Afternoon Brief

The Afternoon Brief is a daily wine business newsletter with aggregated headlines and top stories packaged in an easy read email format and delivered to subscribers at the end of each business day. SIGNUP FOR FREE TODAY.

Afternoon Brief, February 12

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Napa County, Bremer Family Winery Reach Lawsuit Settlement: Napa County and Bremer Family Winery settled a lawsuit brought by the county against the winery over alleged permit and code violations, ending a dispute that called into question how the county interprets older use permits...

Afternoon Brief, February 11

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WineDirect Sues Former Employees for Allegedly Misappropriating Trade Secrets: WineDirect Inc. is suing two former employees for allegedly misappropriating trade secrets to benefit their e-commerce platform, according to the complaint ...

Afternoon Brief, February 8

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Mt. Difficulty Sold to Foley Family Wines for $52M: A statement from the OIO last week said the purchase included about 70ha of freehold land and about 110ha of leasehold land at the Bannockburn vineyard. Mt. Difficulty is a medium-sized vineyard known for its Mt. Difficulty and Roaring Meg labels, and particularly its Pinot Noir and Riesling, produced by winemaker Matt Dicey...

Afternoon Brief, February 7

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Tasting Room Trend Review and Forecast: What Flipped and What Flopped: Through findings from our Performance Tracker and Benchmarking Tracker tools, we see 2018 trends that worked (and didn't work.) What's unique about us and our study is that we know the winery story behind the data, so we are able to recommend best practices, tips, and tactics...

Afternoon Brief, February 6

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Mary Ann Graf, Who Paved the Way for California Women Winemakers, Dies at 76: Mary Ann Graf, widely considered the first woman winemaker in California after Prohibition, died after a nearly three year battle with pancreatic cancer on Jan. 30. A representative of Graf's friends and family confirmed the news...

Afternoon Brief, February 5

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Napa County Hits B Cellars with Code Notice over Food Service: Napa County says Oakville-based B Cellars winery appears to overemphasize food service in violation of county laws for wineries in unincorporated areas, with the winery disagreeing...

Afternoon Brief, February 4

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Should You Ignore What Your Customers Want? The Great Winemakers Do: Among French wines, Château Pétrus is legendary. Consumers pay over $1,000 for a single bottle. Talking with Christian Moueix, the owner and long-time winemaker of Pétrus, Kellogg's Gregory Carpenter asked an innocent question: When crafting a wine, how do you think about the consumer?

Afternoon Brief, February 1

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Malibu Winery Sues Electricity Company After Fire: Cielo Farms winery, along with multiple homeowners, filed a suit at the Los Angeles Superior Court on Tuesday (29 January), blaming Southern California Edison (SCE) for the losses caused by the Woolsey Fire ...

Afternoon Brief January 31

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Wine and Sex Off the Millennial Menu The State of the Industry presentation Wednesday at the annual Unified Wine & Grape Symposium in Sacramento wasn't quite as gloomy as Silicon Valley Bank's dark take on the future two weeks earlier. Instead of "duck and cover", it was more motivational, as grapegrowers were encouraged to strap their boots on and fight for their future...

Afternoon Brief January 30

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Napa's Board of Supervisors Swamped with Public Comments over Vineyard Development Rules Napa County supervisors finally had their say on how to balance oak and watershed protections with new vineyard development after hearing plenty of passionate, conflicting advice from the public...

Afternoon Brief, January 29

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Chris Bilbro, Founder of Sonoma's Marietta Cellars and Father to Three Winemakers, Dies at 72 Bilbro built a successful winery by making bold red blends from old Sonoma vineyards that other wineries ignored...

Afternoon Brief, January 28

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Winegrowers Instructed on 'Future-Proofing' Napa Wine in the Digital Age: Is Napas wine industry ready for the future? Paul Mabray thinks not. Mabray, CEO of market research company Emetry.io, offered this take at a Napa Valley Grapegrowers symposium Wednesday, ..

Afternoon Brief, January 25

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Direct Sales Alters US Wine Market: In 2018, wineries shipped more than 6 million cases of wine, a nine percent increase over the previous year, according to Larry Cormier's presentation at the annual Direct to Consumer Wine Symposium held in Concord, California. Cormier is the general manager of the Colorado-based ShipCompliant/Sovos company, which gathers this data for presentation to the wine community each year...

Afternoon Brief, January 24

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Rombauer Vineyards Acquires Renwood Winery Facility in Sierra Foothills: Rombauer Vineyards, one of Napa Valley's premier, family-owned wineries, today announced the purchase of the Renwood Winery facility in Amador County. The sale includes 20 acres of vineyards, the wine production facility, and the tasting room located at 12225 Steiner Road in Plymouth, California...

Afternoon Brief, January 23

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DTC Channel Is Reaching Maturity for Wine: Larry Cormier, General Manager, ShipCompliance by Sovos, presented the topline results from their annual Direct to Consumer Wine Shipping Report based on the 8 million transactions a year filtered through ShipCompliant by Sovos at the DTC Wine Symposium Wednesday...