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 [...]

Costco Wine: Neither 90 Points Nor $15 and Under

90 Points of Costco Wine, written on June 9, 2009, turned out to be the most popular WineZag post yet. Untold sums of people search multiple forms of a “Costco Wine” phrase every day and the post drives a high volume of “wine aware” organic search traffic to this blog. Some of those vistors poke around [...]

Blind Tasting Series Report Part II: 2000 Bordeaux

The kaleidoscope of quality wine in market channels at any given time serves as decoy and easy distraction from the simple truth of Bordeaux’s classic performance and superior drinking experience.  My cellared claret sits ignored and unmoved for long stretches of time while I uncork wines with age-worthiness generating far less confidence.  The second flight of 2000 [...]

Authentic Discovery: Rather Drink Wine With Tom Johnson than Stephen Tanzer

It was an amusing week dipping into the online wine-world, witnessing Stephen Tanzer barreling clumsily into the blogosphere with his Winophilia and Tom Johnson striking a chord at Palate Press, accusing wine blogs of failing its readers. Tanzer, an established traditional media wine critic, is Editor and Publisher of the International Wine Cellar while Johnson, a recently converted [...]

Gallo for a Nickel or Dime? A Cleansing Period for the Wine Industry at Any Price

The blogosphere has been glowing garnet with empirical proof that the US wine industry haphazardly exposed their flanks to foreign importers with business plans to dominate the value segments of the domestic US fine wine market (recent WineZag post).  The industry continued to plant, expand, and gear up for the $50-$125 dead zone in today’s market.  Not all the competitive imported value wines were sweet, [...]

One Robert Parker

Robert Parker and his Wine Advocate have shaped wine markets and consumer behavior more than any other contemporary critical influence.  The newsletter continues to fulfill its role as the most useful independent review source available. During the early years as the Wine Advocate cemented that position, Parker did all the tasting.  Now, Parker relies on a wider network of regular contributors. The publication navigates a love/hate relationship with buyers [...]