7 Tips to Work Successfully with Wine Distributors
With more than 90,000 wine brands in the US market, wineries need to be very sophisticated in their strategic marketing if they want to be represented in top retail establishments. However this generally requires finding and developing a positive working relationship...
The Rise of Female Sommeliers
If you walked into an upscale restaurant a decade ago and asked to speak to the sommelier, the individual arriving at your table would have likely conformed to a familiar stereotype: an older gentleman with a big knotted tie, a pin on his lapel and a tastevin around...
Big spirits brands struggle against rise of craft
Established spirits brands are "struggling to compete" with craft players and face "fragmentation" in the market, new research has found. According to the IWSR's Global Spirits Trends Report 2015, the overriding trend in the international spirits market in 2014...
California Cabernet 2013 ‘better than 2012’, say winemakers
Expectations are still rising for the California Cabernet 2013 vintage, which many winemakers believe will turn out better than the already highly rated 2012. Two bumper and high quality California Cabernet vintages in 2012 and 2013 have helped winemakers to move on...
Merlot’s Quiet Comeback
Is California Merlot back? Well, sort of. There may not be as much of it as there once was, before consumer backlash and the Pinot Noir renaissance took hold. But what's left is better than ever-and can be truly exceptional. "We all know what happened to the variety,"...
DEBUNKED: The 7 biggest myths about American whiskey
The Prohibition Era left a gap in America's knowledge of whiskey, leading to a slew of myths and misconceptions. Whiskey and spirits enthusiast Noah Rothbaum debunks some of these myths in his new book, "The Art of American Whiskey," which uses 100 vintage and modern...
How to halt wine world’s biggest killer?
There are currently 7.5 million hectares under vine globally - 1.5 million suffer trunk diseases. Imagine a vine disease with no cure that affects an area the size of France and Italy's vineyards combined. We're not talking about phylloxera, the vine louse that once...
Craft distilleries: The next local liquor boom?
As craft beer explodes, makers of small batch whiskey, rum, gin and vodka hope to follow suit. The surge of interest - and sales - in the craft beer industry is having a spillover effect. The explosion in craft distilleries is showing no signs of slowing down - though...
Thirsty for Growth, Liquor Giant Taps African Market
For 20 years, Leonard Odhiambo has run a thriving business off a dirt path in Kibera, the biggest slum in sub-Saharan Africa. He brews changa'a, a potent spirit made from molasses and mashed grain. A half-liter bottle sells for just over a dollar. Changa'a is illegal,...