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Joel Whitaker

Unnecessary Panic? Eagle Rock to Lay Off All Employees as It Merges with SGWS

We suspect this is much adoo about nothing. Colorado media are breathlessly reporting that Eagle Rock Distributing Co., which recently agreed to merge into Southern Glazer's Wine & Spirits has notified the State of Colorado that it will permanently lay off all 514 employees on June 5. We

Thinking Things Over: The Press and The Pentagon

Note from Joel: This is the first of an occasional series of reflections about things not at all related to alcoholic beverages. The title comes from a column written by one of my journalistic heroes, Vermont Royster, editor of the The Wall Street Journal from 1958 to 1971. He, in

[BND] Kane's Beverage Week

Dear Member, As an additional benefit of your membership, here's your copy of Kane's Beverage Week. It includes a wrapup of nearly every story we printed last week, plus several stories that came in over the weekend (headlines in red.) To get the most benefit from

2025 Calif. Winegrape Crush Smallest Since 1999, But Bigger Than Expected

That's the conclusion of Chris Bitter, writing in Terrain. This means "less improvement in the wine inventory glut than hoped for, and grape demand isn’t likely to see any improvement in 2026. The crush wasn’t uniformly small, he writes. Demand for white grapes held up

West Coast Hop Breeding Announces Celeste

West Coast Hop Breeding announces release of Celeste. Celeste, formerly known by experimental names WCHB-102 and 2B, is named for heavenly beauty. Celeste features bright, sweet, and clean notes of passion fruit, honeydew, and pine. Celeste represents a breakthrough in combining excellent agronomics and an intense contemporary aroma profile.

Why We Don't Like Bottle Bills -- Maine Version

Maine lawmakers are viewing a pot of $4 million in unclaimed bottle deposits as just ripe to pour into lake and farm conservation. And that's precisely why we don't like bottle bills – the system where people pay a 5-cent or 10-cent deposit on each

[BND] The Beverage Reader

She left Wine Country after her fiancé’s death. Now she owns the winery they dreamed of running In summer 1993, Karen Francis DeGolia had an idyllic life. She was 31 and living part-time in Wine Country with her fiancé, Tom Collins, a firefighter and the owner of a