Successful drinks brands tend to create legends which attribute success to thoughtful planning, logical decision making, timely insights and inspirational leadership. This exercise of joining the dots backwards can feel comforting and flattering for those involved in the success, but often disguise the real reasons why a certain product succeeded where others failed. If success has many vocal parents, far less attention is given to the failures – a classic human characteristi

The wine industry has spent much of the past five years debating whether the post-Covid trend of shrinking wine volumes across major consumption markets for wine (beyond those traditional Continental European markets where wine has been in steady retreat for decades) is a cyclical downturn or a structural decline. Similar conversations are taking place across hospitality, retail, media and numerous other consumer-facing sectors as they too face flat or declining sales. When c

Amongst the trends highlighted by WGSN in their work on retail trends in Asia is solo-fication. More people living alone (not new), but now more people doing things alone: shopping, eating, treating themselves - and doing this deliberately rather than apologetically. It reminded me of a question Felicty Carter and I on our podcast A Question of Drinks: Why isn’t more wine sold in half bottles? When you look at how people are actually behaving, the friction becomes obvious.