Afternoon Brief: Alecia Moore, Winemaker and Two Wolves Wine Founder, Announced as Keynote Speaker for 2025 Unified Wine & Grape Symposium

The Unified Wine and Grape Symposium is proud to welcome Alecia Moore, winemaker and founder of Two Wolves Wine, as the keynote luncheon speaker to kick off the 2025 show on Tuesday, January 28...

Afternoon Brief, April 22nd

Napa Green’s Roundup Ban Underscores Controversy behind Sonoma County’s ‘Certified Sustainable’ Vineyards: 95% of Sonoma County’s vineyards are certified-sustainable. Here’s why that’s controversial...

Wine Grape Productivity Award Presented to Gene Pierce of Glenora Vineyards

Atlantic Seaboard Wine Association Presents 40th Annual Trophy April 22nd – Gene Pierce has been immensely influential in the success of the Finger Lakes wine and tourism industries. Perhaps most […]

Afternoon Brief, March 26th

President of Treasury Americas, Ben Dollard to Keynote 2024 Wine Sales Symposium: Wine Industry Network (WIN) has announced Ben Dollard, President of Treasury Americas, as the distinguished keynote speaker for the upcoming Wine Sales Symposium...

Afternoon Brief, August 28th

Brock Lindsay of Lake Chelan’s Succession and Alta Wineries Dies at 40: Brock Lindsay, winemaker and co-owner of Succession Wines and Alta Cellars in the Lake Chelan appellation, died August 26th due to traumatic injuries caused by a utility vehicle rollover accident. He was 40-years old...

Unstable weather is making it increasingly hard to decide picking dates for grapes. We caught up with leading winemakers from Australia, France and the UK to find out how earlier harvests are impacting on grape quality. Having always been at the mercy of Mother Nature, winemakers are acutely aware of the impact climate change is having on their livelihoods. Temperatures aren’t only rising, weather patterns are becoming increasingly erratic and extreme, and incidents of devastating wildfires, floods, droughts and late spring frosts are becoming more commonplace in the world’s leading wine-growing regions. In 2021, France was besieged by a cocktail of climate catastrophes, from destructive spring frosts and raging wildfires to violent hail storms. The April frosts across swathes of French vineyard land were particularly brutal, resulting in losses of up to EUR 2 billion. Yields across France hit historic lows in 2021, down 30% on average, though losses were far worse in many

What To Make Of The Online Advertising Crash. As we’re planning with our clients for 2023, one question frequently popping up is the viability of Meta (the company that owns Facebook, Instagram, What’s App, and Messenger) and Google as advertising platforms. We understand the scrutiny, as 2022 has not been kind to the tech sector. The stock market saw seven years of gains erased in 10 months this year. The headlines are brutal, calling Meta a “risk,” a “loser,” or in what CNBC named a “death spiral.” Every other day there is news of another large marketer pulling out of the platform. Meta’s meltdown is shocking but not singular. Google is down 40% this year, Amazon 45%, and Snap 80%. Add the absolute insanity with Twitter, and even the boldest marketer is wondering how much budget to attach to social media in 2023. We must break down the causes of these market shifts to answer those questions and apply them to the wine business.

As we write this it's early August in Sonoma County, and already the calls are coming in: “My grapes are coming soon. I need equipment now”. Although harvest comes at the same time every year, give or take a few weeks, it still seems to catch people off guard. We get it: you're busy with all the other parts of running a winery. We'd like to help by offering our tips on when to buy equipment if you want the best deals, and best delivery times. Much of the world's best winemaking equipment is made in Europe. No slight intended to the patriotic, but they've been making wine in Europe far longer than we have here in the USA. Consequently, when it comes to presses, destemmers, and must pumps, a lot of the equipment we use in American wineries has to journey across the Atlantic the same way the pilgrims did: by ship. Thankfully, the advent of container freight shipping has made things much simpler and much faster — but not that much faster. We still fig