemic/lockdown/shortages/inflation cycle? Most think it's more permanent, with slowing demand for wine.

Selecting a Wine: America vs Italy

A survey of wine consumers shows the importance of different factors used to choose a bottle of wine. Here's a look at some differences between American and Italian buyers.

The top reason for both was that they had already tried the wine and liked it. 

What Wine with Cheeseburgers?

Wednesday, September 18th is National Cheeseburger Day. 

There are deals on cheeseburgers (with restrictions) at McDonald's, Burger King, Wendys, and hopefully at a decent local burger joint near you. BTW Sept 15th was National Double Cheeseburger Day and we missed it. Doh!

Of course, this leads to the question, what wine should I have with my cheeseburger? 

Wine Consumption by Country

For the past decade, the U.S. has led worldwide wine consumption by volume. The much talked about Chinese are actually way down the list.

Per capita, Portugal leads the way with 52 liters of wine per person per year. The U.S. is 16th at 12 liters.

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What Sonoma Valley and Washington State Wines Have in Common

It's not climate or soil or history, it's identity. It's a distant 650 miles from the Sonoma Valley AVA to the middle of Washington, but they share this commonality. Neither has a distinct identity that most well-known wine growing areas possess.

Autumn in Wine Country

September, October, and early November are a prime time for visiting the California Wine Country. Here's why:

Calif. Bulk Wine Market, and Why You Might Care

Bulk wine is unsold wine from a previous vintage. It's sitting in large tanks or barrels and can be shipped to a purchaser in large containers. It often winds up at a winery or with someone else who will bottle and label it for retail sale. A winery can easily do this as they are already set up for it. Sometimes a winery might sell it as a one-time special bottling, sometimes under a different label because it'll be at a significantly lower price than their other wines.

Who is Drinking Wine?

In 2023 spirits surpassed wine in popularity in the U.S. for the first time in decades. This, according to a Gallup poll asking people what is their favorite alcoholic beverage.