Possibly our last post on the 2008 Unified Wine & Grape Symposium
We’ve linked to several news articles and blog posts regarding the 2008 Unified Wine & Grape Symposium, and today we have a few more links to bring to your attention.
Looking for a downer? Dan Berger at Appellation America has one for you in a piece headlined “State of the Industry: Myth Amid Optimism.”
From the optimism I heard at the recent Unified Wine and Grape Symposium held in Sacramento, CA in late January, I might have thought the California wine industry was out dancing in the streets. But if you looked at the crucial Wednesday morning State of the Industry session through an electron microscope, you might have a radically differing opinion: that the American wine industry is in a sad state.
…The only question I can’t answer is this: Is the health of the U.S. wine industry in serious condition or ought it to be reassessed as in critical condition?
Berger’s main concerns are that imports are steadily expanding their share of the American wine market while cut-rate bulk wine, domestic and imported, is hollowing out the market bottoms up. Don’t miss the comments on his article which are displayed in the right hand column.
Richard Kasmier and Randy Hall aired their second installment of interviews from Unified last Monday. You can listen to it here. The segment from starts about 39:30 into the show. According to one of the interviews, French oak barrels are now $930 a piece.
Tempranillo Tango, Coral Mustang’s blog, reports that there was substantial interest in the Tempranillo grape at a seminar at the symposium.
Photos from Unified taken by somebody who is affiliated with Crushpad Wine in San Francisco.
Finally a post by Howard Skolnik who was at Unified to hawk wine drums:
we are going to restructure the cost of our 16-gallon stainless steel wine drum and create options that are much more affordable and more in-line with the keg features and costs. The 16-gallon drum we had at our booth brought about a tremendous amount of interest because it was seen as an available alternative to the 15-gallon keg.