American Dreamin
Unless you don’t own a television or radio, and choose not to read anything at all, you surely know about the ‘devaluation’ of the U.S. dollar (formerly known as the almighty dollar). Even if you don’t plan on renting a villa in Tuscany this summer, it will still impact your life in various ways. Most […]
Old Vines
Earlier this year, a group of California vintners formed an alliance (actually a non-profit company) called The Historic Vineyard Society. The purpose of this group is to bring awareness to Calfornia’s oldest vineyards. Unfortunately, every year, California loses another piece of vinous history; vineyards up to 100 years old get ripped out for real estate […]
Barolo
Beautiful, romantic, and historic, Italy is the site of much lore and, alas, many historical tragedies. Pompeii is a glaring example of such an historical tragedy, and of course the tragic play Romeo & Juliet is known by all – ok maybe this one is fiction (though you can visit Juliet’s balcony at an actual […]
Wake Up and Smell the Cardboard
Red, White and Green Yes, for us American consumers it all started as a cost savings move by value-oriented mass-production wineries. The wines were serviceable – never great, but never bad really. Of course, the perception was bad; it didn’t matter what it tasted like, it was in a box…how good could it be? Indeed, […]
Rep Picks
It appears that super-premium/higher-priced/allocated wines are making a comeback Happily, there are signs that ‘super-premium’ priced wines are staging a comeback. Perhaps not to the level of those halcyon days of 2000 to 2007, but way more interest than last year. It makes sense too: once one has tasted the good stuff, it’s hard to […]
What Customers Want
Attention Restauranteurs: Ok, so the wine business isn’t exactly the ‘tech’ business, moving at the speed of light, but this business does seem to evolve pretty rapidly lately. Are we running so fast that we’re leaving money on the table? At Great Lakes Wine & Spirits, we are extremely proud of our portfolio or our […]
French Wine
The Wine Geek is old enough to remember when most of the ‘good’ wine we Americans drank was French wine. And not just us Americans – other than that small handful of other European wine-producing countries that mostly drank local (Italy, Spain, Germany for instance) most of the world’s restaurant wine lists started and ended […]
Don’t Blush if You Like Rosé
My, how the world changes. There are likely many reading this whose first ‘real’ wine (i.e. not Boone’s Farm or Riunite) was a White Zinfandel. Of course, that “gateway drug” of a wine was usually quickly left behind as we fledgling American wine drinkers matured and moved on to “fighting varietals” and then KJ Chardonnay, […]