Afternoon Brief, November 27th

‘Hundreds of Millions’ of Wine Labels to Be Destroyed: New European Commission guidelines concerning the labelling of wine bottles could result in a huge number of already printed labels being destroyed, according to the Comité Européen des Entreprises Vins (CEEV)...

Cuvaison Estate Wines looked to Nordby to plan an expansion of the building’s existing terrace by 50% to not only increase outdoor seating but to open the building to the view of the surrounding vineyards. The renovation also included a newly re-arranged entry to create a more definitive and welcoming arrival. Architect: Goring & Straja Architects Structural Engineer: ZFA Structural Engineers Mechanical Engineer: TEP Engineering Civil Engineer: Adobe Associates, Inc. Landscape Architect: Roche+Roche Landscape Architecture Photographer: Technical Imagery Studios

As a new year begins, we at Ciatti wish all of our friends, clients and business associates a very happy, healthy and prosperous 12 months ahead. We thank you for your continued support.  As every January, this month’s report looks back at the year just passed and ahead to the new one. It is now approaching two years since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and the virus is still with us, but there are two reasons for being hopeful that 2022 is the year it finally has its grip on the news headlines weakened. Firstly, vaccination and booster campaigns – well advanced by now in many countries – seem to be reducing mortality rates; secondly, the emergence of the highly transmissible but apparently milder Omicron variant potentially offers a pathway to a world in which COVID-19 can be treated as an endemic virus similar to flu.  Away from the virus itself, we see two of its knocks-on effects – the global supply chain crisis and rising inflation – as

“It goes without saying that 2021 is hard to predict” we wrote last January, after a dramatic 2020 that brought with it a global pandemic and, in California, record-breaking wildfires. Thankfully, 2021 proved less momentous, with the rapid vaccination rollout enabling at least some semblance of normal life to return and a wet October helping to contain the wildfire threat.  By April the on-premise – which in the COVID-19 era has become even more the barometer of economic and societal well-being – had reopened in every US state, albeit under varying restrictions. Correspondingly, the upsurge in off-premise wine sales – brought about by consumer pantry stocking in response to COVID-19’s arrival – began to abate, so that by year-end there was a question mark as to whether sales were trending above their 2019 prepandemic level, let alone the 2020 spike.  With COVID-19 still a problem two years on from its first appearance, visibility movi