Washington's wine industry maturing

By Adam Muller: Company Description:

The busload of Swedes sweep onto the 326-year-old South African wine farm for a wine tasting visit that marries vineyard tourism with bottom-line marketing.Sweden is now the third biggest buyer of wine from South Africa, one of the countries the industry is courting to counter a tough export climate."At the moment it's somewhat stable but you have to fight for every piece of pie out there. The market is tough -- it's not an easy market," said Boschendal's Jamiel Ryklief after welcoming the tourists to the stately estate.

Keg wines may not have the romance of the bottle but the environmental and economic appeal of the method is allowing the wine industry to reintroduce the idea with success. Any lingering reticence about keg wine is disappearing as its benefits appear to resonate with today’s cost conscious and eco-savvy customers.

Pacific Rim decided to buck traditional wine industry marketing tactics and go after the millennials, investing nearly $10,000 in a social media campaign to establish its niche. The goal was to convince retailers that they should carry riesling wines.

MONTREAL — Efforts by successive Quebec governments to find more revenue sources over the years have contributed to an unintended consequence on the store shelves of the province’s liquor monopoly: the near-extinction of cheap wine.

America's wine industry is booming. But a new study from Michigan State Professor Philip Howard shows "industry" maybe something of a misnomer. While you may see a wide variety of American labels at your local wine shop, the vast majority are merely offshoots of mega producers, most of them concentrated in California, Professor Howard found. Here's the incredible browsable map he's produced (click to zoom):