Hong Kong and Global Wine Market

A new study, albeit based on 2010 data, was just released by Vinexpo awarding Hong Kong residents top spot on the Asian continent for per capita wine consumption.  The Wall Street Journal, reporting on the study last week, said the average Hong Kong consumer drank 6.3 bottles in 2010, about twice as much volume as Japan [...]

Are Wine Critics Useless To Consumers?

New wine research is blurring the efficacy of highly detailed wine reviews authored by wine writers and critics. Besides a case for the favored consumer engagement writers can create by formulaically humanizing wines made here last week, now there is further scientific evidence that consumers do not relate to the acute level of flavor specificity critics are [...]

Wine Crush, Knowledge, and Beauty

Two favorite wine writers recently teased at the distinction between sensual wine discovery and accumulated wine knowledge. Their words fanned a flame first kindled by my earliest wine crush back in the mid eighties. Not the press and juice kind of crush. I mean the ten-year-old-kiddie-kind-of-crush; when just the thought of that special “someone” lightens [...]

What’s Going on With the Price of Wine

I finally caught up with a replay of Rob McMillan’s Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) webinar presentation of their own 2011-2012 State of the Wine Industry report. Rob is founder of SVB’s Wine division.  His presentation was not really a state of the wine industry report since the bank and its research are only concerned with the U.S., west [...]

The Wine and Food Culture Divide

I’ll admit to spending more time than it’s probably worth thinking about nuances in wine and food culture.  For example, I ponder how obvious it is that most of us Americans act with righteous self confidence buying, ordering, and cooking the foodstuffs and ingredients we prefer. We’ll ask questions freely when shopping or ordering to [...]

Blind Wine Tasting Price Research Flawed

A recent piece of wine tasting research by Richard Wiseman, a psychologist at the University of Hertfordshire in England, has produced irrelevant conclusions that can be attributed to flawed experiment design. Unfortunately with wine consumption’s increasing popularity, both The Guardian and CNET covered the blind tasting test held at the Edinburgh International Science Festival, designed by [...]

Bordeaux First Growths Fund Alternative Wines

In early 2006 the Bordeaux price-value line was breached and began its transgression towards complete collapse, erasing all justification for drinking the first growths and other similarly coveted wines that sat in my cellar for decades.  Just look at the blue line to the right, representing relative fine wine price escalation compared to the major [...]

Platter’s: Showcase and Reliable Guide for South African Wine

Sheltered from cooling afternoon rains by a thatched roof structure on the Zimbabwe side of its border with Zambia, I started applying context to a few days of exclusively South African wines. I, like lots of American wine drinkers, don’t pay a lot of attention to the category.  The US does not even rank in [...]

Take Poll and Weigh In On Future High-End Wine Economy

Take a second, look to the right of your screen,  and share your own thoughts on what it takes for you to spend $50+ on high-end wines at retail.  With the preliminary findings report from Silicon Valley Bank’s Wine Division (see recent post Wine Sales Stink and the World is Not Flat) underscoring the massive swing in growth rates that has [...]

Wine Sales Stink and The World is Not Flat

In Silicon Valley Bank’s recently released Preliminary Findings Report (you won’t get a recap of all the details here, save a few,  so click on the link and download the PDF if you are so inclined) which precedes their more exhaustive Spring 2010-2011 Annual State of the Wine Industry Report, the Bank’s opening salvo declared; The [...]

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