This Harvest, We Crushed More than Grapes

The 2026 harvest season was a busy one for winemakers, wine professionals, wine market forecasters, wine salespeople, wine conglomerates, wine writers, and oh yes, the Department of Justice. While I was punching down and pumping over tanks, wine landed in the news in ways surprising, shocking, and hilarious. Read on for the harvest season news roundup.

WE CRUSHED HEARTS

My heart crumbled a wee bit upon reading the headline “How This Electric Blue Wine Broke the Internet.” Clearly, I’m the chump, since I never suspected we’d reinvigorate the industry with a beverage hued closer to Glacier Freeze Gatorade than anthocyanins. If the answer is “Blue Raspberry Fruit Fusion,” then I’m the fool, crafting wine from actual grapes that grow in actual soil. Woe betide the sucker pushing her “authentic” wine story on Gen Z. Want to engage 22-29 year olds? Mimic vape flavors and package them in brightly colored ready-to-drink 275 mL bottles. Marketed brilliantly on social media, the iridescent, 9% ABV “wine” sold out “before it even launched.” Despite eye-watering growth (in the highly niche “blue wine” sector), parent company Echo Falls remains unlisted on the Liv-Ex, as their target audience is more likely to chug than cellar. Still no word on availability of futures, since it’s non-vintage.

WE CRUSHED HOPE

Last Thursday, Wine Spectator killed our weekend buzz by dropping the headline “Why is California’s Wine Correction Worsening?” The article rehashes California’s wine glut and namechecks Napa and Sonoma wineries that recently filed for bankruptcy / Chapter 11.  Even with this draconian headline, this article excludes additional, unnamed, small, family-owned Sonoma wineries that have shuttered in the last 12-18 months. There’s too much wine and too few wine lovers. On the other hand, as you’ve probably heard, this year’s crop was light, light, light. This was mainly due to unfavorable weather during bloom and fertilization, preventing fruit set. In recent Bloomberg and Los Angeles Times articles, I half joked this year’s light crop might be a “divine market correction.”

Look ma, I’m famous (even got a photo op in Bloomberg!)

 Wine Business quickly countered “Short Crop Won’t Be Wine’s Savior.”

This chart from Wine Business Daily shows decreasing wine consumption over time.

Author Andrew Adams cites wine market pro Jon Moramarco, who explains wine’s declining consumption this way:

“Those reasons — GLP-1s, cannabis, energy drinks, online gambling, video games, disrupted household schedules, solitary living, economic struggles, health guidelines, health worries and more — are all significant headwinds that deter consumers from drinking wine or motivate them to spend their discretionary income elsewhere.”

Happily, among consumers, wine still wins as beverage of choice for celebratory moments. And you know I preach that wine belongs on your dinner table. Thank you to everyone who has sent me the awesome bottle shots that make my day. You have no idea how your emails, texts, and photos lift me up. It’s why I do what I do. Here’s a small sampling:

I cherish and save each and every bottle shot you send to me. Thank you for taking the time. Makes my day.

WE CRUSHED JUSTICE

With harvest was well underway, Southern Glazers reached a $12.5 million agreement with the DOJ & TTB, resolving pricing shenanigans and shady practices. The September resolution preempted punishment from the TTB or admission of guilt by SG. Furthermore, Southern Glazer’s internal compliance review and shiny new policies reflect their “ongoing commitment to conducting business with integrity and in full compliance with the law.” Whew, that’s a relief. Because here I was thinking it’s OK to run an alcohol conglomerate without integrity. Furthermore, why act in full compliance with the law when you can skate by with partial or even minimal compliance? Silly me. Just to be transparent, just so you like, know the tea, the federal indictment accused high level executives of a multi-year bribery scheme. Bribes that included perks like luxury golf trips and fancy hotel stays. Sheesh. No wonder sending thank you notes never moved the needle for me.

What do I even caption this? Rough day at the offices of justice for Southern Glazer?

 Even as Southern Glazers copped to “lapses” in conduct, the FTC remained unimpressed. Just last week, the Federal Trade Commission settled their 2024 lawsuit, accusing the nation’s largest wine and spirits distributor of price discrimination in violation of the Robinson-Patman Act. As punishment, SGWS can no longer push pallets of wine cheaply to Krogers while marking up those same SKU’s to small, independent retailers. I’m heartened to see SGWS really leaning into the “conducting business with integrity” bit.

WE CRUSHED AI

Controversy shook that insular and cozy slice of media known as “professional wine writers” as accusations of AI rocked the 67 Pall Mall Global Wine Communication Awards. Playing defense, the (human) panel of 67 Pall Mall judges deflected allegations that they’d awarded a £3,000 writing prize to a short form missive “penned” by a bot. Judges instead insisted that winning writer Fikayo Ifaturoti’s natural style is short choppy sentences (em dash), just like AI. Later those same judges noted that they hadn’t expressly forbidden AI… Well, that’s the spirit, guys.

OK, what can I say here… 2026 proved to be quite the busy harvest season.

The Wine Makers Show recaps the controversy, detailing the cohort of well-known wine writers who accuse the winning prose of being AI generated. Their outrage is fully justified. Perhaps you’re asking, “Why do the results of an obscure British wine writing competition matter?” You’re not wrong. Before this kerfuffle, I’d never heard of the 67 Pall Mall Global Wine Communicator Awards either. And after all, most wine writing is a secluded cubbyhole of bloggers trading follows on Substack. (Wow, that was an uncharitable sentence). But maybe, just maybe, the winning post sounded robotic because most wine writing sounds robotic, relying on identical bits about red fruits, velvety tannins, and volcanic soil. This poses a somewhat existential crisis for winemakers like me, who enjoy writing about wine and winemaking. It’s also a microcosm for broader questions about the use, ethics, and ubiquity of AI and LLM’s. For me, I wonder, why be a “wine writer” if you don’t enjoy writing? And good luck to the fine wine writers making their living by writing in traditional media; the profession remains in upheaval. Grappling with words and wrestling phrases to clarity is the fun work of writing. Posing a prompt to chat gpt is not. But I’ve lost the thread. Good news is that the founders of the 67 Pall Mall Global Wine Communicator Awards are crafting an AI policy ahead of the 2027 competition. This shouldn’t be difficult. If Claude wrote it, then you didn’t.

AI CRUSHED ME

I thought I was being clever. If AI could win a £3,000 writing prize, certainly AI could save me the $29 fee for a new digital bottle shot. Indeed, with the 2024 Torrey Hill Vineyard Pinot Noir now released, I required an updated one. In the past, I’d partnered with a Sonoma State student, a talented photography major with access to the black box set up required for bottle shots without reflected light. He graduated. Today, enterprising companies do the same job digitally. As you rightly surmise, it’s cheaper and faster than a human photographer. This being a digital operation, I reasoned I could just ask chat gpt to do it for me. I uploaded both my highest resolution version of the 2024 Torrey Hill label and Isiah’s bottle shot of the 2022 Soberanes PN. I asked chat gpt to add the TH label to the existing bottle shot. Behold my results. I guess I gotta upgrade to the paid version.

Chat GPT, you failed me …

WE CRUSHED GRAPES

Four of Five Overstreets Were On Hand to Sort the 2026 Torrey Hill Pinot Noir

This year’s crop was light but richly flavored and bright with retained acidity. That’s a unicorn combination, since during ripening, acid drops as sugar rises. But as you recall, we experienced a crazy early bud break, so the 2026 vintage ripened during the longest days of summer, with plenty of sunshine and verdant, healthy canopy to drive photosynthesis. On the other hand, this summer wasn’t exceptionally hot either. And when harvest launched mid-August, the days remained long and warm. It’s as if the vines never got the message that the growing season ended. No shorter days. No colder mornings. Vines never “gave up” and dumped their acid, as they do if we harvest in mid-October, as daylight hours contract. This vintage reminds me of fan favorites like 2015 and 2022, with ripe, forward, concentrated fruit. I think you’ll come to love these wines. Just know in advance, there isn’t much to be had.