JUNE 22, 2022 – WINE NEWS FETCH

• Washington’s Ste Michelle puts Woodinville property up for sale, moves white wine production to eastern Washington
• How to make an ally of cognitive dissonance in recessionary times
• Gallo Winery Could Be New Player For Super Bowl Spots
• NFTs in wine: Barrels, bottles, and blockchains
• Off-premise Sales Fall 5%
• Covid Continues To Evolve With New Omicron Ba.4 and BA.5 Coming On Strong.
• Webinar – Mastering alcohol ecommerce in 2022 – (Sponsored link)

ICYMI (IN CASE YOU MISSED IT)

• Rabbit Ridge CEO Gets Fifth Delay To Respond to Contempt of Court Allegations.
• Rabbit Ridge CEO Accused of Multiple Contempt Of Court Misdeeds By Bankruptcy Trustee
• Stagflation and Shrinking Wine Margins
• Foley Family Wines Buys Napa’s Silverado Vineyards

WILDFIRES & WEATHER

• California Towns Scramble to Prevent Next Wildfire Catastrophe

DROUGHT/WATER

• California’s Lake Oroville peaks for the year at just over half full [paywall?]
• Skies Are Sucking More Water from the Land

CONSUMER SALES: DTC, ON- & OFF-PREMISE

• Irish Liquor Lawyer Submits Amicus Brief of behalf of the National Association of Wine Retailers in the 4th Circuit

WINE SUPPLY & CONSUMPTION

• Ciatti Global Market Report – June 2022 (PDF)
• The New Emergence: Upcoming Wine Regions in the USA – (Sponsored link)

CALIFORNIA BRIEFS

• California’s AB 257 Would Make It Much Harder and More Expensive for Restaurant Owners to Operate
• The Walt Disney family has sold its Napa winery to hockey and wine mogul Bill Foley [paywall?]

COVID-19

• How China’s biggest wine merchant took Covid in stride?

NFTs, BLOCKCHAIN, & THE METAVERSE

• Flash Labs Corporation and Barrel Riot Wines Announce a Reason to Toast NFTs
• New fine wine NFT platform partners with logistics

ENVIRONMENT & SUSTAINABILITY

• Grape growers are adapting to climate shifts early – and their knowledge can help other farmers
• New signatories add to Harpers Sustainability Charter momentum
• O’Neill Vintners & Distillers Earns B Corp Certification

REGULATION & LEGAL MATTERS

• What Should I Know About Certificate of Label Approvals (COLAs)?
• It’s Almost Never “Just Business” In the Alcohol Industry

DISTRIBUTORS

• How Wineries Can Boost Their Restaurant Distribution – (Sponsored link)

BORDEAUX EN PRIMEUR

• En Primeur closing report – ‘Bordeaux 2021: Predictable chaos’ – Liv-ex

WINE SELECTION AND RECOMMENDATION

• What Makes Le Bernardin’s Wine Program So Special
• Seasoned Sommelier and Wine Buyer Thomas Brenner talks us through his focus while evaluating the effectiveness of a wine program – (Sponsored link)

PACKAGING, LABELS & CORKS

• Carlsberg puts bio-based fibre bottle into large-scale trial
• Absolut develops fiber-based bottle cap

MEDIA MATTERS

• The Good Wine Writer

MATTERS OF TASTE

• Pommard: Burgundy’s Next Big Thing
• Chardonnay, the chameleon grape
• ‘It’s about time we talked about the versatility of Amarone’

WINE PEOPLE

• How Mary Taylor Built a Business on Good European Wine—and Better Labels
• Familia Torres: Wine Dynasty – Interview with Miguel Torres, GM
• Unfiltered: Filippo Carnevale

WINE HISTORY

• Wartime Cognac

NORTH AMERICAN REGIONAL WINE NEWS

• Alaska governor signs alcohol rewrite bill into law, but some changes will take a while

AG, GROWER & CELLAR NEWS

• Ultrasound and enzymes the perfect combination
• Relevance of the polyphenolic profile during oxidative aging in the accumulation and disappearance of oxidative and varietal aromas
• Non-invasive quantification of phenolic content during red wine fermentations

EUROPE & THE UK

• Barolo weighs a ban on tourist traffic. Electric shuttles would ferry wine lovers through appellation according to new plan
• France: Raising the price of wines by 15 to 20% would offset overhead increases

DOWN UNDER

• NZ: Villa Maria legal battle sours further
• New access to USA for Australian winemakers
• Australian Wine Research Institute (AWRI) Board seeks new Chair as respected winemaker’s term ends

BEER, CIDER, WINE & SPIRITS

• At Restaurants and Bars, Vodka Sales Are Spiking—But Why?