Thoughts on wine, marketing, and the business of both — from a self-professed wine nerd in Napa.
Every good cellar keeps notes. This is mine — a running record of what I'm tasting, thinking, and observing across the worlds of wine and wine marketing. New posts drop on Substack; they live here, too.
The Changing Landscape of Wine I recently attended a talk featuring a prominent wine industry professional who said that in the next 2-3 years, 1 in 4 small wineries in Napa Valley will close. This wasn’t presented as a prediction, which of course it is, but rather as a statement of fact. And quite frankly, it stopped me in my tracks. I follow wine industry news closely. I read the data reports. I know every segment of the industry is struggling. And yet this statistic felt s
On setting the glass down for a minute I haven’t published an article in over a month. A cardinal sin against most “rules” of social strategy. And you know what? It’s perfectly fine. And even more importantly, that’s messaging I’m hearing from other entrepreneurs and content creators. We are all just doing our best, juggling a never-ending list of priorities. In my case, not only was I busy with the day-to-day operations of my business, but I also needed a little downtime. I
Lessons from the 2026 SVB Direct-to-Consumer Wine Report Every year, the wine industry eagerly awaits the temperature check that is the Silicon Valley Bank Direct-to-Consumer Wine Report. This year’s edition arrives at a moment when the industry is exhausted, cautious, and searching for answers. The headline is this: the steepest part of the downturn appears to be behind us. The data shows that there has been some stabilization. But stabilization is not recovery. And before a
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The cellar goes deeper than you think
More on wine, marketing, and the business of both — waiting for you on Substack.
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