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Technically there was a holiday this month, but I could not bring myself to hazard conjuring up some long-shot wine pairing for St. Patrick’s Day in March.

Just… uhm… No. No way.

Anything along that vein is (being kind here) a desperate stretch. I mean, look, why would you even do that? What’s wrong with beer? [ A: the last time I checked, nothing. ]  I’m actually the worst person to ask about the subject anyway, because St. Patrick’s Day happens to be my actual birthday. So for me, that “holiday” wine pairing usually falls squarely into the category of “whatever the f*ck I feel like drinking, no mater what food is being poured, and preferably something bubbly and expensive.” But then, with my daughter’s birthday falling less than a week later than mine, these days at 1WD central we more or less give my birthday a passing wave hello/goodbye. “Happy birthday honey. Ok, so, did you order the dolphin place-mats yet for all of the kids coming to Lorelai’s party?”

Despite the daughter birthday madness, and the inevitable hangover resulting from the amount of alcohol one has to imbibe just to survive hosting a dozen 5- and 6-year-old children for a birthday shindig, I managed a few non-St.-Patrick’s-Day tidbits for the Wine.Answers.com gig in March (they are paying for the stuff, after all!).

And, I did celebrate the birthday in serious style, vinous-wise, as you’ll witness from the inset pic. More on all of that below…

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Frequent 1WD readers know that I get a bit, er, cantankerous when I notice long-standing wine industry types make wildly speculative – or even downright inaccurate – claims about how the wine industry functions, without citing any data in support of their crap claims.

This happens (just a guesstimate) roughly every seven minutes or so  (many bloggers succumb to this as well, so I’m not picking on any particular kind of medium here).

In a small attempt to help bring the smack-down on such rampant speculative behaviour by those who ought to know better, during my recent stint at Wineries & Breweries Unlimited 2014 in Richmond I decided to sit in on a (not-surprisingly somewhat poorly attended) session where real data were presented.

“Emerging Trends within Beverage Alcohol” was a presentation highlighting what’s actually happening in the wine world right now, from a consumer perspective, and was given by Nielsen’s Elizabeth Crews (Vice President/Analytic Lead for Nielsen’s Beverage Alcohol Practice Area), based on a combination of information collected at retail scans, via consumer panels, and through actual account data. It’s probably not perfect, but it’s also probably as close to perfect as we’re going to get when it comes to consumer trends in wine in the U.S.

Here are my notes on the session, sans commentary, and based on the data presented (I’m paraphrasing, which will piss off some people I’m sure, but it’s because I don’t have access yet to the actual numbers that were shown; if I can get them, and/or the presentation itself, I’ll post them here). Bottom lines: if you think Millennials and GenX aren’t key to the future of fine wine sales, you’re probably wrong; if you think beer and other adult beverages won’t come gunning for wine drinkers in terms of media spend, you’re also probably wrong; if you think expensive fine wine has no real market after the recession, you’re… wait for it… wrong; if you think blends can’t be popular because they’re not taking advantage of the brand recognition of well-known grape varieties, you’re also, maybe… wrong; and if you think Malbec is dead in the wine sales water, you’re very wrong.

My aim here is posting this is largely selfish, in that I strongly suspect that I’ll be linking back to this post incessantly when commenting on other websites, to deliver smack-downs on the under-supported speculation that seems rampant online and in Op-Ed pieces right now. And yes, I realize those efforts are totally Sisyphusian, but I just can’t help myself…

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So, like, what is this stuff, anyway?
I taste a bunch-o-wine (technical term for more than most people). So each week, I share some of my wine reviews (mostly from samples) and tasting notes with you via twitter (limited to 140 characters). They are meant to be quirky, fun, and easily-digestible reviews of currently available wines. Below is a wrap-up of those twitter wine reviews from the past week (click here for the skinny on how to read them), along with links to help you find these wines, so that you can try them for yourself. Cheers!

• 10 Mulderbosch Faithful Hound (Stellenbosch): Old dog, but very modern tricks, & a howl that's the canine equivalent of smooth talk. $20 B+ >>find this wine<<
• 09 Thelema Mountain Red (Western Cape): Rubber hits the road a bit hard at the end, but the rest of the journey is tastefully tasty. $15 B >>find this wine<<
• 11 Elizabeth Chambers Cellars Winemaker's Cuvee Pinot Noir (Willamette Valley): Peppery, piquant, pensive, pithy & above all, pretty. $32 B+ >>find this wine<<
• 12 Clayhouse Adobe White (Paso Robles): Tastes like refreshing juice, but it also doubles as a key to the Summer pool party gate. $14 B >>find this wine<<
• 07 La Ciarliana Vigna Scianello (Vino Nobile di Montepulciano): Still maintaining a firm, leathery & commanding grip on the situation $40 B+ >>find this wine<<
• 08 Le Berne Vino Nobile di Montepulciano Riserva (Vino Nobile di Montepulciano): Richer & funkier than southern-fried home cooking. $40 B+ >>find this wine<<
• 09 Boscarelli Vino Nobile di Montepulciano Riserva (Vino Nobile di Montepulciano): Lovely tightrope walk between Old & New schools. $55 A- >>find this wine<<
• 11 Winzerhof Thorle Saulheimer Limestone Dry Riesling (Rheinhessen): Lime ninjas with deadly accurate limestone throwing stars. $28 B+ >>find this wine<<
• 09 Pine Ridge Howell Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon (Napa Valley): Portraying the lush & soft – maybe too soft? – side of the Mountain. $90 A- >>find this wine<<
• 09 Pine Ridge Fortis (Napa Valley): This fort protects delicious red fruit treasures; but it's made out of pillows & a ton of wood. $150 A- >>find this wine<<
• 12 Apaltagua Reserva Unoaked Chardonnay (Casablanca Valley): Refreshing, as in attach-yourself-leech-like-onto-a-lemon refreshing. $13 B- >>find this wine<<

After I announced that I’d be sitting on the “Meet the Bloggers” panel at Wineries & Breweries Unlimited 2014 in Richmond with Fredric Koeppel and David White, a few (dozen) of you asked me (mostly privately) if the session would be recorded. Thanks to some help from the friendly Nomacorc folks, here is the panel, all just-about-one-hour of the thing.

Fredric, David and I took questions from moderator Tina Caputo, editor of Vineyard & Winery Management magazine, during which we discussed the importance of blogs to the wine industry, waxed pseudo-philosophic about the leveling of the brand awareness playing fields provided by social media, and relayed how we think wine brands can best approach wine bloggers to get them to tell their stories. Fredric was pointedly and intelligently acerbic (and wore his shades), David was soft-spoken and articulate, and I was my normal spastic self.

There’s not much more to tell you about the event, unless you’re in the market for barrel cleaners, tasting room signs, wine business loans and legal services, tractors, or steel tanks. But I had a great time meeting new friends, reconnecting with old ones, and offering a bit of (somewhat toned down… hey, it was a friendly crowd, alright?) tough luv for the local wineries and media types who attended our little blogging panel session.

Ok, start watching, already!

1WineDudeTV Episode 60: How Wine Brands Can Get Blogs to Tell their Stories

Cheers!