Friday Fishwrap
I was pleased to see the California State Legislature approve yesterday a resolution to honor California’s Mexican American Vintners. The Legislature, which is based in the State capital of Sacramento, will hold a reception on Sept. 4 “to honor, advance and recognize the contributions and history of California’s Mexican-American winemakers.”
The event was announced by State Senator Noreen Evans, a Democrat who represents much of the North Coast’s wine regions. Sen. Evans also chairs the Senate Select Committee on California’s Wine Industry. Most if not all of the 14 family winemakers who will be honored are members of, or helped form, the Napa Sonoma Mexican-American Vintners Association.
It’s all too rare that California officially gets to give a shoutout to our Mexican-American vintners. Although there aren’t many of them at this time–in the sense of owning their own wineries–anyone with the remotest familiarity with the California wine industry understands that it would completely collapse without the efforts of thousands of Mexican and Latino employees, from assistant winemakers to field workers. So, in a sense, these workers also are being honored, which is only right.
And it seems Hispanic Americans are learning to love wine! Yahoo Finance reported this morning that “annual wine consumption among Hispanics would increase by nearly 50 million cases over the next 20 years. That would put annual wine consumption by U.S. Hispanics at nearly 95 million cases…”.
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Is it any surprise that “drinking two to seven glasses of wine a week lowers the risk of becoming depressed by 32% on average…”? “Their hearts shall be glad as with wine” says the prophet Zechariah. Isaiah advises men to “drink [wine] in the courts of my sanctuary” while praising the Lord. Haven’t we always known that wine chases away the blues?
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The 2013 vintage so far looks like a great one. For all the talk about how hot it’s been, it really hasn’t been that toasty. The harvest looks to be early, but that’s because of the warm, dry winter. Spring and summer by contrast have been mild, but not hot. We don’t even seem to be gearing up for the usual Labor Day heat wave: The forecast is more of the same: dry, cool nights, warm days after the fog lifts. If this weather continues for the next 45 days it will be an incredible vintage. But anything can happen.
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I’ve been following the Gary Vaynerchuk vs. New York State Liquor Authority brouhaha the last week or so. The SLA apparently has banned Gary’s wine store, Wine Library–the biggest wine retailer in New Jersey–from sending wine to New York customers. This is regrettable, as it’s state interference in the free exchange of goods between willing adults, which is wrong. By the way, whatever happened to Gary? Once he gave up his Wine Library T.V. show, he seems to have disappeared.
Have a great weekend!
“Once he gave up his Wine Library T.V. show, he seems to have disappeared.”
You obviously don’t spend much time on Twitter (or read about social media…)! That’s where he has been hiding…
He is very nusy on social media but that alone doesn’t generate funds. He seems to be working on a book about marketing (i.e. social media) and how certain websites do it better than others…with concrete, examples analyzed and praised. We’ll see…
I think that’s Steve’s point, Kyle. You don’t need to follow Twitter to know what Gary has been up to, but what he’s best at is where he is most missed.