Tom Wark's Fermentation

-On September 11, the Federal government announced it had entered into a Non-Prosecution agreement with Southern Glazer's Wine & Spirits and had assessed the largest wine and spirits distributor with a $12.5 million fine. According to the agreement, Southern Glazer's staff were engaged in a scheme to bribe grocery store buyers. • In December 2017, the New York State Liquor Authority assessed Southern $3.5 million in civil penalties for a bribery scheme in that state.

It has been my view for a very long time that obtaining a bachelor’s degree from an accredited college in a reasonable amount of time doesn’t mean much more than a person can follow through on a plan. I recognize that’s a low bar. But what does it mean that a person can obtain certification from a trade school…a school that seeks to transmit a very specific body of knowledge meant to be used in a very narrow set of occupations?

As far as I can tell, only one set of awards for wine writing and communication is currently running: The 67 Pall Mall Global Wine Communicator Awards. I’m not sure the genre deserves more than one award, but that’s an entirely different article. The 2026 edition of the 67 Pall Mall Global Wine Communicator Awards was recently announced. Six different categories of communication are honored.

Even as Natural Wine enthusiasts, producers, and champions argued over the role of sulfur in wine, whether some subtle filtration is ok, and whether certain characteristics that conventional winemakers consider faults are actually ok in a wine, one concept unites all these Natural Wine lovers: The exclusive use of wild yeast to produce spontaneous fermentation and the strict refusal to use cultivated, “commercial” yeast.

If you are a wine writer with aspirations for building a large, loyal audience that doesn’t just hang on your words and recommendations, but interacts with you and your ideas, then what you really want to see is a proliferation of AI-generated wine writing. You want to be an Authentic among the Slop Mongers. The general attitude toward AI-generated prose—in the wine-writing realm and every other literary genre—is disgust.

Media coverage is starting to accelerate around the publication of a new study out of the University of Miami Miller School of Medicinethat has been published and looks at the total number of “alcohol-attributable” cancer deaths between 1990 and 2023. The study finds that the raw number of such cancer deaths doubled from 1990 to 2023—going from 11,400 in 1990 to 23,100 in 2023.

Shutting down The Spill (my second publishing project, which curated the best consumer wine content daily) doesn’t even come close to cracking the top ten most disappointing things in my professional life. However, it does crack my top ten most interesting learning experiences in my career. For those of you who are unaware, I’ve always admired the work of Wine Industry Insight, Wine Business Daily News, and Wine Industry Advisor’s Afternoon Brief.

My son Henry, who recently turned 12, ran into the house and presented himself in front of me as I sat in a chair downstairs working. The smile on his face was one of those genuine kid-smiles that can’t be faked. He proudly announced that “a girl hit on me” when he was at the Urban Air Trampoline Park his grandfather had just taken him to.

I monitor scientific research concerning alcohol. I do this because I’m curious. I also monitor this kind of research because in my role as the executive director of the National Association of Wine Retailers, I have been tasked with staying alert to the changes and the evolution in the narrative concerning alcohol and health.

There’s nothing else like a sure thing; that feeling where you know for a fact that something will come to pass before it happens. However, a “sure thing” isn’t always a good thing. Take, for example, regulating the sale and distribution of hemp-derived beverages using the three-tier system. It is a sure thing that producers and retailers of these beverages will regret agreeing to be regulated under this system.