Grape Data Tool Updated
Hi all, Yup, haven't updated this site for a very long time. With all the angst in the vineyard world, work has been busy. Which is also why my Grape Data Tool update has been delayed. But I finished up today and sent it out to my mailing list. If you haven't used it before, it distills every Acreage and Crush Report since 1991 into a single Excel workbook with a quick and easy interface. I have also added a variety of tools to make it easy to pull out a great deal of der

Which Average to Use? The Cheapest Trick in Grape Price Negotiations.
I recently had the great honor of presenting to the California Association of Wine Growers at their annual summer seminar. My topic was a somewhat wide ranging discussion of how grape growers could use the Crush Report and Acreage Report to better their business decisions, negotiations and strategy. One topic I presented was the difference between median prices and mean/average prices. Grape buyers and sellers sometimes like to argue over whether they should index or price
Grape Data Tool Completed and Available
The Grape Data Tool is my most popular public resources. It distills every Acreage and Crush Report since 1991 into a single Excel workbook with a quick and easy interface. I have also added a variety of tools to make it easy to pull out a great deal of derivative data. It saves me hundreds of hours of work every year. I hope it does the same for you and increases the use of USDA data in our industry. I am also, very intermittently, creating various video case study tuto
First Grape Data Tool Update for 2018 Data
The Grape Data Tool is my most popular public resources. It distills every Acreage and Crush Report since 1991 into a single Excel workbook with a quick and easy interface. I have also added a variety of tools to make it easy to pull out a great deal of derivative data. It saves me hundreds of hours of work every year. I hope it does the same for you and increases the use of USDA data in our industry. I am also, very intermittently, creating various video case study tuto
The Crush Report is Here! Acreage Report Due Friday
So, the Crush Report dropped on April 10th, as expected in my last update on the matter. Usually I'm on top of that, as soon as it happens. Reading through it; bothering the nice folks at USDA-NASS about any suspected errors or oddities. In fact, I plan my whole work calendar around it. This year, though, the government shutdown delayed release to a period of time that I was abroad. So, now I'm still in the middle of client projects. So, I'm cutting out my typical bloggi

Interactive Chart of the Last 27 Years of District 3 Pinot Noir Prices, by Percentile
This creates an easy way to see how District 3 Pinot Noir prices have evolved, by percentile, over time, in both nominal and inflation-adjusted dollars. Below is a screenshot, but the power in the file is that you can scroll through all the years from 1991-2017, using a simple scroll bar. Go to the Grape Data Tutorial page to download this and similar charts. Feel free to use and disseminate it, but please leave my contact info on it. #grapeprices #grapedatatool #percentile
Interactive Chart of the Last 27 Years of Napa Cabernet Prices by Percentile
So, sometimes I'm deep into a client project and I hit a wall. My work quality drops, my productivity falls. In some cases, I just do some jumping jacks or go into the house to change that light bulb that went out a couple days ago - and then get back to work. But sometimes I feel the need to keep my mind focused on the same type of work - I just need a break from the subject matter at hand. So I made a pretty cool interactive chart that allows you to track the distributio

Napa County Cabernet Sauvignon by Price Level
In a previous post, I put up a new Grape Data Tool tutorial video explaining how to use the tool to evaluate Cabernet Sauvignon prices by percentile. The tutorial focused on Mendocino, Lake, Sonoma and Napa Counties. In previous blog posts, I shared some findings on Cabernet Sauvignon from Lake, Mendocino and Sonoma Counties. This post will look at the economics of District 4 (Napa County) Cabernet Sauvignon pricing by percentile level. Sorry, by the way, to anyone who has

Sonoma County Cabernet Sauvignon by Price Level
In a previous post, I put up a new Grape Data Tool tutorial video explaining how to use the tool to evaluate Cabernet Sauvignon prices by percentile. The tutorial focused on Mendocino, Lake, Sonoma and Napa Counties. In previous blog posts, I shared some findings on Mendocino County Cabernet Sauvignon and Lake County Cabernet Sauvignon. This post will look at the economics of District 3 (Sonomarin) Cabernet Sauvignon pricing by percentile level. Note: I refer to District 3

Lake County Cabernet Sauvignon by Price Level
A little bit ago, I posted a new Grape Data Tool tutorial video that showed how to use the tool to evaluate Cabernet Sauvignon in Mendocino, Lake, Sonoma and Napa Counties by price level. In a previous blog post, I posted some findings on Mendocino County Cabernet Sauvignon. I promised to post some of the findings on the other three counties soon after. I realized that I over-booked some client projects, so I've been slow on getting to this, but today I'll examine high-end