Pinot Law

A couple of interesting articles caught my eye this week — one humorous and one quite telling for the wine industry.

First the humor, from an article here. TTB has ordered a California brewery to stop using the phrase “Try Legal Weed” on its bottle caps. On the one hand, I can understand TTB’s position that it does not want to condone drug use in any way, shape or form. On the other hand, the brewer in question is located in Weed, California. The article is very good and well worth the read (hat tip to Snark Hunting and Above the Law for bringing this to my attention).

Second comes the business article. According to this article here, equity fund manager Vinum Capital Management LLC has formed a $250-million private equity fund that will focus solely on acquiring and operating mid-size premium and super-premium wine properties producing between 20,000 and 150,000 cases annually. Wineries in California, Oregon and Washington are on the list.

I found the article interesting because it appears that the prospect of more significant consolidation in the wine industry may be upon us. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? On the one hand, this kind of capital can bring significant resources to wineries that may be underfunded and not operating at full capacity. On the other hand, is consolidation a good thing in terms of quality and diversity in the industry.

Time will tell, and until then I may see about getting some beer from Weed, California.

Weed used under a Creative Commons License provided by TooFarNorth.