June and July Wine Travels

I haven't been blogging much in the early summer but am committed to updating this wine blog more often.

Of notice lately is how the wine business is somewhat recession proof in this tough economy.

An article from Business Week on ALCOHOL'S ECONOMIC RESILIENCE:

*Business Week issued an interesting write up that sums up several reports and themes over the past couple of months in the industry.

1. For example, alcoholic beverages are pretty recession resistant and are not as affected by the economy as other consumer-discretionary products.

2. Premium and ultra-premium spirits continue to outperform the rest of the market.

3. Although Fortune issued a profit warning yesterday, analysts generally agree that its spirits division is less sensitive to the slowing economy than its home and hardware and golf divisions.

4. Spirits has been taking back market share from the beer industry since 2001, but is expected to moderate.

"We think wine and spirits will be the last to be impacted, so some of this may be a delay. But there's enough strength in that income [group] that they can probably weather this pretty well," said Richard Hurst says Richard Hurst of Nielsen, as quoted in the article.