What's Happening in Wine? Surprising Truths Unveiled by NielsenIQ

Fun fact: only 5 percent of people ever spend more than $20 on a bottle of wine. The bulk wine show is for the 95 percent.

Last year was the first time I went to the International Bulk Wine & Spirits show held in July at the South San Francisco Conference Center, and it's now one of my favorite shows of the year. 

It's like a vast dating game for wine matchmakers. "I've got bulk wine, you've got a market. Let's get together."

You can literally travel around the world just by circling the floor. 

The list of speakers is getting better and better, too, and offers a fascinating look into what actually makes the wine business tick, from shipping to selling to the big guns (retail chains, restaurant chains, etc.), training your sales team, and trends (like non-alcoholic wines, for instance). 

I'll be posting a few pix from the show here, but first, a word from the granddaddy of all data companies-Nielsen. Here's my story for WineBusiness.com on what top data nerds' see happening now and how it might portend what's next. 

There's a few thoughts on organic in all of this, too (read to the end, please). I hope to add more NielsenIQ data about organic in a future post. For now, read:

NielsenIQ Thought Leader Talks Trends, New Approaches to Woo Next Gen Consumers

FINALLY...Redemption Recycling for Wine Containers Is Almost Here

The insanity of not letting consumers get deposits back on containers may end soon, thanks to California's updates to its bottle bill. 

Experts at CalRecycle say that adding wine and spirits bottles will increase the state's overall recycling rate by 4 percent. In a bottle weight conscious industry, this seems like a good place to start, finally.

Read the story and get all the details on the new rules in WineBusiness.com.

Smoke Experts and Health Authorities Critical of Prescribed Burn in Sonoma

Just posting something I wrote about for WineBusiness.com on risks to wine grapes from a prescribed burn. I am continuing to research prescribed burns and their effectiveness/ineffectiveness in different landscapes. 

Very grateful for our state's amazing researchers. More to come. 

In the meantime this is what on the ground sensors recorded from the burn.

THE STORY

"When a huge plume of smoke covered Sonoma Valley last Wednesday, residents, hoteliers, restauranteurs and growers weren’t quite sure what to think. The source of the smoke was a 92 acre prescribed burn at Donnell Ranch, a fire set by Audubon Canyon’s Fire Forward program and led by program director Sasha Berleman, to burn grassland and oak forest on the property. Located near the Sonoma Raceway, the burn site was on Mangel Ranch Road, just across from Ram’s Gate winery on Arnold Drive..." 

Read the story on WineBusiness.com.

Full Pour: Why Organic Matters

When I wrote to Full Pour's editor Lauren Buzzeo months ago with several story ideas, an organic explainer was not one of them. 

Full Pour is a new magazine that debuted this spring and covers the full spectrum of alcoholic beverages for a hip audience.

Then just back from Slow Wine Fair in Bologna, when I originally emailed Lauren, I was into taking a look at wine movements, including Slow Wine and others, but the subject was just too rich and deep to fit into 800 words, which was the assignment length. Ha ha!

Instead Lauren asked me to write a real organic explainer, so I went for it. Not pussy footing around about chemical farming, she said. After several iterations, which required me footnoting all kinds of stuff for her in editorial reviews, this is what exists now: an EPIC explainer, at 3,500 words, that gets into the nitty gritty of what materials are used in non-organic viticulture compared to organic wine grape growing. It covers QUITE a lot of territory. 

Hopefully you'll be able to pick up a copy, as the magazine is NOT distributed digitally. (However there is a pdf of the article on my Wine Journalism portfolio page.) 

Buy the magazine online here. The Why Organic Matters article is in the Summer issue, though it's stealthily not listed as one of the featured articles. (You gotta be in the know to know it's in there.) Believe...and click to buy.

Napa Grows Organic Production: Up 33% From 2020-2022

While the U.S. wine industry lags way behind the three main wine producing countries in the EU, with a mere (estimated) three percent of organic wine grapes, compared to Italy, France and Spain (where an average of 18 percent of vine acreage is organic), Napa is zooming ahead of the rest of California in the number of organic vineyards.

That's according to the Napa County Ag Commissionser's most recent crop report in which the number of certified organic registrants grew from 99 in 2020 to 133 in 2022. (Acreage details were not available as neither the county nor the state counts organic acreage.)

Note: a few of these wineries were not entirely new, but re-registering under new ownership. (These are the Lawrence Family wineries indicted below.)

Here is a list of all the organic certifications registered in 2020-2022.

Alejandro Bulgheroni Estate

ARBORUM

Bartlett Family Vineyards

Bayard Fox Selections LLC

Bengier Family Vineyards

Brand NV, LLC dba Brand Napa Valley

Constellation Brands, Inc. dba To Kalon Vineyard

Cortina Vineyard Management dba Cathiard Family Estate

Dominus Estate Corporation dba Dominus Estate

Grateful Red, LLC dba Elusa Winery (Four Seasons)

Haynes Vineyard (Lawrence)

Heitz Cellar - Wildwood dba Heitz Wildwood (Lawrence)

Hoopes Vineyard

Hope Management, LLC dba One Hope Wine

Hossfeld Vineyards

Huneeus Vintners, LLC. dba Quintessa Winery

Jack Neal & Son, Inc. / Chaix dba Chaix

Jack Neal & Son, Inc./Barlow dba Barlow Vineyards

Jack Neal & Son/Sorenson

K&G Vineyards LLC (Wight/Clif Family) - 89 acres

Kongsgaard Wine

M.S. Torun

MacDonald Vineyard Management - 15 acres

New Pina Vineyard Management - Perliss Vineyard (2.6 acres)

New Pina Vineyard Management - Seven Stones Vineyard (3 acres)

New Pina Vineyard Management, LLC/ Clivi Vinea

Newton Vineyards (partially organic)

Oakville Hill Cellar dba Dalla Valle Vineyards

Opus One

Paradigm Winery

Princess Sophie, LLC dba Rachofsky Vineyard (grower)

Salvestrin Winery dba Salvestrin Wine Co. LLC

Sandpoint Wines LLC dba Young Inglewood Vineyards

Stony Hill Vineyard dba Stony Hill (Lawrence)

Talbot Enterprises, LLC dba Hayne Vineyard, Talbot Enterprises, LLC 

Handling Only

Saintsbury LLC (Handling, for clients only)

TPWC dba The Prisoner Wine Company (Handling, for clients only)

Italy's Biodynamic All Stars to Speak in Napa

[Clockwise from upper left: Foradori, Zago, Ceretto and Pepe]

Quintessa will be hosting a three day, $1,700+ seminar on biodynamics, led by Adriano Zago, an Italian biodynamic consultant, in Napa.

Rudy Marchesi of Montinore Estate has been hosting workshops with Adriano at his Willamette Valley estate in Oregon for classes in recent years, and this year the Biodynamic Demeter Alliance (formed by the merger of Demeter USA and the Biodynamic Alliance) is offering an expanded program in California with special guests. 

Featured are Chiara Pepe of Emidio Pepe (Abruzzo), Federico Ceretto of Ceretto (Barolo), and Elisabetta Foradori of Foradori (Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol). 

Marchesi was so impressed with Foradori's Teroldego wine that he started growing and making it in Oregon. 

The event takes place July 27-29.

UPDATE (AUG. 3)

I covered this three day event for WineBusiness.com. You can read the story here.

Headliners from ASEV (the UberGeeky Wine Conference) Shed NEW Light on Climate Change's Impacts

Attending the American Society of Enology and Viticulture's sold out climate day session, I was impressed with two, special keynote speakers: Nick Dokoozlian, Gallo's top vit expert, and Monika Christmann, Geisenheim University Wine Institute's president, who was for three years the head of OIV. Both contributed their wisdom - and in Monika's case, often her wit - to the assembled multitudes. 

The conference, which changes locations annually, was held in Napa this year. It is truly a wine super geek fest, with researchers and academics presenting papers to an international audience and posters from young researchers on the walls for all to see.

For reasons unknown, only two of us press types were allowed to attend the climate day. (Others were allowed to attend all the other sessions.) That said, I feel obliged to share at length what they said, which you can find on WineBusiness.com.

Enjoy.

At ASEV: Former OIV Leader's Big Picture Thinking Part 1 - Climate Change and Winemaking

At ASEV: Former OIV Leader's Big Picture Thinking Part 2 - The Search for the New Ideal Wine

At ASEV: Nick Dokoozlian: Forecasting the Future, Part 1: Prioritizing Key Grower Challenges in the Era of Climate Change 

At ASEV: Nick Dokoozlian: Forecasting the Future, Part 2: Prioritizing Key Grower Challenges in the Era of Climate Change 

Note: you can also buy audio recordings of conference sessions here which also lists all of the sessions (information that is no longer on the public ASEV website). https://allstartapes.com/asev-74th-national-conference-2023/.

ASEV members will have access to videos of all conference sessions.

There was very little coverage of organic wine grape research, so I have not written about that topic in this post.

Napa Green's RISE Event Builds Community

For two years in a row I have been impressed with the quality of climate education Napa Green has provided at its RISE GREEN event, featuring so many world class speakers and reinforcing what we all know - we need to act on climate initiatives. 

Particularly impressive has been the focus on learning (not marketing), and there's been an impressive array of organic and regenerative viticulture experts, including Ivo Jeramaz from Grgich, Natalie Winkler from Salvestrin and Mimi Casteel from Hope Well in Oregon. 

It was therefore a pleasure to write about the 2023 gathering over six days in April for The Tasting Panel. It's also my first piece for them. 

Here are two quotes that sum up what I find so appealing about the event, which aims not only to build skills and motivation, but to build community as well. 

Read the article here.

Grgich 100 Birthday Celebration July 1 Brings Out the Fans

Enthusiastic fans proudly wearing their berets, one of Grgich's signature looks

Saturday hundreds of fans of Grgich Hills wines braved the heat to come out for feasting and festivities to celebrate Mike Ggrich's 100th birthday. 

Croatian dancers serves Croatian style sausages, while attendees picked their way through a crudite platter to end all crudite platters.

The bar was pouring the winery's top Chardonnay ($100 a bottle), master sommelier Andrea Robinson narrated festivities and celebrity appearances, Warren Winiarki attended, and there was plenty of general merriment among the assembled multitudes with a pro-Croatian theme motivating some of the fans.

From the winery's Carneros vineyards, their top (of 3) Chardonnays

Mike made an appearance as well, capping off a series of winery events, which started April 1, his real birthday. 

(You can read more about the iconic wine tasting at the Culinary Institute of America where historic vintages were served here). 

Grgich is one of the top wineries using only organic, estate grown grapes in Napa since 2006 and received its Regenerative Organic Alliance certification this spring. It is the only Napa winery that also certifies its wine organic under the "Made with Organic Grapes" certification, guaranteeing that winemaking practices are consistent and use fewer than 100 ppm of sulfites. 

Paul Dolan Memorial Date Announced: Aug. 4

The Dolan family has announced that a memorial for Paul Dolan will be held Friday, August 4th at Dark Horse Vineyards (5341 Old River Road, Ukiah) from 1-5 pm.