I have a role that puts me in contact with winery owners, analysts, entrepreneurs and occasionally even people with checkmarks next to their Twitter accounts. They run the gamut. I get a couple hundred emails a day - most of them junk but more than enough to have me working 12 hour days to keep up. People are always asking my opinion, and on occasion, they want to give me their opinion.
This week I received an email from a casual acquaintance who is a wine consumer but likes to read the SVB State of the Industry Report and check in every year with me. This year his email was disturbing. Here is what he said almost verbatim. I've changed the region to 'wine country' to make it more general and added emphasis: