SevenFifty Daily’s Most Popular Articles of 2024

It’s been another tumultuous year in the beverage industry. The year started with alarm bells about declining wine consumption and ended with serious concerns about the impact that promised tariffs could have on the industry.

Much of our coverage this year explored these industry issues in depth, and by examining the year’s most-read articles on SevenFifty Daily, it’s clear that they are top of mind for readers as well. Many industry professionals looked to Tina Caputo’s report on the American wine crisis to understand the reasons for so much concern, and they gained new insights from Laura Catena’s thorough analysis of what the science says about alcohol and health—something that is especially pertinent to understand as the industry faces new regulatory threats.

Of course, readers also wanted to learn more about some of the industry’s most impactful categories and producers, from California icons to top single malt Scotch whiskies and additive-free tequilas. And even as additive-free tequila gained popularity among consumers and trade, the category grew contentious, and readers were eager to learn how the Consejo Regulador del Tequila’s crackdown was impacting producers. As 2024 winds down, take a look at the SevenFifty Daily stories that industry members read the most.

10. The Rocky Rollout of California’s New Bottle Bill

Expanding the state’s bottle redemption program to include wine and spirits is a massive undertaking, raising concerns—and hopes—from California’s beverage industry

By Betsy Andrews

It’s become common knowledge: The biggest emitter of greenhouse gasses in the wine world is the packaging. In distilling, packaging is the second-largest emitter. To curb the energy needed to make and ship glass, producers are trying lighter bottles, cans, Tetrapaks, bag-in-boxes, and unique solutions like plant-based containers. But for all its ingenuity, the drinks industry has hit a roadblock: the infrastructure on the back end. Packaging often ends up in landfills, especially in the U.S., where recycling rates pale in comparison to Europe. 

To truly curb emissions and pollution, we need a circular economy, in which packaging avoids the waste stream through reuse. That takes change on a scale that requires industry, consumer, and, first of all, government action. 

In California, the fifth-largest economy in the world, one hurdle was cleared on January 1, 2024, when Senate Bill 1013 was enacted into law, bringing wine and spirits packaging into the Container Redemption Value (CRV) program used by beer, soda, juice, and water. With the extension of the so-called Bottle Bill, wine and spirits consumers must pay a deposit that is refundable when they return their empty container, which is recycled into new packaging, keeping it out of landfills. [Read more]

9. 11 Mistakes to Avoid When Opening a Wine Shop

Independent retailers across the country share critical advice for those who are opening or buying a wine shop

By Christy Frank

When opening a new wine store or purchasing an existing business, a deep interest in wine is essential, but it’s far from the only important business consideration. Successful wine shop owners know that retail is about much more than what’s on the shelves.

“When I started, I was focused on what I was good at and comfortable with, which was wine of course,” says Betsy Ross, the owner and sommelier of Wine House on Main in Kennebunk, Maine. “It turns out that love, passion, and creativity aren’t the only important elements of business.”

As a wine retailer who also consults with would-be shop owners, I know all too well that “I love wine” is not a business plan. To learn how other wine shop owners navigated starting a business, I reached out to independent retailers across the country for their insights on common pitfalls, practices to avoid, and how to successfully steer clear of them from the start. Here’s what I’ve learned. [Read more]

8. How Ridge Vineyards Became an Industry Icon

Low-intervention winemaking at special vineyard sites like Monte Bello makes this California producer a favorite for those in the know

By Janice Williams

To find a winery in California specializing in Cabernet Sauvignon and Zinfandel is hardly a challenge in today’s wine landscape. But for wine professionals and collectors, Ridge Vineyards sits at the top.

“Ridge is so American and so itself and so unabashedly Californian in a very balanced and beautiful way,” says Ryan Mullins, a sales consultant for the Atlanta division of Winebow, which distributes Ridge Vineyards.

What sets Ridge apart has a lot to do with its site, long history, and the winemaking principles the winery was built upon. Its reputation is intrinsically tied to the Monte Bello Estate, which sits near the edge of the Monte Bello Ridge in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Using low-intervention winemaking practices, the Ridge team translates the high elevation, coastal influences, and limestone-rich soils of Monte Bello into the site’s namesake wine, as it has for more than 60 years. [Read more]

7. What’s Next for the Hard Seltzer Market?

After a period of declining sales, experts forecast the future of the hard seltzer market, from trending flavors to popular formats

By Pamela Vachon

The word “launch” rarely applied so well to a beverage category’s introduction as it did with hard seltzer, which went stratospheric in a matter of a few years. From its mainstream emergence in 2016, a 2020 report from NIQ cited hard seltzer as “the most resilient alcohol segment in the U.S.,” becoming a multibillion-dollar industry with over 300 brands having entered the category. 

But in 2021, hard seltzer hit its peak, with slowing sales prompting some brands to destroy excess inventory and major media outlets to label the category as a fad headed towards extinction. However, brands and analysts alike believe it is premature to toll hard seltzer’s death knell. 

“The ‘shakeout’ process of underperforming brands being discontinued is nearing the end,” says Adam Rogers, the research director of North America for IWSR Drinks Market Analysis, “with an eventual leveling off being the next stage of the segment’s trend lifecycle.” Lessons learned from hard seltzer’s decline, as well as necessary pivots that place the category more in line with consumers’ changing values, are key to the stabilization of sales forecasted for hard seltzer in the coming years. [Read more]

6. A Radical New Vineyard Shape for a Warming Climate

Vintners may not be able to change the climate, but they’re attempting to control microclimate through innovative new vine orientation and training approaches

By Kathleen Willcox

Just how much control do vintners have over their microclimate, particularly as climate change poses an increasing threat to wine production around the world? Several are trying to find out.

These efforts are more crucial now than ever: Up to 70 percent of current wine-producing regions across the world will be unsuitable for wine production if temperatures increase more than two degrees Celsius, according to a recent review of more than 200 studies published in Nature Reviews Earth & Environment. Without radical action, scientists at NASA say the world is currently on track to warm between 2.5 and 4.5 degrees Celsius by 2100.

Already, the consequences are being felt in vineyards, as growers with centuries worth of records on harvest dates document earlier and earlier harvest dates. A Beaune record from 1354 to 2018 published in Climate of the Past shows significantly earlier harvests beginning in 1988, right around the time that the impacts of human-caused climate change began to be felt. [Read more]

5. How the Conflict in Additive-Free Tequila Is Hurting Small Brands

There is a dispute in the tequila industry over the right to certify and label tequila as additive free—but the small brands producing it are bearing the brunt of the fallout

By Aaron Goldfarb

In January, ElVelo Tequila received some disheartening news. The labels their bottles had carried for years—as they had worked to establish themselves in the competitive U.S. market—were suddenly deemed unacceptable by Mexico’s tequila regulators, the Consejo Regulador de Tequila (CRT). 

“We had always put on the back label ‘No Additives.’ However, the CRT flagged it and said we had six months to destroy labels and then print new labels,” says Leanne Favre, the brand manager at Altamar Brands, the distiller and importer of ElVelo. She couldn’t offer an exact dollar total lost by ElVelo, but called it a “not an inconsequential amount.” 

ElVelo is just one of the independent brands that have been swept up in the conflict over additive-free messaging in the tequila industry. This now-yearslong ruckus centers on what can and cannot rightfully be labeled additive free and by whom, and whether these now-contested words can appear on bottles. But as the dispute over the right to certify continues, independent producers are left with the often costly task of navigating the chaos. [Read more]

4. What the Headlines Get Wrong About Alcohol and Health

As we await the release of the revised U.S. dietary guidelines, vintner and medical doctor Laura Catena argues recent anti-alcohol messaging is informed by inconclusive science and prohibitionist ideology

By Laura Catena

In the three decades I spent as an emergency physician practicing in California, I saw tragic accidents caused by drunk driving and treated countless patients for alcohol intoxication and withdrawal, along with many other alcohol-related illnesses. I have seen firsthand the disastrous impact of alcohol abuse. 

I also made a point to read every scientific paper that was published about alcohol and health. As a member of a centenarian wine family, as well as a Stanford-trained medical doctor, I wanted to be able to answer questions truthfully and without bias about what constitutes safe levels of alcohol consumption.

Understanding the science behind the impact of alcohol consumption is important to the many drinkers around the world, myself included, who derive great pleasure from having a glass or two of wine with dinner—an 8,000-year-old tradition in some parts of the world. [Read more]

3. The 8 Single Malt Scotch Whiskies That Stand Out to Experts Right Now

Between new distillery projects and innovation from Scottish mainstays, it’s an exciting time for Scotch whisky. Here are the bottles that buyers have their eyes on

By Courtney Schiessl Magrini

While there are many new and exciting whiskeys from around the world hitting the U.S. market, Scotch is a mainstay, particularly during the holidays. But the category’s longevity doesn’t make it stagnant; there’s plenty of whisky coming out of Scotland to excite buyers in the U.S.

Mike Miller, the owner of whiskey mecca Delilah’s in Chicago, carries more than 1,000 whiskeys from around the world, including bottles from more than 70 Scotch distilleries. He points to a confluence of factors that make the Scotch landscape so interesting right now: longtime whisky families launching new projects, like Clydeside; new and progressive distilleries, like Isle of Raasay and Torabhaig; and new blenders who are adding their own stamp to Scotch mainstays, like Rachel Barrie, Hon DSc., at Benriach and Julieann Fernandex-Thomson at Bunnahabhain. “Scotch producers and the people in [the industry] don’t have to follow the old rules anymore,” says Miller. “That’s what’s exciting for me—I continue to taste things that are new and dynamic.”

SevenFifty Daily reached out to spirits buyers, bar managers, and beverage directors across the country to find out which Scotch whiskies they are most excited to sell right now. [Read more]

2. The Story Behind the American Wine Crisis

The first half of 2024 has felt like a tidal wave of woe for U.S. wine producers, but what’s really going on? Winery professionals and industry analysts weigh in

By Tina Caputo

The first six months of 2024 have seemingly broadcast a tidal wave of woe for the American wine industry, starting with the release of the 2024 Silicon Valley Bank State of the Wine Industry report in January. After years of sounding the alarm about the industry’s need to adapt to demographic shifts and a slowdown in growth, the latest annual report showed an alarming decline in domestic and international wine sales and laid out the many headwinds facing the industry—namely, declining consumption, inflation, anti-alcohol messaging, competition from other beverages, and an oversupply of grapes and wine.

Soon, more emerged about the U.S. wine industry’s downward spiral, from existential crises among small producers to calls to rip out thousands of acres of grapevines, especially in California’s Central Valley and Lodi regions. But does this torrent of doom reflect the big picture of what’s really happening with wine in the United States—and is this an issue that is impacting the American wine industry in an outsized way? 

The answer is complicated. Though overall volume sales are down and many small wineries are struggling, there are bright spots in the market, and some savvy producers are finding ways to weather the storm. [Read more]

1. The 11 Best Additive-Free Tequilas According to Experts

Informed consumers are demanding additive-free tequilas, and these bartenders and retail buyers have recommendations at every price point

By Nickolaus Hines

Such has been the passion for tequila amongst U.S. consumers in recent years that it has surpassed American whiskey in overall popularity. Gone are the days when cheap mixtos dominated shelves and backbars; 100 percent agave tequilas now lead the market. Yet, not all of these tequilas are made equal. The Consejo Regulador de Tequila (CRT) allows producers to add up to one percent of additives without disclosure, like caramel, oak extract, and glycerin for coloring, extra sweetness, and a thicker consistency.

“Once [consumers] learn that, they’re definitely keen on only drinking additive-free tequilas,” says David Tyda, the co-owner of Barcoa Agaveria in Phoenix, Arizona. “We’re on the upswing when it comes to interest.”

Tequila connoisseurs seek out additive-free options for a number of reasons; some are trying to avoid additives altogether, while others appreciate the more full taste compared to tequilas that are standardized and mass-produced. 

“One thing people often forget is that just because something is additive-free doesn’t mean it’s good quality,” says Shad Kvetko, the co-owner of Las Almas Rotas in Dallas, Texas. Stocking the best additive-free tequilas that truly highlight the agave is a matter of knowing the category and the tequila-making families and producers behind it. SevenFifty Daily spoke with specialists around the country about the additive-free tequilas they are excited to recommend right now. [Read more]