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.
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!
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
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.
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.
