Winebits 205: Pay a blogger, moscato, wine labels

• Blogger payday? Today, says Swedish micropayment startup Flattr, is Pay a Blogger day. The Wine Curmudgeon appreciates the sentiment, even if it is being used to promote Flattr's services. Think of Flattr as PayPal for small amounts sent to specific people, who are rewarded for the good work -- or, in this case, blogging -- that they have done. Still, you won't see a Flattr widget on the site. Groveling for money, though it has its advantages (as one of my oldest and best friends often reminds me), isn't part of the business plan here. How curmudgeonly could I be if I had to ask readers for money?

• Mostcato sales take off: Like a rocket, actually, says Eileen Fredrikson of Gomberg-Fredrikson, which knows more about this stuff than almost anyone else in the U.S. She predicts that the sweet white wine, along with sweet reds, will lure novice wine drinkers, in much the same white zinfandel did two decades ago. Nielsen numbers through September show that Moscato purchases climbed by 800,000 cases, up 73 percent in 2011. The catch, of course, is that there isn't a lot of moscato. It accounts for just two percent of U.S. sales, and by the time producers in California and elsewhere plant enough grapes to catch up with demand (which will take three or four years), the boom may well be over. Or, as the Italian Wine Guy so succinctly put it: "The moscato phenomenon is just that -- it is white zinfandel in a mini skirt and high leather boots. It will pass. Just like Blue Nun, Thunderbird and Yago Sangria passed."

• Better wine labels: An English design firm, seeing how badly wine brands sell themselves, has offered to work for free for any producer willing to try something different. The Stranger & Stranger firm will do £30,000 worth of design per month for anyone, it says, that wants to address younger wine drinkers seriously, do something more than pay lip service to eco-friendly wine, and treat consumer with respect instead of an "occasional hazard." Sounds like the Wine Curmudgeon's kind of guy, no? And certainly worth following up.

Comments

[Harvey Posert]

Re Blue Nun, Thunderbird and Sangria --
But my God how the money rolled in...

Harvey Posert
for the Moscato Nation,
trade association for the varietal.

[Bobby Cox]

Jeff,

We have quite a bit already planted up on The High Plains. Don't give up we are riding hard to give Texas more Muscat. Drink up we will grow more !