Search Results for “suck so much”

Wine Above Replacement (WAR) — Hard Seltzer

in Millennials, Wine marketing
Published on March 28, 2019

It’s Opening Day for Major League Baseball. Unfortunately, I had to deal with my St. Louis Cardinals sleepwalking through their opener with the Milwaukee Brewers, so I’m looking for a good distraction. Thankfully, that mental break came from revisiting a Facebook thread about my Winery Moneyball article. In a tongue-in-cheek comment, the Sierra Wine Guy wondered When will wineries start using WAR [Wins Above Replacement]? That got me thinking, what would be a good wine industry…

Adapt or Perish — The Wine Industry’s Reckoning With Technology

in General, Millennials, Wine marketing
Published on February 19, 2019

I’ve seemed to have kicked up a little bit of a hornet’s nest with my post No, There’s Not an App For That — Winery Visit Rant. You can read for yourself the responses in the comment section of the article. Additionally, some interesting points came up on the SpitBucket Facebook page as well as from Paul Mabray’s retweeting of the article. There are a few other Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook threads circling around with more.…

Millennial Math — Where’s the value in wine?

in Beer, Millennials, Napa Valley, Shopping for Wine, Whiskey, Wine marketing
Published on February 7, 2019

A few days ago I wrote about the “Boredom Factor” that is sapping Millennials’ enthusiasm for wine. But engaging Millennials with things that are new, interesting and authentic is only part of the battle. The industry also needs to reframe the discussion about value and pricing. Let’s face it, wine delivers horrible “bang for the buck”–especially compared to other alcoholic beverages. This is true at all price points, but particularly at the low-end (and ironically…

The Hits, Misses and Mehs of Wine Reviews

in Champagne, Shopping for Wine, Wine critics, Wine reviews
Published on December 10, 2018

Earlier this week The Seattle Times published an article about the top Costco Kirkland wines as selected by a local wine blogger. One of the wines featured was the Kirkland Signature Brut Champagne that I picked up for $19.99. Throughout the month of December, my wife and I like to open up a bottle of sparkling wine each night. That can get expensive with Champagne so we make sure to stock up on plenty of Proseccos,…

Wine Media Musings

in General
Published on November 9, 2018

Today the Wine Bloggers Conference announced it was renaming itself as the Wine Media Conference. In the official announcement, Allan Wright of Zephyr Conferences highlighted a panel discussion from Day 2 of this year’s conference where the question was asked “Is the Wine Bloggers Conference appropriately named?” It was the opinion of Tom Wark from the Fermentation Wine Blog that the conference wasn’t–which was a sentiment that the leadership of the conference has been harboring…

Playing the Cellar Lottery — When Should You Open Up That Bottle?

in General, Wine Tasting
Published on November 3, 2018

Someone in South Carolina last month won $1.537 billion playing the Mega Millions lottery. At the peak of the frenzy, retailers were selling 12,700 tickets a minute. It reached a point where so many people were playing, that experts estimated that all possible 302,575,350 combinations of numbers were likely claimed before the jackpot was finally won. I didn’t get a ticket. Though I used to be quite a gambler in my younger days, now my…

Geek Notes 7/30/18 — New Wine Books to Geek Out With in August

in Geek Notes, Wine grapes, Wine Knowledge
Published on July 30, 2018

A look at some of the some of new releases in the world of wine books. The Wines of New Zealand by Master of Wine Rebecca Gibb (released July 30th, 2018) While there has been a few other books written to cover the wines of New Zealand such as Michael Cooper and John McDermott’s Wine Atlas of New Zealand (2002) and Warren Moran’s New Zealand Wine: The Land, The Vines, The People (2017), as far…

Bordeaux Futures 2017 — Clos Fourtet, Larcis Ducasse, Pavie Macquin, Beauséjour Duffau-Lagarrosse

in Bordeaux, Shopping for Wine
Published on July 23, 2018

We head back to St. Emilion to look at some of the 2017 Bordeaux Futures offers from 4 of the 14 Premier Grand Cru Classé ‘B’ — Clos Fourtet, Ch. Larcis Ducasse, Ch. Pavie Macquin and Ch. Beauséjour Duffau-Lagarrosse. In our previous jaunts to St. Emilion we examined the offers of Clos de l’Oratoire, Ch. Monbousquet, Ch. Quinault l’Enclos and Ch. Fonplegade as well as Ch. Beau-Séjour Bécot, Ch. Canon-la-Gaffelière, Ch. Canon and Ch. La…

Bordeaux Futures 2017 — Montrose, La Dame de Montrose, Cantemerle, d’Aiguilhe

in Bordeaux, Shopping for Wine
Published on July 15, 2018

For the last several postings in our series about the 2017 Bordeaux Futures campaign, we’ve been skipping around Bordeaux to focus on the offers from different communes. Today we’re going to take a break from that to look at some individual offers from the St. Estephe 2nd Growth Ch. Montrose and its second wine, La Dame de Montrose. Then we are going to head out to the Haut-Medoc AOC to check in on the 5th…

Bordeaux Futures 2017 — Vieux Chateau Certan, La Conseillante, La Violette, L’Eglise Clinet

in Bordeaux, Shopping for Wine
Published on July 12, 2018

After striking out completely on our last visit to Pomerol where we explored the 2017 Bordeaux Futures offers for Ch. Clinet, Clos L’Eglise, L’Evangile and Ch. Nenin, we head back there to see if maybe, possibly, somehow there will be anything resembling a decent value in the offers from Vieux Chateau Certan, La Conseillante, La Violette and L’Eglise Clinet. Or maybe I will just end up buying more 2014s? Though that vintage has been more…