Quick Take on the Latest Acreage Numbers
The recently-released Acreage Report indicates a 20% increase in non-bearing acreage over last year. That is possibly an enormous jump in supply. But it isn't unexpected. Assuming that acreage is reported in its second leaf, it was planted in 2017. Anyone planting in 2017 had seen prices rise an average of over 3.5% since the start of the Great Recession in 2007. That's a significant outpacing of inflation. For coastal regions, the numbers were even more impressive. It'
Is El Dorado the Secret Land of Non-Existent Vineyard Labor Issues?
On March 20th, I’ll be speaking to the El Dorado Wine Grape Growers’ Association. They’re a great group – they always have a lot of great questions and they're great at sharing their knowledge with each other and me. They also put me up in the Cary House, a nice, old-timey hotel in downtown Placerville, which might be the most underrated town in California. And it's a real place, unlike El Dorado's mythical namesake. Map to a very different El Dorado: My presentation is go
Regional Shares of California's Wine Grape Market by Yields, Acreage and Grape Sales Revenue
My last blog post included a new tutorial video showing how to use the Grape Data Tool to create charts depicting the what share of the wine grape market different regions of California have, by yields, acreage and grape sales revenue. Here are the charts below, for anyone who wants it. Note that the region names also include a listing of what USDA-NASS grape pricing districts were included in each region. #winegrapes #wine #winebiz #vineyards #yields #acreage #grapedatatoo
Using the Grape Data Tool to Assess Market Share by Region
Now and again, it's useful to try to take big picture views of our industry. One thing I like to look at is the way market share shifts between regions. Using the Grape Data Tool, it's easy to pull up all the data at once and build out some charts and tables. Unfortunately, I've found that I have a great deal of trouble properly displaying charts on this blog. Not sure why. It used to be easy. Instead of just posting the charts, which I will try to do next week, I create
Fully-Updated, Fully-Functional Version of the World's Best Grape Data Tool is Now Available
As many of you know, several years ago I built out a dashboard for accessing much of the Grape Crush Report and Grape Acreage Report data going back to 1991. Over time it evolved, presenting more details: percentile price levels, derivative data of many sorts and, eventually, I added macros that make it easy to pull large amounts of data all at once. Originally, this tool was just something I used to speed up my own work. At a certain point, I figured I would make it availa
Vineyard Planting Decision-Making Tool
On the face of it, someone may think that choosing what varietal(s) to plant a vineyard to is easy: just pick the one that will make the most money and put everything down to that. But that's not the whole story. I can promise you that the many growers who did that with Merlot for a decade regretted it when over-planting and Sideways ruined them. As with any investment, growers should diversify their plantings to hedge against such events. Furthermore, especially if you ar
Deflategate, Data and Debate: A Football Scandal as a Learning Opportunity for Winegrowers
WARNING: This post is long, may be offensive to Patriots fans and also includes math. Sometimes little things in this world drive me unjustifiably mad. It’s like they itch at my soul. Litter left within sight of a garbage can. People wearing too much perfume in a tasting room or nice restaurant. Anything I’ve inadvertently seen or heard about on MTV in the past decade. I’m a Colts fan and so another thing that drives me really crazy is how great the Patriots have been fo
AVA Appraisals: The Best Return on Investment for your Vineyard Operation
I know I haven’t posted anything for quite a while, but I’m still very busy with work. I’m thinking of writing an article about AVA appraisals for one of the trade magazines. At the same time, I’m doing a study on the interplay between appellation, price and reviewer scores for California Pinot Noir. In the meantime, though, I wanted to send out an explanation of what AVA appraisals are and why you’re leaving money on the table if you have acquired a vineyard since 1993, b
