winefeed

Federal THC limit and state bans upend Massachusetts hemp beverage retailers

• Art Nergaryan, owner of Art's Specialties wine shops in Massachusetts, saw sales jump 25-35 percent after stocking THC-infused beverages, then dropped overnight when state regulators banned them from wine and liquor stores in May 2024.
• U.S. THC-infused beverage retail sales grew 135 percent to $239 million in the 52 weeks prior to April 2026, with Whitney Economics valuing the total potential market at $9.9-14.9 billion.
• Congress passed legislation in November 2025 setting a federal THC limit of 0.4 milligrams per container, effective November 12, 2026, with enforcement by December 11, 2026, which effectively bans hemp-derived THC drinks nationwide.
• States regulate hemp beverages inconsistently: Minnesota, Georgia, and Tennessee permit them; California, Washington, and Vermont restrict or ban them outside cannabis-licensed systems.
• The FDA declared interstate hemp beverage sales unlawful under federal law in December 2018, creating a legal gray area in which most brands operate despite federal prohibition.

Ancient vine-training systems decline as labor costs and mechanization reshape European vineyards

• Alberata vines once common around Naples have nearly vanished, replaced by mechanizable systems like Guyot and vertical shoot positioning across Italy.
• Lanzarote's hoyo pits, developed after 1730s volcanic eruptions, shrunk the island's active vineyard by 19 percent between 2000 and 2026 due to extreme labor demands despite tourism appeal.
• Alberto González Plasencia, owner of Bodegas Timanfaya on Lanzarote, states tourists visit specifically for hoyos; their disappearance would reduce wine value and visitor numbers.
• Familia Torres maintains pergola training for Rías Baixas Albariño using specialized machinery for ground work, as regional harvesting rules already mandate hand-picking across all systems.
• Bellussera vines in Veneto, covering just 9 percent of Piave DOC, may survive through climate resilience and wine tourism rather than subsistence agriculture that originally justified their labor intensity.

World Cup sponsorship fails to lift US beer sales despite $110 million spend

• Anheuser-Busch InBev spent $110 million on Michelob Ultra World Cup campaign but achieved only 0.25 percent volume lift, well below sector decline of 4.5 percent year-to-date.
• Off-premise beer sales fell 2.1 percent in dollars and 3.4 percent in volume for the final tournament week, worse than prior four and 26 week benchmarks.
• On-premise draft sales rose 7.1 percent in dollars and 6.46 percent in volume during tournament, then fell in final week as US men's team exited.
• Spirits category outperformed beer in same period, with Cutwater up 60 percent in dollars and volume, suggesting drinkers shifted away from beer.
• Industry shed approximately 3.5 million barrels in first half of 2026 versus 2025, indicating tournament failed to reverse underlying beer market contraction.

Silver Scope Media bids $400k for bankrupt Rogue Ales' recipes and trademarks

• Silver Scope Media Ltd, a U.K. digital marketing agency, offered $400,000 for Rogue Ales & Spirits' intellectual property nine months after Oregon Brewing filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
• The IP package includes Rogue's website, recipes, manufacturing specifications, proprietary yeast strains, social media accounts, and trademarks including the Dead Guy IPA brand.
• Oregon Brewing valued Rogue's IP at $2 million; competing bids must exceed Silver Scope's offer by $40,000 before the August 21 deadline.
• Valley View Winery, an Oregon producer that claims perpetual rights to Rogue wine products under a 1997 settlement, filed an objection to the sale.
• Rogue collapsed in 2024 with $17 million in debt against $5 million in assets, prompting immediate closure of its distillery and taprooms.

Soju surges past shōchū in US market as Korean spirit gains mainstream foothold

• Soju grew 133 percent between 2019 and 2025 to represent less than one percent of US spirits volume, while shōchū rose only 11 percent over the same period, according to IWSR consulting director Koryn Ternes.
• Green bottle soju, the mass-produced sweeter style created after Korea's 1965 rice ban in distilling, dominates US imports and retail shelves, with brand Jinro named world's best-selling spirit for 25 consecutive years.
• Spec's fine wine buyer James Barlow reports his Texas retailer's Asian spirits purchases grew from under $1 million in 2018 to multi-millions today, driven by younger consumers and Korean cultural interest.
• Craft soju producers like Brooklyn-based Tokki Soju, founded in 2016, faced initial rejection from Korean establishments preferring green bottle brands, but have achieved explosive early growth as consumers mature into the category.
• Shōchū brands iichiko and Mizu target bartenders and on-premise venues with higher-proof expressions resembling craft spirits, with 80 to 85 percent of Mizu's sales from bars rather than retail.

US spirits exporters face tariff walls as DISCUS seeks new markets

• The Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, funded by a $900,000 USDA grant, is working to expand US spirits exports as domestic consumption falls and tariffs block traditional markets like Canada, the EU, and Brazil.
• A 50 percent Trump tariff on Canadian spirits, effective August 19, follows Canada's removal of US alcohol from store shelves, which cut US sales there by 81 percent.
• Argentina, which signed a free trade agreement with the Trump Administration this year, remains a limited market for American whiskey due to local marketing focused on cocktails rather than neat pours, creating a perception of lower quality.
• Vietnam's fast-growing cocktail scene and high-end whisky collector base present growth opportunities for US spirits, though Scotch currently dominates luxury bars and private collections.

2026 World Cup drove US breweries to record on-premise sales and foot traffic

• Draft beer sales jumped 6.46 percent during the 2026 World Cup in North America, with Monday and Tuesday game days seeing volume growth of 16 and 12 percent respectively, according to BeerBoard data.
• Headlands Brewing in the Bay Area doubled production of its collaborative West Coast Mexican lager from 90 to 180 barrels after initial demand exceeded forecasts within weeks.
• Boulevard Brewing in Kansas City reported a 25 percent increase in foot traffic and beer hall sales since mid-June following infrastructure upgrades to its taproom ahead of the tournament.
• Bitburger's on-premise sales in the US climbed 130 percent in June; the German pilsner sponsored a 30-day popup in New York showing games that drew 700 patrons during Germany matches.
• Newport Craft Brewing scaled It's Called Soccer from 30 barrels to 300, reaching 315+ retail locations across three states, and plans to extend the beer year-round after hosting 115+ World Cup watch parties.

Scotch Whisky Association counts 154 distilleries across six regions

• The Scotch Whisky Association recognizes 154 malt and grain distilleries as of 2026, split across five official regions plus an emerging sixth.
• The 1784 Wash Act divided Highland and Lowland regions by law, establishing different production rules that shaped distinct whisky styles still recognized today.
• Speyside, technically a Highland subregion, now hosts over 50 distilleries and is the world's most densely populated whisky region, with distillers choosing to label as Highland or Speyside.
• Campbeltown shrank from 30 distilleries in the late 1800s to three today: Springbank, Glen Scotia, and Glengyle, yet remains influential for briny, oily expressions.
• The Islands designation, though informal and technically Highland, emerged from new distilleries on Arran, Jura, Mull, Orkney, Skye, and other isles founded since 2015.

Wine lists shift from encyclopedic to discovery-focused as restaurants rethink strategy

• Bibliotheque wine bar in New York organizes its list by literary genres instead of region, targeting first-time drinkers who lack wine knowledge.
• Chase Sinzer, owner of Stars, Claud, and Penny in New York, says lists are now less dogmatic and less controlled by what everyone buys.
• Evan White, beverage director at Bludorn in Houston, notes restaurants now curate undervalued gems and adjacent wines instead of stacking lists with expensive bottles.
• Wine directors including Alec Cummings at The Morris and Sirene in San Francisco are organizing by style rather than region, making selections intuitive for all knowledge levels.
• Matt Turner, beverage director at Lei Wine Bar in New York, reports consumers want broader style variety by the glass, not greater quantity.

Hungary's first red Platinum and four other DWWA 2026 surprises

• Hungary earned its first Platinum for a red wine at DWWA 2026: Heumann's La Trinità, a 100% Cabernet Franc from Villány, scoring 97 points and raising the country's red Platinums from three to eight.
• Brazil achieved its best DWWA year on record, earning a first-ever Gold for sparkling Moscato and breaking new ground with Casa Geraldo's Cabernet Franc red, signalling quality improvement across the spectrum.
• Bosnia and Herzegovina scored its best-ever Gold performance, led by indigenous Žilavka white: Vino Milas's 2024 earned 96 points, a remarkable score for a variety almost unknown outside the western Balkans.
• Orange wines, skin-contact whites fermented on skins, spread from Georgia across the globe, with Oregon earning a first Gold for bhn's amphora-matured Riesling 2023 and Argentina its first for Susana Balbo's skin-contact Torrontés.
• Pico, a tiny Azores volcanic island, earned its first DWWA Gold for Tarelo's Monumental 2018, a 100% Arinto white grown in UNESCO-listed basalt enclosures, proving fine wine's map is still being redrawn.

Queens restaurant rebuilds wine program after basement fire destroys entire cellar

• A basement refrigerator fire in early August destroyed Rolo's wine room in Ridgewood, Queens, leaving beverage director Leo Bayless-Hall no salvageable bottles from the carefully curated collection.
• Rather than risk serving cooked or damaged wines, Rolo's discarded the entire basement inventory despite some bottles appearing intact, prioritizing customer experience over recovering losses.
• Bayless-Hall's earlier decision to open offsite storage for premium East Coast and older bottles provided an emergency backup; the restaurant reopened its wine service within days using this reserve collection.
• To maintain Rolo's reputation for affordable wine, Bayless-Hall cut markups to one-third or one-half of normal levels, selling premium bottles near cost while customers sample rare pours nightly.
• Early results show increased wine sales and customer enthusiasm, with Rolo's opening one special bottle each night, ranging from 2002 Burgundy to zero-dosage natural wine, during the rebuild.

VinePair's 30 best Sauvignon Blancs for 2026 showcase American and European regions

• VinePair's tasting staff sampled thousands of bottles across multiple regions to compile a curated list of top Sauvignon Blancs, scoring each on a 100-point scale for aroma, flavor, texture, and finish.
• Virginia emerged as a standout region, with producers like Dogwood & Thistle and Emily Hodson delivering expressive, balanced wines that punch above their price point in quality.
• Classic European regions continue to evolve: Loire Valley Sauvignon Blancs now show more texture and depth than historically flinty styles, while Friuli, Italy embraces stainless steel for bright, mineral-driven expressions.
• Unexpected regions thrive: Oregon's CHO Wines crafts layered complexity through split harvests, and Colorado winemakers Steve Steese and Jayme Henderson prove quality is possible outside legacy regions.
• American Sauvignon Blanc has traveled far since Robert Mondavi pioneered Fumé Blanc in Napa, now flourishing from California to the Pacific Northwest to Maryland, with each region offering distinct stylistic choices.

Young sommeliers reshape wine as casual, approachable, emotion-driven

• Daria Volokitina, sommelier at Hotel Plaza Athénée in Paris, paired Austrian Furmint with barbecue by targeting sensation rather than tradition, showing wine no longer confined to formal settings.
• Alex Padilla at Hi-Time Wine Cellars in Costa Mesa uses his youth and social media presence to make wine approachable, countering headlines that young people avoid wine.
• Natural wine and transparent winemaking styles appeal to younger drinkers; Volokitina's Austrian Furmint and Padilla's Californian Gamay both emphasise terroir and minimal intervention.
• Both professionals report resistance to wine's 'exclusive' image and work to reframe it as exciting and exploratory for all ages, not a marker of expertise or status.

English estates launch prestige cuvées to rival premium Champagne

• Nyetimber pioneered England's prestige cuvée concept in 2018, releasing its 1086 white and rosé at £150, £175 after seven years on lees, matching premium Champagne pricing.
• Chapel Down's Kit's Coty Coeur de Cuvée (2013 vintage, £126) uses 100% Chardonnay from a 40-hectare chalk vineyard and also ages seven years on lees in French oak.
• Gusbourne's Fifty One Degrees North, launched in 2022, commands £195 for the 2016 vintage and up to £395 for magnum editions, with 80 months minimum lees ageing.
• Langham's Perpetual Blanc de Blancs, released June 2025 at £109.95, uses a solera-style multi-vintage blend in a 2,000L Slavonian oak vessel, drawing inspiration from grower Champagne.
• Squerryes released Patience 2014 in July 2026, a prestige cuvée from the Warde family's 21-hectare chalk vineyard, continuing a legacy of English sparkling wine ambition begun in 2006.

Alto Adige sweeps DWWA 2026 white-wine awards on altitude advantage

• Alto Adige won nine Platinum medals at DWWA 2026, all white wines, as rising temperatures make altitude a strategic vineyard asset for maintaining freshness and acidity.
• Cantina Terlano, Alto Adige, claimed five Platinums, including Quarz Sauvignon and decade-aged Rarity 2013 Pinot Bianco, crediting quartz porphyry soils with 60-65% silica for low yields and minerality.
• Cantina Valle Isarco, Alto Adige, won the first-ever Platinum for varietal Kerner, the Aristos 2024 from steep vineyards at 850-950 metres, praised for precision and alpine mineral character.
• Cantina Tramin's Stoan 2024 Platinum blends four regional varieties from volcanic porphyry soils, embodying the microclimate's dual character of Mediterranean warmth and Alpine cool that drives wine complexity.
• Producers attribute the region's recognition to consistent terroir expression through winemaking discipline and altitude's daily temperature swings, which preserve acidity and freshness in a warming climate.

Pierce's Disease Bacteria Detected in Continental European Vineyards

• Xylella fastidiosa bacterium, which causes Pierce's disease in grapevines, was first detected on continental European vines in Portugal in 2023 after infecting Mallorca in 2016.
• Climate modeling shows 41.2 percent of European vineyards now face risk from the disease, up from 21.8 percent in earlier models, as warming winters allow the pathogen to survive.
• River valley microclimates are especially vulnerable because their topography connects isolated areas and creates conditions where the bacterium can establish itself.
• California's decades of experience fighting Pierce's disease, including vector management and early detection, offer Europe strategies to slow spread, though eradication becomes impossible once the pathogen is widely established.
• European growers and regulators lack coordinated reporting and communication systems, risking concealment of infections if vine destruction remains the only mandated response.

Disease-resistant hybrid grapes cut fungicide sprays to one-fifth in European vineyards

• PIWIs, hybrid grapes bred for powdery and downy mildew resistance, require two to three fungicide sprays per season versus eight to 15 for traditional Vitis vinifera, as demonstrated at Famille Ducourt in Bordeaux.
• Modern backcrossing has bred PIWIs containing up to 95 percent vinifera genetic material, preserving wine quality while retaining fungal resistance inherited from American vine species.
• Rapid genetic testing technology rhAmpSeq, used since 2019 under the US VitisGen initiative, identifies disease-resistance genes with precision and accelerates breeding by scanning 2,000 markers across 4,000 seedlings in days instead of months.
• Germany leads PIWI adoption with 4,000 hectares planted in 2025, a 10 percent increase, while France develops regional ResDur varieties including Bordeaux-signature hybrids crossing Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot.
• Luxembourg's 2026 study found PIWIs delivered twofold economic savings and threefold environmental benefit reduction, driven by lower chemical, fuel, and labor costs for spraying and reduced soil and water toxicity.

Highlights: Compagniesdrift Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot 2022 Stellenbosch

• Compagniesdrift Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot 2022 Stellenbosch scores 92/100 and costs £17.50 at Stone Vine & Sun.
• Compagniesdrift is a BEE project from Meerlust that began making its own wine in 2015; primarily operates a wine storage and packaging facility.
• The 2022 shows blackcurrant and raspberry fruit with bright acidity, tannic grip, and potential for further development at 13% alcohol.

Vinography Images: On the Rocks

• ArmAs winery in Aragatsotn region, Armenia features creative stonework that visitors encounter upon arrival.
• The stonework at ArmAs reflects a continuing tradition in Armenian winemaking architecture.

Re-entry

• Belgian tech consultant Boris de Vloed launched Open Wine Map, a free interactive tool for exploring European wine regions with searchable, filterable data by region, grape, and style.
• Open Wine Map sources data from INAO, French cahiers des charges, Italian disciplinare, and other appellation datasets, combined with mapping data using Claude.
• The tool visualizes European wine regions with precision, enabling direct comparisons, for example, showing Barolo and Barbaresco as tiny territories within broader Piemonte.

Burgenland Winery Guide, Part 1

• Burgenland is one of Austria's warmest regions and one of the only Austrian regions with a serious red wine culture.
• Boris Kovacic produces wines from 12 rented plots in Sankt Margareten with mainly old vines and field blends, using no additives except sulphites.
• Georg Prieler makes terroir-oriented Blaufränkisch from top Leithaberg sites Marienthal and Goldberg, increasingly aging reds in amphora instead of oak.
• This guide covers northern Burgenland wineries (Leithaberg, Rust, Neusiedlersee) that practice organic/biodynamic farming with minimal cellar intervention.

The taste of stone

• Jako Andabak purchased an ailing cooperative in Bol, Brač island in 2009 and founded Stina winery, modernizing facilities and planting new vineyards.
• Stina debuted at Zagreb Wine Gourmet Weekend in April 2012 with bold, high-quality wines, establishing itself within Croatia's emerging 'Hrvatski Vrh' premium winery movement.
• Andabak brought capital and market advantage to the project: he was a hotel owner on Brač with direct wine sales channels through his properties.
• Croatia's 2013 EU accession spurred premium winery investment, as owners rushed to establish before agricultural regulations would require Brussels approval.

Michelin And The Death Of The Wine Guide

• Michelin's Wine Selection Burgundy 2026 awarded nine producers three grapes, 20 vignerons two grapes, 33 one grape, and 32 were merely selected.
• Domaine Arnoux-Lachaux publicly demanded removal from Michelin's guide after receiving only one grape despite being a celebrated Vosne-Romanée house.
• Michelin rates producers based on vineyard management and consistency rather than individual wines, differing from competitor Guide Hachette des Vins which rates cuvées.
• Consumer wine guides emerged in the 1970s with Decanter, Wine Spectator, Hugh Johnson's Pocket Wine Book, and Parker's Wine Advocate, but internet access since mid-1990s made print guides obsolete.
• Michelin's guide focuses exclusively on France with no announced plans for coverage outside the country, limiting its utility for global wine consumers.

Q&8 | Wang Yuanzhu Talks Grapes, Grain & Ancient Wine

• Coram Collective, founded in 2023 with production from 2024, co-ferments rice wine with grape varieties like Chardonnay and Merlot, and innovates huangjiu (yellow wine).
• Co-founder Alex Yuanzhu Wang's products are already listed in over 100 restaurants and bistros across Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Chengdu since launching last June.
• Huangjiu peaks between three and eight years of aging; most examples lose freshness after 10 years, contrary to the assumption that older always means better.
• Chardomi blends 80% Chardonnay grapes with 20% glutinous rice through a multi-step process: rice undergoes soaking, steaming, and saccharification before co-fermenting with pressed grape juice.

What I Learned at a Conference on Drinking

From the invention of moderation to the return of temperance