There has been a lot of troubling wine business news recently and I am watching closely to see if, when, and how the industry can pull together to address the many problems. As I wrote a few weeks ago, Lewis Perdue’s 1999 book “The Wrath of Grapes” criticized wine industry groups for putting individual interests above broader industry needs. Can we do better this time around? So far this year I have been able to take the industry’s pulse through my participation at the Unified Wine & Grape Symposium in Sacramento and virtual and in-person speaking events in Idaho, Burgundy, Moldova, and th ..read more

“Kind of Blue” is one of my favorite jazz albums and, although we usually think of it as a Miles Davis work, it is really a collaboration of talented artists at the height of their powers.  Recorded in 1959, it features John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderly, and Bill Evans among others (who can forget Paul Chambers’ bass on the title track?). A timeless classic. Wine is like jazz in many ways, including the power of ensemble work. Although we often give credit for a wine to the head winemaker, there is usually a team involved. The collaboration can take many forms. Recently, for example, Sue ..read more

About half the hands in the room shot skywards and I was surprised. I was at the License to Steal national wine marketing workshop that took place alongside the Eastern Winery Expo in Syracuse, New York, last month and the topic was artificial intelligence (AI). We had just seen a presentation about the role of AI in the wine business and Donniella Winchell was leading the follow-up discussion. How many people were already using AI to help them create content for marketing, social media, and other purposes? The answer was a lot and everyone was interested in learning more. AI and Productivity ..read more

A look back at The Wrath of Grapes by Lewis Perdue (Spike Books / Avon, 1999). Over long, hard decades, American winemakers have won the respect of connoisseurs everywhere. Many of the world’s most cherished, and expensive, wines come from the United States. But today, the unique and eccentric wine industry faces a grim set of challenges that could transform it forever: oversupply in the face of flat consumption, devastating vineyard diseases, an antiquated distribution system, fierce competition from abroad, attacks from anti-alcohol forces, and an inability to capitalize on wine’s prov ..read more

It was an unlikely pairing. Thirty years ago the legendary Olympic champion Carl Lewis became the face of Pirelli, the Italian tire maker. “Power is nothing without control,” the advertisements proclaimed. This photo of sprinter Lewis in high heels made the point very well (as did a spectacular television commercial). Power without a strong foundation isn’t very useful. It is important to assess situations from the ground up (where the “rubber meets the road”) rather than simply top-down. The Tax Man Cometh What prompts my interest in vintage tire advertisements?  I am inspired by recent ..read more

“What Young Wine Drinkers Want” is the title of a recent Financial Times article by Hannah Crosbie, one of several recent reports probing the priorities and buying habits of younger consumers. Taken together, they give anyone concerned about the future of the wine industry a lot to think about. Compared to the baby boomers who drove the wine industry for many years, younger consumers differ greatly in terms of their economic situation, communications preferences, relationship to alcohol, and much else. The Changing Nature of “Story Wines” One common theme is that younger consumers want more th ..read more

I will be in Syracuse, New York, next week to speak at License to Steal, a national wine marketing conference that is being held in conjunction with the Eastern Winery Exposition. License to Steal? Well, it is all about wine industry people gathering to talk about their marketing experiences, encouraging each other to “steal” strategies that have worked as a way to grow the total market pie. This would be called “sharing best practices” in consultant-speak. It is a great idea whatever you call it and very important today when the wine industry faces many headwinds. License to Steal is nearly 2 ..read more

Last week’s Wine Economist stressed the need to adapt to changing wine market conditions and to embrace innovations as part of that process. However, innovations are not always readily accepted (often rightly so). There is often the fear that change will simply ruin whatever good or service is being considered. Curse of the Paperback Novel The economist Paul Krugman likes to point to an innovation in the publishing industry that was initially met with fear and alarm. It will be the end of publishing and literature as we know it, critics said. What was the next big thing that got authors and pu ..read more

The outline of the Wall Street Journal story was very familiar to anyone who has followed wine industry trends in recent years. The product had a long history and was well-loved in America and around the world. But the industry itself was in crisis. Demand was down. Part of the problem was health concerns and part of it was price (its retail price was higher than the most popular substitute). Worse of all, younger consumers were turning away. Production costs kept rising and rising, but retail prices not so much (or at all, in some cases) eating margins and leaving red ink stains on the accoun ..read more

If you want to start an argument among wine industry people, bring up the issue of nutritional labeling. Should wine labels provide consumers with the same kind of nutritional information and ingredient lists as found on most other food and drink items? Stand back! The Soviet System There is an old joke that everything in Stalin’s Soviet Union was either mandatory or forbidden and sometimes it seems like that’s the logic behind wine label regulations. All wines in the U.S. market already have some required information on the label, but thi smainly  takes the form of warnings. Beware of al ..read more