Wine can be a cut-throat low margin business. There are also many “trophy wineries” launched by rich people who made their money in something else and then buys or creates a winery just for fun and life-style, without really needing to worry about profitability. It is all the more impressive then when someone launches into […]
More and more wineries and wine regions launch into wine tourism. All sorts and flavours of wine tourism projects pop up in the wine regions. This is not surprising considering how much money and reputation is involved. It is not easy to get good numbers on the economic effects of wine tourism but one estimate […]
Just a few years ago, or perhaps mainly in the mid 90s and early 00s, corked wines were a big discussion subject. Some people reported 4-5% cork defects in wine, sometimes even 10%. We started to see serious “alternative closures”, mainly plastic corks and screw caps. Today that debate has mostly disappeared (although not quite […]
Although there has been a clear revival in the popularity of gin, and an explosion of new brands, we have seen that the impact has been limited to the premium-plus categories. New and existing customers have traded up, leaving the lower-value categories to continue to decline. There is little evidence to suggest that the renaissance […]
Gin’s revival in popularity has been driven by many of the same factors that were important in gin’s earlier history – the role of marketing/brands, the impact of legislation, developments in flavours and the link to cocktails and fashionability. Four events have been particularly important. Marketing innovations by IDV led the way. In 1988, IDV […]
EU law defines three categories of gin:[1] “Gin” is the basic category. Flavourings, either natural or artificial, are mixed (cold compounded) with the base spirit and other approved colourings and sweeteners are added. A molasses-based spirit may be used (often cheaper), giving a softer feel. “Distilled Gin” is made by redistilling the mixture of diluted […]
The essay in four parts explores the history of gin up until 1985, its production, the revival in consumption over the past 30 years, and looks forward to how the market might develop over the next 10 years. This essay focuses primarily on the UK market although reference is made to other markets where relevant, […]
Sweden’s first website on wine? 20 years ago we started writing about wine online. “Wine on the internet since 1996”, as it says on our banner. We were – probably – Sweden’s first “home page” of wine. It was not called BKWine Magazine at the time, and a lot has happened since then. So this […]
It is sometimes said that the young people of today do not drink wine. It may be true or not, but whatever the case it is very different from one country to another. A recent market report shows surprisingly positive numbers from New York and London. An overwhelming majority of the young people in these […]
In many countries the annual wine guides wield a huge influence over consumers. In France, for example, you have Guide Hachette and Italy you have l’Espresso’s annual wine guide. But this year, there has been a revolution in the Italian guide. The editorial team has been completely replaced, the focus is changed and the first […]
2015 is a year that did not present any great surprises in the overall picture of the global wine production and trade. Vineyard area is stable, production is stable, consumption is stable, and world trade in wine continues to grow. Decidedly un-sexy and headline un-friendly. A few things can be worth pointing out. The USA […]
Why do we no longer drink sweet wines? The Swedish monopoly Systembolaget recently presented the market situation for sweet wines and fortified wines in Sweden. It is catastrophic. And perhaps illustrative of what happens in other countries too. Sweet wines disappearing? Over 25 years the consumption of sweet wines has fallen by around 85%. In […]
Sometimes you need to cool or warm your wine to obtain the right serving temperature. Which way is the best and how do you know how long it will take? An interesting little booklet was published in the 1960s in Sweden by a man called Haqvin Carlheim-Gyllensköld, known for his scientific approach to cooking. The […]
Co-operatives sometimes suffer from a less than great reputation in wine. Sometimes it is well-deserved, for cooperatives that focus more on quantity and volume production than on quality. Sometimes is it unfair. There is an important trend today in the cooperative sector in the wine industry to improve both quality and market orientation. This is […]
When you ask wine producers what their main export markets are you often hear things like Great Britain, the USA, Germany, today sometimes even China etc. And if you then ask “You mean you don’t export much to Belgium?” you get the reaction “well, yes, of course, that’s one of our most important markets. But […]
If you are a wine producer you might wonder what the rules are for selling to Swedish consumers. Or if you happen to live in Sweden, you might wonder if and how you can buy from producers or shops in other countries in Europe. The question is the same and we have done some research […]
Wine lovers often tend to simply ignore wine co-operatives or even look down at them as sources of not so good wine. This is a mistake. It is true that many co-operatives are not tuned for making small batches of high quality wine. And even worse that wine co-operatives are often very poor at marketing. […]
An unusual vodka, descended from the ancient Absolut, tasted by BKWine Magazine’s Roland Eriksson. Our traditional Swedish vodka Absolut became a worldwide success. This was also one of the reasons that the then Swedish government sold off its state-owned and highly profitable producer called Vin & Sprit, and with it our entire cultural heritage of […]
Mixed drinks, or cocktails, are becoming more and more popular to drink as an aperitif and you can hardly open a food or wine magazine today without reading about it, or getting the bartender’s best tips. What happened to all the traditional southern French aperitifs such as Byrrh, Dubonnet and pastis? Some of them were […]
Wine growing and wine making is agriculture. But if you look at the price of land for vineyards it does not have much in common with other types of agriculture, at least not in most wine regions. The average price for “appellation” (AOP) land in France was 136,000 euro per hectare according to statistics for […]
France is without a doubt the world’s most prominent wine country. They make some very expensive wines, famous names known all across the world. But France is also an excellent source for wines in the medium price range. At the very low end they may however struggle to compete with low cost countries, especially for […]
The world production and consumption of sparkling wine has increased significantly in recent years, according to a recent report by the OIV (International Organisation of Vine and Wine). 17.6 million hectolitres of sparkling wine was produced in 2013. Over ten years the production has increased with 40%. The consumption is also changing: today we drink […]
The 2014 statistics on global wine production, wine consumption, vineyard surface area, world grape production, and world trade in wine France will be the world’s biggest wine producer in 2014. World vineyard surface is decreasing but grape production is going up. Europe’s production is in decline. World wine consumption is shifting from “old” countries to […]
L’heure d’apéritif, the best moment of the day? Yes, at least those days when you are allowed an aperitif (which is not every day). Aperitif time is a quiet moment before dinner or mingling with guests before sitting down to dinner. But how do you choose your aperitif? You can, of course, simply have a […]
In a recent article here on BKWine Magazine on the largest wine importers (in Sweden) I speculated about why many of the largest wine importers have several subsidiaries. In some it become a maze of companies, each headed (fully or partially) by the same people but under different company names. The four most thorny wine […]
And a full listing of the 50 biggest suppliers to Systembolaget Statistics on the size of wine importers is interesting. The ten largest wine importers in Sweden (or more accurately: suppliers to Systembolaget) account for 64% of total sales. On the list there are, curiously, some names that not many people know about. One of […]
The Svensson Taster (Svenssonsmakaren, which perhaps should translate to the John Doe Taster) is the strange name of a wine blog written by David Lindén. It is in true traditional “blogging spirit”, short (sometimes) and personal stories about what David drunk and sometimes ate. David has also at one point written a guest article here […]
Coravin lets you drink the wine without pulling the cork. At a price. There are various devices that you can use to keep your wine longer after you have opened the bottles and a new one has just arrived. Let’s first look at what exists today. Vacuum pumps Some work with a “vacuum” (to be […]
Global wine exports and wine imports The world trade in wine has gone up since 2000 although it went down slightly in 2012. But in real terms (inflation corrected) it seems that the value of the wine has gone down. Winemakers get less money today than in 2000. France is the biggest exporter in value […]
Global wine consumption: who drinks the most wine? Global wine consumption was stable in 2012 at 243 Mhl. Since 2000 wine consumption has increased somewhat, up 8%. After a peak at 255 Mhl in 2007 it went down but with the stable figure for 2012 the downward trend seems to be stopped. The European countries, […]
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