Good Saturday morning to you. There’s been loads of wine news this past week and I’ve rounded up a few top headlines. I think one of the biggest surprises was President Joe Biden’s specific mention of the beverage alcohol industry in his Executive Order Promoting Competition. Read a breakdown of that clause and implications for the wine industry.

I also have to call out Sean Sullivan’s piece on dissecting the recent sale of Chateau Ste. Michelle and what that means for the Washington wine industry specifically.

Looking for some educational reading? Scroll down to the blogs and read my latest article for my wine school, Napa Valley Wine Academy, where I discuss the effects of wind on wine. And I absolutely love the latest post on Tim Atkin’s site talking about mousse.

Also—and this is a pretty hilarious juxtaposition—check out this piece talking about vintners who believe that biodynamic viticulture is utter witchraft, then continue on to the post describing why biodynamics can never be vegan (which is actually true).

Last but not least, I’ll leave you with this—be kind to each other.

Cheers.

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Happy weekend and I hope everyone is enjoying the summer season, staying cool, hydrated, and healthy. Welcome back to your weekly round up of wine-newsy items. Locally, we have to talk about the California wildfire season’s effects on the wine industry (yes, this is an ongoing issue—check AGG and CAWG’s investigation on rejected 2020 fruit), political tensions, and—unfortunately—the continuous spread of COVID throughout the Sonoma community.

On a broad industry level, if you haven’t heard about Russia’s new rules surrounding ‘Champagne,’ take a read and let me know what you think. And—it look like there may be a new, more environmentally friendly, way to achieve Parker Points?

Fun Stuff: Next time you go to a bar, you may just get straws made of….pasta! And (shameless self-promotion), I dig into the notorious ‘wine twins,’ —wines commonly mistaken in blind tasting or tasting exams in my latest article for Wine Enthusiast.

There’s much much much more. So enjoy your coffee, tea, cocktail, wine—whatever time it is while you’re reading this post—scroll through, have fun, learn some stuff. Cheers.

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Good morning my friends. If you haven’t heard, the big industry news this week is the Delicato-Francis Ford Coppola ‘merger.’ Curious what everyone is thinking re: implications for the industry, consumer market, etc.

Beyond that amazingness, we’ve got drought issues here in California, New York ending its cocktail-to-go programs, and memes that may cause a disruptive ‘mom-culture.’

Some fun news: wine video games! English wine week! Oh, and I must recommend the piece posted on JancisRobinson.com entitled “MW Tasting Notes Analyzed,” especially if you’re a student of wine.

It’s all here. Scroll through, learn some stuff, and leave a comment if you have one (or several).

Side Note: No posts, news round up or otherwise, next week. Taking a much needed holiday. So cheers, stay healthy, stay happy, and please drink good wine.

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Hello my friends. Hope all are doing well and staying healthy. Super important now that mask mandates and COVID protocols seem to becoming lifted in more and more areas. I know they are in my neck of the woods. It’s a simultaneous sigh of relief but also a source of anxiety. So, again, I urge you all to stay safe and healthy while venturing back out into the world.

There’s loads of fun stuff in this week’s newsletter—including some scandalous opinion pieces. (I’ll let you scroll through and figure out which.) And in shameless self-promotion, I’ve included an article by yours truly. (First link below.)

If you haven’t had time to check out the site lately, I did have two new posts this week—learn about a few ‘lesser known’ wine regions: Costières de Nîmes and Custoza.

Excellent. That’s me done. I’ll leave you all to it. Enjoy!

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