• Premium wine sales increasing? That's the forecast from the Silicon Valley Bank, which lends money to the wine business. It says sales of wine costing more than $20 a bottle could increase as much as 12 percent in 2011 over 2010 and that consumers seem to be ready to stop trading down. It also notes, as so many others don't, that the increase is just the first step in regaining ground lost during the recession. Expect continued discounting through the third quarter this year, and wines that cost $50 or more won't do as well.
• Bring on the lawsuits: Just when you thought that a bruised and battered wine business couldn't afford any more silly lawsuits -- or could come up with any silly lawsuits -- we have dueling legal challenges between MommyJuice, a Clos La Chance label introduced last fall, and Mommy’s Time Out, an Italian brand. Wines & Vines notes that the two sides are accusing each other of various trademark improprieties, and there is even a bit of a discussion about the controversy surrounding mommy wines.
• Pairing wine and doughnuts: Or, as the Santa Cruz Sentinel reports, "Poetic Cellars, a winery tucked in the hills of Soquel, was the site Saturday for the filming of a proposed reality television pilot that matches wines of different varieties with doughnuts chock-full of sugars and jellies." What's next? Scores for doughnuts? Please save us from that: "88, with hints of caramelized sugar, day-old frying grease, and toasting cream filling."
Mommy Juice, Cougar Juice - what are these marketers thinking -ewww!
Posted by: AC | May 03, 2011 at 06:48 AM
Wine and donuts, no way, reserve the donuts for the good coffee.
Posted by: bburnsey | May 03, 2011 at 03:45 PM