Here are some highlights from the week in wine news:
RIP Drizly (and possibly more alcohol delivery services). Drizly, the alcohol delivery app, will be shutting its doors by the end of March. In an unexpected move, Uber (who had previously bought Drizly for over $1 billion less than three years ago) announced that company restructuring would fold the Drizly name and bring the liquor delivery function into its current Uber Eats program. In addition, speculation is swirling that Drizly was susceptible to some considerable cybersecurity risks, which were absorbed by Uber at the time of the buyout.
Silicon Valley Bank has released its annual 2024 State of the Industry Report. SVB’s Wine Division Founder Rob McMillan is the author of the report, in which he predicts that the wine industry is in for a difficult year. 2023 saw overall wine sales decrease by 2-4%, with more decreases on the horizon in 2024. The wine world needs younger consumers to reach for wine more often, as Baby Boomers are still far and away the most likely age group to bring wine to a party. There is a silver lining, however - while the losses in the report feel insurmountable McMillan is not predicting the U.S. economy to fall into recession this year.
In an historic change of pace, more women are now running the storied estates of Chianti. Eric Asimov, the chief wine writer for The New York Times, traveled to Chianti Classico to profile the women who have taken over the day-to-day operations of Istine, Castello di Ama, Terreno, I Fabbri, and Podere le Boncie. Throughout Europe, and especially in Italy, it is common for fathers to pass along the family wine business to their sons. Recent generations of women have come to the forefront of these businesses, often getting university degrees in winemaking or working harvests elsewhere in the world before taking over the winemaker role at their family estates.
Further Reading: Feature articles on Angela Fronti from Istine, Lorenza Sebasti from Castello di Ama, Sofia Ruhne from Terreno, Susanna Grassi from I Fabbri, and Giovanna Morganti from Podere le Boncie.
Abrie Beeslaar, the long time cellarmaster at Kanonkop Estates in Stellenbosch, will be leaving his role later this year. Beeslaar has worked for Kanonkop, arguably the most famous name in South African Pinotage, for 23 years, and will leave his full-time role in August to focus on his own eponymous Pinotage-driven label. While Beeslaar has agreed to serve as a consultant for Kanonkop, the winery will be restructuring and promoting from within the company, teasing some new releases along the way. Beeslaar started his work as Kanonkop’s cellarmaster before the age of 30, and in 2018, he became the first South African winemaker to earn a 100 point score from Tim Atkin MW for the 2015 Kanonkop Paul Sauer.
And finally, today in “Not On My 2024 Bingo Card”... Josh Wine is the meme of the moment. Josh Cellars makes the number one selling table wine in the United States, with $5 million cases sold in a year, but in the early days of 2024, it has cemented its meme status by the Internet. You don’t have to go far to see Josh at Da Vinci’s Last Supper, Don Draper and Josh, or the ever-popular Drake and Josh images circulating around the world wide web. Out of the bevy of articles on the recent Josh craze (there were so many I could have made this entire article a Josh Wine meme think piece roundup), my favorite critical analysis comes from GQ: What do two sommeliers named Josh actually think about Josh wines?
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