Blanket statements can be dangerous and instigative, so let’s begin by saying something nice about California Cabernet; several offer amazing, sexy, and voluptuous drinking. Some are even global ambassadors offering classic varietal profiles and age worthiness such as Ridge Montebello, Dominus, and Dalla Valle, as examples. Still, I drink very, very little of it besides […]
Ignoring California Wines: Is Anybody Listening?
Last week Steve Heimoff published a post called “California Needs To Be Careful It Doesn’t Price Itself Out Of The Market.” I become confused when I read things like this because the fact of the matter is California violated my personal quality to price ratio (QPR) tolerance more than a decade ago. For me, California […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]