NEWS FETCH – March 13, 2015

TOP NEWS

• Copia sold for mixed-use development
• Northwest Grapegrowers Report Early Season
• California has about one year of water left. Will you ration now?
• Will a Chinese Investor Buy a First-Growth Château?
• February same-store Restaurant sales growth slows
• Warren Buffett & the world of wine: In the context of wine PR
• Shippers blame union for latest port slowdown
• TTB Compliance can be simpler. Here’s how. *Sponsored Link*

GLOBAL WINE SUPPLY

• Western Australian vigneron gets a second flush of fruit from hail damaged vines
• OZ: Canberra wine region growers and makers hail bumper grape season
• Spain: Priorat wineries facing shortage of grapes

CALIFORNIA BRIEFS

• California wine no longer copying Europe
• Sonoma State University Announces Global Wine MBA
• Napa Valley greets the new season with new beginnings
• Napa County Cabernet Sauvignon Update
• Adelaida Wine Trail blends history with modern day winemaking

DROUGHT/WATER

• CA poised to step up crackdown on water wasting
• L.A. water agency offers cash to Sacramento Valley farmers
• Lawmakers see issues in bottled water, expired permits
• Drought, efforts to conserve continue
• Pollution plagues San Diego rivers

DIRECT SHIPPING & PRIVATIZATION

• Wyoming and Arkansas Amend DTC Laws

FINANCE, M&A

• Constellation Brands to Report Fourth Quarter & Full Year Fiscal 2015 Financial Results
• Beverage Trade Network Launches USA Trade Tasting To Help Producers Connect With Distributors *Sponsored Link*

INVESTING IN WINE, COLLECTING & AUCTIONS

• 1935 German Pinot Upstages Riesling at Auction
• Kloster Eberbach auction makes $100k
• Sonoma County Vintners Announces Wine Lots for Inaugural Barrel Auction
• A Wine Auction History Lesson

ALCOHOL, HEALTH, AND THE FRENCH PARADOX
Click the link above for more news, articles and archives.

• Wine and sex, as prescribed by Dr. Ruth
• Should I Drink Red Wine?
• Medical Advice Reduces Alcohol Consumption Levels in Risky & Binge Drinkers

REGULATION & LEGAL MATTERS

• MN Consumers First Alliance Launches Campaign in Support of Sunday Sales

INDUSTRY DATA & TRENDS

• Where We Buy Wine Is Changing
• United States Imports of Wine & Related Products
• Value Growth Among The World’s Top 100 Spirits Brands
• How To Build a Cult-Like Following For Your Brand: *Sponsored Link*

MARKETING & SALES

• 5 Ways To Triple Sales In One Year
• Pernod Ricard turns to social media to help boost sales
• Introducing Advertising Process Control
• Reputation’s Role in Unlocking Brand Value
• What It Takes To Get Your Brand Approved By Commercial Airlines: *Sponsored Link*

TRADE SHOWS & CONFERENCES

• It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World of Pinot Noir–PART ONE
• IWSC Group Continues Expansion into America

SOCIAL MEDIA & TECH

• Variety Is the Spice of Social Media Life, Too
• Why Social is the Future of Customer Experience
• Improve Your Content Curation To Yield Results
• Google accidentally leaked hundreds of thousands of customers’ personal details

MATTERS OF TASTE

• The Red Blend Phenomenon—Is It Real or Is It Memorex?
• The Painful Truth about High-End Bullshit Chardonnay
• Residual sugar in wine, with charts and graphs
• Italian Winemaker Makes A Case For Ditching Your Usual Case of (Processed) Wine
• In Pursuit of Balance: The Quest of California Wines in Harmony
• Sancerre: The French Pinot Noir you should be drinking
• The best Chardonnays in the world (outside Burgundy)
• Dry Gewürztraminer: The First Wine of Spring

WINE PEOPLE

• What NVR just learned about Paul Draper
• Interview with Marie-Eve Gilla
• A private lesson with Chinese educators – Stephen Li
• Q&A: Olivier Paultes, Hennessy Cognac

WINE PLACES

• Making Room on My Riesling Pedestal for Alsace
• San Diego Gets Serious About Wine

OH CANADA!

• Ontario: Large grocers will get wine, beer under Liberals’ plan

REGIONAL WINE NEWS

• Texan Winemakers Want to Their State to Become the Next Napa Valley
• A toast to Oregon’s growing wine industry
• The vineyard behind Oregon’s wine country license plate

ACADEMIA

• Cornell Students Drink Deeply of Once-A-Week Wine Class

AG, GROWER & CELLAR NEWS

• Berry Sensory Analysis: A Common Language for Describing Maturity (PDF)
• Ampelography –> Genetics –> ? Varieties –> Clones –> ?
• Study Shows Plants Can Tell Difference Between Attacking Insects

EUROPE & THE UK

• Sudden Decrease in Bulgarian Wine Exports to Russia
• UK on-trade maintains post-recession growth
• UK: Supermarkets must expect permanently lower profits
• Ireland: Cheap wine ban ‘will see heavy drinkers cut back by 70 bottles a year’

DOWN UNDER

• New Zealand’s big gamble on low alcohol wines
• OZ: AGWA calls for non-executive directors

AROUND THE GLOBE

• Making Wine in Kazakhstan

CRAFT BEVERAGES: BEER, CIDER WINE & SPIRITS

• Revitalizing Japan’s Ancient Sake Tradition
• The culture of craft beer
• The Proper Way To Drink A Guinness
• UK: Decline in Scotch whisky sector highlights need for tax cut
• UK: Distillers City Debate to explore how innovative whisky is compared to other categories

MARIJUANA

• Clear rules needed for CA pot industry
• Frequent marijuana use associated with long-term memory loss