winefeed

Vineyard operators idle acres to cut costs as grape market stalls

• A 2025 study of 19 northern Willamette Valley vineyards found idling reduced annual management costs by an average of 38 percent per acre, with some sites cutting costs in half.
• Vineyard idling, a temporary production pause lasting one to three years, allows growers to preserve assets and capital during weak demand rather than remove vines permanently.
• Key idling protocols include aggressive pruning, minimal irrigation year-round, and light fungicide spraying to maintain vine health for future production without exhausting financial reserves.

Seven sommeliers reveal wine markup ranges from 60 to 76 percent of bill

• Seven beverage directors across US restaurants reported wine markups ranging from 60 to 76 percent of the final menu price, with actual restaurant profit between 24 and 48 percent per bottle after operational expenses.
• Rising costs for labor, glassware, insurance, tariffs, and utilities have forced restaurants to tighten margins and adopt dynamic pricing strategies to maintain target profit goals amid declining alcohol sales.
• Beverage directors price strategically by wine demand, exclusivity, and inventory age rather than applying uniform markups, balancing accessibility for guests against the need to cover overhead and protect margins.

American single malt ratification fails to lift category sales amid whiskey downturn

• The TTB approved a standard of identity for American single malt in December 2024 after a decade of petitioning, but the category has not seen the sales boost distillers anticipated.
• Major producers including Westland Distillery, Balcones Distillery, and Westward Whiskey have laid off staff or ceased production as demand failed to materialize across the broader whiskey downturn.
• Distillers are adapting by diversifying into other spirits, launching lower-priced variants, and creating blended products as gateways, while retailers have begun dedicating shelf space to American single malt despite soft consumer demand.

World Cup sales boost fails to reverse US beer industry decline

• Anheuser-Busch InBev spent $110 million on Michelob Ultra's World Cup campaign but projects only 0.25% full-year volume lift, while overall US beer volume declined 4.5% year-to-date through mid-2026.
• Beer category sales fell 2.1% in dollars and 3.4% in volume year-over-year for the final week of the tournament, worse than prior benchmarks and suggesting weakening demand as the event progressed.
• On-premise draft sales rose 7.1% in dollars and 6.46% in volume during the tournament via BeerBoard data, but off-premise scan data from Circana showed ABI's portfolio down 2.3% in volume through July 12.

Silver Scope Media bids $400k for bankrupt Rogue Ales' intellectual property

• 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.
• Rogue's IP includes recipes, proprietary yeast strains, trademarks, social media accounts, and the Dead Guy IPA brand; Oregon Brewing valued the entire portfolio at $2 million.
• U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Oregon will accept competing bids through Aug. 21, with a minimum increment of $40,000; a hearing on the sale is scheduled for Aug. 26.

New York sommeliers reveal 17 high-low wine pairings for casual dining

• Most elevated picks were Champagne, old Bordeaux, and Burgundy paired with items like French fries, dino nuggets, Spam musubi, and rotisserie chicken.
• The pairings aim to make wine pairing accessible beyond fine dining by showing how premium bottles work with everyday snacks and street food.

VinePair ranks 30 best Sauvignon Blancs; Virginia and Colorado emerge as quality producers

• VinePair tasted thousands of bottles and scored each Sauvignon Blanc on a 100-point scale assessing aromas, flavors, texture, balance, and regional typicity to compile its annual best-of list.
• Virginia and Colorado joined traditional regions like Loire Valley, Friuli, and Napa Valley as sources of high-quality Sauvignon Blanc, with Virginia showing particular strength in 2026.
• Loire Valley and Friuli Sauvignon Blancs show texture and depth beyond their historical flinty profile, reflecting evolving winemaking choices in these home terroirs.

AriZona Iced Tea launches artist residency at New York headquarters

• AriZona hosted its third six-week artist residency cohort at Woodbury, New York headquarters in August 2025, offering four artists per session stipends, housing, materials, and studio access.
• Participants including Eleanor Dexter and Lucas Carlo Monasterio created site-specific work informed by the brand's Southwest aesthetic, with final pieces exhibited and added to company collections.
• The program extends AriZona's founding commitment to in-house design; co-founder Don Vultaggio and wife Ilene created the brand's 1992 visual identity without consultants, and son Spencer Vultaggio now leads artist collaborations as CMO.

Record early harvests strain wine production beyond the cellar

• Domaine Lafage in Roussillon began harvest July 23, weeks ahead of tradition; California Central Coast picked six to eight weeks early, the earliest in 27 years for some growers.
• Early harvests force wineries to refrigerate and process grapes during peak electricity prices in August rather than cool October, raising costs and straining equipment designed for cooler seasons.
• Wine tourism and direct-to-consumer sales windows are shrinking as heat limits safe shipping months and deters visitors from tasting rooms during scorching summers, hitting cash flow for established producers.

Wildfires destroy 200 hectares in Sierra de Gredos wine region

• Spain's worst-recorded wildfires burned 77,000 hectares across Ávila and Madrid provinces from July 22-26, damaging approximately 200 hectares, or 40 percent of registered vineyard area in Cebreros DO.
• Comando G's Las Iruelas slate parcel in Cebreros suffered heavy smoke exposure, likely eliminating the single-vineyard wine for this vintage; Bodega El Reventón's San Gregorio parcel lost vines but owners expect 80 to 90 percent recovery.
• Winemakers including Daniel Landi and Juanan Martín have submitted proposals to regional authorities requesting forest clearance subsidies, firebreak infrastructure, and vineyard replanting support to prevent future fire damage.

Seven volcanic wine regions beyond Mount Etna showcase terroir shaped by ancient eruptions

• Volcanic soils from past eruptions in Soave, Santorini, the Canary Islands, Hungary, Oregon's Willamette Valley, Auvergne, and Lake County create mineral-driven wines with high acidity and savory notes.
• Volcanic terrain presents farming challenges: Santorini vines train low in basket shapes to resist wind; Lanzarote requires hand-dug individual planting holes called hoyos protected by stone walls.
• Volcanic soils resist pests and disease, enabling organic farming and preserving old vine varieties; phylloxera never reached the Canary Islands, allowing indigenous grapes like Listán Blanco to survive.

Pierce's disease bacteria detected in European vineyards; climate shift widens risk

• Xylella fastidiosa bacterium, which causes Pierce's disease in grapevines, was found in continental European vineyards for the first time in Portugal in 2023, after decades confined to warmer regions.
• A 2025 study using high-resolution climate data estimates 41.2 percent of European vineyards now face climate risk from Pierce's disease, up from 21.8 percent in previous models, with river basins and valleys especially vulnerable.
• California growers and researchers are sharing decades of experience managing the disease with European counterparts, though Europe still lacks consistent detection protocols and communication strategies between regions and producers.

Of Substack & wine

• Substack created a Wine & Spirits subsection within its Rising and Top lists, separated from Food & Drink, improving wine content discovery on the platform.
• Author Miquel Hudin updated the Wine Substack List requiring paid subscriptions and human-written text only, removing publications like 'Thirst Behavior' for AI-generated content.
• Seven of the top 10 earning wine Substacks have direct specialties; natural wine and wine marketing publications dominate top earners, suggesting niche focus outperforms generalist coverage.

Napa’s Singular Loire Love Affair

In 1996, after long careers working in Napa’s wine industry, John Skupny and his wife Tracey did something quietly radical:

Canada’s Okanagan and Similkameen Valleys (14) Nostalgia

• Gina Fernandes Harfman owns and makes wine at Nostalgia Wines on Black Sage Bench in Okanagan Valley; she lost 35% of production in December 2022 and 30% in 2024 to freezes.
• Nostalgia Wines purchased 5,000 litres of juice from Washington State to offset 2024 losses, arranged by Okanagan legend Mike Bartier who also manages the vineyard.
• Harfman's design-led approach, influenced by her airbrush and pinstriping background, includes a six-wine pin-up series and classic car marketing focus, with 85% of sales direct to consumer.

Remembering Branko Čotar

• Branko Čotar, pioneering natural winemaker from Slovenia's Karst region, died aged 78 on 27 August following a short illness.
• Čotar began with 500 vines for his restaurant in 1974, started commercial bottling in 1990, and built a winery producing around 30,000 bottles annually.
• He practiced skin-fermented white grapes and organic viticulture with no added sulphites since the 1980s, predating Radikon and Gravner's public adoption of natural winemaking by two decades.

M is for Method

• Traditional method sparkling wine undergoes second fermentation in bottle with sugar and yeast, creating complexity through bottle conditioning; variants include méthode traditionnelle (France), metodo classico (Italy), and Cava (Spain).
• Ancestral method, the older sparkling technique, completes fermentation in bottle without disgorgement, remaining fully dry and cloudy with retained lees; favored by natural winemakers.
• Tank method (Charmat/Martinotti) uses pressurized tanks for secondary fermentation, producing clean, direct sparkling wines with minimal lees contact.

Michelin And The Death Of The Wine Guide

• Michelin launched Wine Selection Burgundy 2026 this month, awarding nine producers three grapes, 20 vignerons two grapes, and 33 one grape; Domaine Arnoux-Lachaux publicly demanded removal after receiving one grape.
• Michelin rates producers based on vineyard management and consistency rather than individual wines, unlike competitor Guide Hachette des Vins which rates cuvées one to five.
• Consumer wine guides emerged in the 1970s-80s with publications like Decanter, Wine Spectator, and Parker's Wine Advocate, but internet access from mid-1990s onward made print guides obsolete.

What I Learned at a Conference on Drinking

From the invention of moderation to the return of temperance