One of the hardest things for a business owner is trying to predict what will happen in the future—and that seems to go double for wine and spirit sales. The holiday season is where things get busy, and so there are naturally a lot of questions: What will sell well? How do we avoid getting “stuck” with inventory at the end of the year? How far out in advance do we need to plan? Those questions are important, but they shouldn’t keep you up at night guessing. Our team of experts can help. While we don’t have a crystal ball here at Copper Peak, we have seen our share of OND seasons come and go, and there are some trends that we can see. These trends can hopefully help inform your approach to the holiday season this year. #1: Doing Something Extra Special Will Go Over Well Some wineries are hesitant to do something creative with their gift sets, worrying that they might overbuy novelty items. In our experience, this rarely happens—in fact, we are much mo

While associated with fun and frivolity, sparkling wine is a complex wine of many moving parts that requires serious skill to make. We catch up with some of the leading lights in the fizz industry, from Champagne, Spain and England, to find out the secrets of their craft and the challenges surrounding creating a consistent sparkling wine style in an ever-changing climate. Synonymous with celebration, sparkling wines are easy to enjoy but challenging to create. Crafting quality fizz requires a skilled hand, well-trained nose, razor-sharp intuition and nerves of steel come harvest time, when deciding on the perfect moment to pick feels like a game of Russian roulette. Cellar masters are the wizards of the wine world, able to create a consistent style of wine each year from hundreds of elements amid increasingly erratic weather conditions. They have to be time travellers too, projecting themselves into the future when tasting aggressively acidic base wines, working out how they will harmo

After navigating our client’s business and company growth during the last two roller-coaster years, I was ready for a significant break. Armed with credits from two canceled vacations and many pent-up credit card miles, I cashed in for an extended European visit in July. While there, my husband and I traveled to and stayed in four major wine-tasting regions: Alsace, Champagne, Burgundy, and the Rhine/Mosel. While there are countless and apparent differences between how France, Germany, and the US promote tourism and sell wine directly to customers, there are equal similarities if you look hard enough. As a native of Napa, wine tourism and marketing wash over me. But, on this trip, I found myself in the rare role of a focused tourist. So, I became aware of the marketing cues and delivery vehicles and noted what worked, and what didn’t.  HERE’S SOME OF WHAT I LEARNED: 1. YOU CAN’T JUDGE A BAGUETTE BY ITS CRUST. If I were to ask you to paint a picture of your idea

Three Champagne Houses Reinforce Their Commitments to Social and Environmental Impacts 

Napa, CA (August 29, 2022) — Champagnes Piper-Heidsieck, Charles Heidsieck & Rare Champagne, part of the family-owned EPI Group, are delighted to announce that the three producers have achieved B […]

MARCH 1, 2022 – Winners have been announced in the first-ever Los Angeles Invitational Wine & Spirits Challenge. A Cabernet Sauvignon from Adobe Road Winery (www.adoberoadwines.com) and an XO Cognac from Sire Spirits (www.sirespirits.com) topped their fields to be named Best of the Best. The competition was established, in conjunction with Los Angeles-based beverage professionals (representing both the on- and off-premise channels), to highlight the best of the best wine and spirits producers in the world, and to introduce those producers to the largest market of consumers in the country. Judging took place February 20-22 and, says event producer Debra Del Fiorentino of Wine Competitions Management & Production (winecompetitions.com), “Typically, a strong first-year competition can expect about 500 entries. We were thrilled to receive more than 1,250 submissions — producers were clamoring to get in!” Even with a large number of entries, competition was s

Rare Champagne Unveils Its 2008 Vintage

A Wine of Infinite Freshness, Timeless Elegance, and Rare Class Napa, CA (Tuesday June 8, 2021) — Rare Champagne, a wine of true exception, today unveils its Rare Millésime 2008 to wine lovers around the world. Rare Champagne has declared only twelve  exceptional vintages of Rare Brut and Rosé Millésime since its inception in 1976: Rare Millésime 1976, 1979, 1985, 1988, […]