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Headlines A Growth in DtC Sales N A UGUS T NEWS NEWS BY TE S WALLA WALLA RAISES THE BAR fter Washington state enforcement of- ficers issued several citations for sup- Report shows many strengths in $1.2 billion market Value of DtC Shipments Up 11.5% apa Valley, Calif.— The over- all news $1.08 billion $1.21 billion about direct-to- consumer wine shipments present- ed at ShipCompli- ant's annual con- ference was very good for U.S. win- eries. Both volume and value of DtC shipments were up by more than 11% over the pre- vious year. Digging deeper into the data provided by ShipCompliant and Wines & Vines revealed where the many successes—and a few disappointments— occurred in sales performance. Wines from Napa Valley remained the 12 Mos. Ending April '10 biggest selling items during the 12 months ending April 2011. Napa Valley's favorite varietal, Cabernet Sauvignon, was the most popular varietal shipped and earned the most dollars per bottle. More surprising was the news that California wines from outside Napa and Sonoma counties en- joyed the fastest growth rate of all regions presented: 43% higher in case volume than the previous year. Also, the fastest growing wine varieties for DtC shipments included some of those previously considered less exciting, notably Sauvignon Blanc, spar- kling wine and the oft-maligned Merlot. Marc Engel, founder of Engel Research Partners in San Bruno, Calif., presented the results to 400-plus attendees at the all-day ShipCompliant Direct Shipping Seminar & Users Conference. Drawing on his 20-plus years of experience in mar- ket research for wine and other luxury 14 Wines & Vines AUGUsT 201 1 } 12 Mos. Ending April '11 up nearly $124 million & Vines Digital Edition: www.winesandvines- digital.com View entire presentation in the Wines Direct-to-consumer shipments of U.S. wine grew by more than 11% in the 12 months ending in April. products, Engel showed a 37-slide PowerPoint pre- sentation and in- terpreted dozens of pie graphs, bar charts and maps for a crowd com- posed largely of winery staff. The results came from the Ship- Compliant/Wines & Vines Shipment Model. The model takes millions of DtC transactions handled by ShipCompliant for its winery cus- tomers and analyzes them in conjunction with Wines & Vines' exhaustive database of 6,900 U.S. wineries. Overall results showed the entire DtC ship- ment market at 2.75 million cases worth $1.2 billion, spread among wine club, Inter- net/phone sales and tasting room purchases shipped to homes by the wineries. The data do not include tasting room carryout sales, which remain larger in case volume than di- rect shipments. Engel painted the big picture: Volume in 9-liter cases grew nearly 300,000 cases or 11.6% from May 2010 through April 2011—an increase of 11.5% in value, or nearly $124 mil- lion. The pace of DtC shipment growth more than winesandvines.com Learn more: Search keywords "ShipCompliant ." doubled the growth rate of retail sales. DtC growth was exceptional compared to the rate of U.S. wine production from May 2010 through April 2011. California wine production, estimated at 90% of U.S. production, grew just 1% in volume. —Jim Gordon plying wine to minors earlier this year, Wal- la Walla wineries will be monitoring visitors more closely to maintain legal compliance. Compliance checks at 14 licensed estab- lishments Feb. 26 re- sulted in administrative violations to seven wineries. The initial number of citations prompted the Walla Walla Valley Wine Alli- ance to step up education for local winer- ies and staffers. winesandvines.com Learn more: Search keywords "Walla Walla." FESTIvE SHOWCASE FOR B.C. REDS the Osoyoos Celebrity Wine Festival held in British Columbia, Canada. Billed as the "Judgment in Oliver," the barrel competi- tion compared versions of a single-block Cabernet Sauvignon from 100,000-case Jackson-Triggs Okana- gan Estate's Bull Pine Vineyard. The wine was aged in barrels from A&K Cooperage, Higbee, Mo.; Canadian R Oak Cooperage, St. George, Ontario; Car- riage House Cooperage, Wellington, Ontar- io; Demptos Napa Cooperage, Napa, Calif.; Okanagan Barrel Works, Oliver, B.C.; Ra- doux USA, Santa Rosa, Calif., and Seguin Moreau, Napa. T THE BEST IN BARBERA he University of California Co- winesandvines.com operative Extension recently hosted Foothill Grape Day 2011, focused on growing and producing Barbera, at the Amador County Fairgrounds. More than 100 Sierra Foothills growers and wine- makers attended the event. The festival, featuring more than 80 California Barbera producers, sold out its allotment of 1,500 consumer tickets two weeks in advance. Learn more: Search keyword "Barbera." esults from the International Barrel Challenge were announced during