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.
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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
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.
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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.
