Every day, I see people falling for the same old tricks that marketers use to pry folks from their hard-earned cash. To earn their salaries, they have to convince wine drinkers to spend a lot more money for a little bit more wine. And these are the six most egregious tricks they use to do it. […]
Back in 2004, a movie came out with a funny little man screaming about how he didn’t want to drink Merlot, and the wine industry has been squirming ever since (even 10+ years later). I’m sipping a delicious glass of the newly released 4th vintage of Bridget Raymond’s Intertwine Merlot, a Napa Merlot that she’s made […]
It’s hard to believe that an entire industry can be so bad off. I’ve previously written about how tough it is for wineries to make money and how even the guys who sell wine for $800 a bottle can still lose their shirts, and the vintage report from this year’s Winemakers’ Federation of Australia drives the […]
There are a handful of very important people who influence how much wine costs, what wines are available in your local shops, and even what wines winemakers make. I’m going to talk about each of these things in time. But I figured I’d start with some wise words from the world’s most influential wine critic, Robert Parker. “I […]
I’ve previously written about how crazy wine prices are calculated for icon brands. Now, I just read this article about even very clever business people manage to lose money on Penfolds despite the $800 pricetag on its flagship wine Penfolds Grange. You know what really gets me? That somebody can sell a bottle of wine for more than $50 and […]
I have a confession. We’re a bunch of thieves. We’re constantly on the lookout for talented winemakers who we can steal away from big name wineries. We even have a big list of Most Wanted winemakers. It feels good to get it out in the open. The Naked Most Wanted List We have a list of […]
The short answer to this question is that independent winemakers struggle to make any money at all, and salaried head winemakers in California tend to make between $80k-100k a year with other key winemaking positions like cellar hands (who do a lot of the actual work) earning $30-40k. Wine Business Monthly puts out surveys to collect all this […]
This post compares a debate between some wine pros with a debate between some Naked Angels. The difference is really interesting. Scroll to the bottom if you’re impatient. “There are some styles of wine I really dislike, and I’m not going to do the silly thing of giving them high point scores.” –Jamie Goode Wine […]
If you want to know how wine prices are calculated, Jancis Robinson published an article about this – it’s written by our Chief Winemaker Matt Parish. I summarize it here, but if you want the full scoop you need to subscribe to Jancis’ Purple Pages. “Production costs of even the grandest red bordeaux are rarely […]
The truth about American wine prices This is a tough pill to swallow, but anybody’s who has had the opportunity to travel to other wine producing countries has probably noticed that wine is way less expensive in most wine-producing countries. Rowan got to mention that Americans pay twice as much for wine as Europeans when he went on Bloomberg […]