Wine Producers, Growers, & Labels

Charles Gill is the CEO of Winemetrics LLC , a company providing on-premise market intelligence to the wine and restaurant industries. Winemetrics recently released The 2007 On-Premise Wine Distribution Report , which summarizes varietal, brand and product distribution from of over 10,000 U.S. restaurant wine lists. This report is the source for the content referenced in the article below. Before revealing our brand ranking, it is important to realize how different the wine market is from other alcoholic beverages or consumer goods.

Anyone who has tried to buy wine over the internet may be well aware of the obstacle course of wine shipping laws tripping up oenophiles all over the U.S. today. Unless you are fortunate enough to live in what is referred to as a “reciprocal” state, it may quite literally take an act of congress for you to buy a bottle of that great boutique wine you tried during your wine country vacation last year.

A pickup party is one of the standard perks of wine club membership. Usually 3 or 4 times a year, club members who live close enough by, or who happen to be visiting the area, pick up the newly released club selections on a special day at the winery. Lots of wine is poured (of course) with complementary foods, often a barbecue, and sometimes, live music. It was all of these at the club pickup party we visited at De La Montanya Winery & Vineyards.

IntoWine recently sat down with Charles Gill, CEO of WineMetrics, to discuss what is an impressive feat to anyone who loves wine, analytics, or both. WineMetrics has assembled an enormous and comprehensive database aggregating the wine lists ofrom restaurants across the US. The resulting data is useful to restaurants and of course wine distributors and producers looking for outlets to sell their wines. To the pedestrian wine drinker, the findings are simply fascinating. WineMetrics has compiled extensive data detailing the wines that occupy wine lists in restaurants across the nation, from the Olive Garden in Dayton, Ohio to the local French bistro in Lower Manhattan. Acquiring this data must have been a laborious process. How did you go about it? Much of it is acquired by our distributor clients but a great many restaurants feature their wine lists on their websites, which we utilize. Often we just contact the account and ask for it. What surprised you as you started assessing the data?

Chateau Ste. Michelle is one of the largest and most revered wineries in America. Located in Washington's Columbia Valley, Chateau Ste. Michelle is often -and mistakenly- overlooked by oenophiles searching for fine American wine. It isn't often that one gets to "talk shop" with the winemaker from a winery of the caliber of Chateau Ste. Michelle -they tend to be awfully busy people after all- but IntoWine.com had the good fortune of being able to do just that. What follows is our chat with Chateau Ste. Michelle Winemaker Bob Bertheau.

When talk turns to Napa Valley royalty, Robert Mondavi and the Mondavi family indisputably qualify as the ruling monarchy of the Napa Valley –and frankly the US- wine industry. With an almost biblical or Shakespearean flair, the Mondavi family story of the last 100 years is one of passion, pettiness, family squabbling, wild success, dramatic failure, and of course, wine. In her new book, The House of Mondavi: The Rise and Fall of an American Wine Dynasty , author Julia Flynn delivers a masterful narrative on the Mondavi clan. IntoWine.com recently had the privilege of chatting with Julia about the book and the evolution of the Mondavi family story.