It’s been a spicy topic for a California wine industry approaching economic panic: the “Wine Improvement District” — or “WID” for those actively at odds in the debate. The idea sounds sensible enough: a small regional levy on direct-to-consumer sales, with the goal of raising funds for collective regional marketing. God knows wine needs every advantage it can muster given the current hand-wringing environment, but the seemingly reasonable proposition has set off heated exchanges. ...| VinePair
There’s an episode of “Seinfeld” I think about a lot. Well, there are a lot of episodes of “Seinfeld” I think about a lot, actually. I’m a 37-year-old white guy, after all. But one of the subplots in this particular episode of “Seinfeld” — Season 5, Episode 22, “The Opposite,” for the real heads reading this — turns on the realization that the show’s cosmic scales are balanced on its titular lead, with the rest of the characters’ fortunes rising and falling in dire...| VinePair
Over the past few years, the global wine industry news has been a playlist of emo angst peppered by Hans Zimmer-esque impending doom. Wine consumption is declining and, yes, there’s a glut of grapes. Unsurprisingly, economic anxiety is the track of the day. While the wine lake in Europe has prompted major headlines regarding full-on policy intervention, the U.S. hasn’t escaped its share of the gloom. California in particular — representing well over three-quarters of total domestic prod...| VinePair
The United States has a brand new top-selling beer. According to a Monday press release from Anheuser-Busch, Michelob Ultra is the No. 1 selling beer in America by volume. Bud Light, a fellow Anheuser-Busch portfolio member, long held the crown for America’s top-selling beer, but following conservative boycotts over a partnership with influencer Dylan Mulvaney in 2023, sales slipped. In June of that year, Constellation-owned Modelo overtook Bud Light in off-premise dollar sales, a shift tha...| VinePair
Will craft beer lovers still host “bottle shares” if bottles themselves cease to exist? That may sound like a modern-day Zen koan, but it’s not exactly beyond contemplation. This summer, cans made up about 76 percent of craft beer’s slipping retail sales, according to the Brewers Association, with glass dropping to just 24 percent, a major shift from where things were less than a generation ago. The article Cans Changed Craft Beer Forever. What Comes Next? appeared first on VinePair.| VinePair
Few hotels lean into unabashed revelry like San Diego’s Lafayette Hotel does. It’s the drinks-flowing, kitchen-always-open encapsulation of the funky fever dream that emerges when a bar and restaurant powerhouse creates a hotel that’s representative of its approach to hospitality. “Bars and restaurants were a gateway drug for me,” says Arsalun Tafazoli, the owner and founder of San Diego’s CH Projects. Before turning its attention to hotels, CH had already made its mark in the loc...| VinePair
Update: At 4:44am ET on 7/12/2023, roughly 12 hours after this story was published, Anchor Brewing Company issued a press release announcing it will cease operations and liquidate its business. VinePair will be updating reporting throughout the day. Clarification (7/20/23): A previous version of this article stated that multiple current and former workers had told VinePair that Russian River Brewing Co. was a potential suitor to acquire Anchor from Sapporo USA.| VinePair