The Drinks Business
In The Drinks Business, Amélie Maurice-Jones explores the state of Port wine, arguing that this once-stalwart category is at risk of contraction until it can be reinvented and rediscovered by consumers. According to industry analyses, changing drinking habits—especially the shift toward lower-ABV and lighter beverages—are challenging Fortified wines like Port, which may need to recalibrate their appeal. From the Article:
…there’s been a decline in case sales over the past 20 years, with 7.3m cases sold in 2023 versus 8.7m in 2013. In general, consumers are falling out of love with heavy, red wine, but winemakers are pushing to revitalise Port’s image through cocktails, innovative marketing and food pairings.
But the big question is, will it be enough to revive the fortified wine? Port producers share their forecasts with the drinks business. While demand for premium Port and Tawnies is expected to swell, supported by tourism in Portugal, some warn things could get worse before they get better.
VinePair
In VinePair, Hannah Staab follows a New York–based flight attendant’s two-year, ten-city quest to track down a cult bottle from France’s Jura: Domaine des Miroirs. The piece traces the wine’s lore—winemaker Kenjiro Kagami’s path, social-media hype, scarcity economics—and the cloak-and-dagger rituals shops use to keep bottles off the secondary market. From the Article:
Miroirs represents a new wave of cult wines. While producers like DRC slowly built up demand over centuries of history, the fervor for Kagami’s wines is a peek into how the industry is evolving along with new developments like social media. Kagami’s compelling story and low volume of production no doubt contribute to the wine’s status, but the entrancing blue label that pops up on Instagram feeds might also have something to do with it.
San Francisco Chronicle
In the San Francisco Chronicle, Esther Mobley reports that Une Femme founder Jen Pelka’s plan to open a Sonoma “Wine Country pool club”—instead of a traditional tasting room—was halted by Sonoma County rules that don’t allow pools at wineries/tasting rooms under the county’s General Plan. Pelka had investor commitments of nearly $7 million, an accepted $5.9 million offer on the Patz & Hall tasting room, and even a proposed free SF shuttle, but withdrew after planners said the pool wouldn’t be permitted. From the Article:
The dilemma gets to the heart of one of the central conflicts that defines modern-day Wine Country: Local governments must balance the growth of the wine industry, which powers much of their economies (wine accounts for one of every four jobs in the county, according to the Sonoma County Vintners), with the voices of those who don’t want to see the region become a wine-tinged Disneyland. In Napa County, with its particularly strict land-use policies and vocal anti-growth faction, this tension is familiar. But Sonoma County is known for being more lenient — more wineries here, for example, are allowed to host weddings.
Food & Beverage Industry News
In Food & Beverage Industry News Australia, Margaret River Wine Association outlines how the Australian wine industry is adopting lightweight glass bottles—reducing average bottle weight (around 560 g) to lower carbon emissions from production and transport, and reposition wine packaging as a sustainability tool. From the artcile:
Joining Food and Beverage Industry News, Amanda Whiteland, chief executive officer of the Margaret River Wine Association (MRWA), described the amount of carbon emissions caused by the wine industry.
“The highest proportion of carbon comes from packaging followed by transport,” she said.
According to industry body Wine Australia, wine packaging accounts for 44 per cent of emissions associated with wine production, from grape to end-of-life packaging.
