The effect of newsletter sites on wine blog readership

I do not have paid subscribers for this blog, but it is still of interest to me how many readers I get for each weekly post; and so I do keep an eye out. This number varies greatly from week to week, most presumably because of the topic being addressed in that particular week. My weekly post readership has varied from a couple of hundred to nearly 23,000, but it currently has an average of c. 1,650.

However, it seems to me that the number also varies depending on how the post is addressed by those web sites that collate a daily or weekly summary of wine-related articles. For example, a particular Wine Gourd post could be highlighted by some site in any given week, in which case it may get more readers.

One daily compilation site where it is possible to highlight web posts in variable ways is Wine Industry Insight (WII). This is currently compiled on weekdays by Kara Daly, but has previously been done by Becca Yeamans and also by Kevin Merritt.

WII has three different ways to highlight any given web article in its daily list. It can be the (single) main “Today’s Top Story”, or one of at least a dozen “More Top Stories”, or one of another dozen or so “The Rest of the News”. The number of articles varies for each daily summary, as shown for the past couple of years in this graph.

The number of items in the Top Stories (Series 1) and Rest of the News (Series 2)
sections of Wine Industry Insight, from October 2023 to August 2025.

Each weekly The Wine Gourd blog post usually makes an appearance in one of that week’s WII summaries. Furthermore, the posts have appeared in all three sections. It is therefore of interest to me to find out how variable my readership is, depending on which section the posts appear in.

To this end, I have kept a track over the past couple of years. The table below lists the average number of post readers for each of the four possible WII categories (including not appearing at all).

As you can see, my average readership does indeed go up, the more highly any given post is highlighted by WII. Getting into The Rest of the News (*) increases readership by 43% compared to not making an appearance at all (—); making it into More Top Stories (**) increases readership another 29%; and being Today’s Top Story (***) increases readership another 19%.

So, this summary site does seem to make a valuable contribution to my blog readership, by choosing how highly to emphasize any given post.

New Zealand’s wine export situation

New Zealand is currently the 7th largest wine exporter in the world (but is not in the top 10 wine producers in the world); and it is known to have high-quality production and distinctive flavors. So, I thought that it might be interesting to have a quick look at some of their actual statistics. This can be done using the New Zealand Wine data.

Below, I have compiled some of the export data from recent reports. We can start with the New Zealand Winegrowers Annual Report for 2024, which shows the export value of the NZ wine for the past 10 years.

Clearly, the export value free on board (FOB) increased until 2020, by circa one-third from 2015 onwards, and then plateaued for the next three years. There was a burst in 2023, and a drop back in 2024. This burst was apparently an up-tick in value (up) but not volume (down) ⎯ this contrasting situation (basically, an increase in the average price of the wine) was discussed in: New Zealand’s wine export dynamics: a mixed picture in 2023.

We can look at the export data to date in 2025 by looking at the New Zealand Wine Exports by Country for the 12 months to June 2025. We can then compare this to the previous 12 months. I have extracted the data for the top nine export countries in the next table, with the countries in order of FOB. The total volume for 2025 was 289 million litres, and $2.1 billion value (for the 113 export countries listed in the database).

In terms of exports, the top three countries made up 78% of the volume, and 72% of the value. Not unexpectedly, these countries are three of the major English-speaking wine drinkers  ⎯ the Americans alone took nearly 100 million litres of New Zealand wine (22 million gallons).

Interestingly, the Americans and Australians are prepared to pay more ($/litre) than are the British (see the table). In terms of volume change from 2024 to 2025, the Australians have gone down whereas the other two have increased; but all three countries have gone down in terms of value. That is, the British have increased the volume but decreased the value, thus now going for notably cheaper wine than before.

In contrast, Canada, China, Germany, Korea and France have notably increased both their volume of import and its value, from 2024 to 2025. Furthermore, the Chinese and Canadians are prepared to pay notably more for their New Zealand wine than are the other countries, followed by the Irish and the Koreans.

So, globally the New Zealand wine exports went up 5% in volume and down 1% in value, from 2024 to 2025. This seems to continue the plateau in wine exports shown in the first graph (at the top of the page).

WHO has an unattainable requirement for health and wine

In my professional life I have been a biologist in Australia. I studied at the University of Sydney (B.Sc., and Ph.D.), and I was an academic at the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS). For example, I studied the biology of native Australian plants in response to fire; and I also studied the evolutionary biology of particular Australian plants. (And yes, I have described a few new plant species; eg. see Lechenaultia, and the picture below.)

I taught about biomedical science, as well as plant and animal biology. So, the effect of wine on human bodies has been of both professional and personal interest to me. It has consequently made its appearance many times in this blog. More importantly, I don't just accept what official bodies tell me about how good or bad wine is for me, but I can make my own professional judgement based on the scientific evidence available.

Recently, for example, there have been these Wine Gourd blog posts:

• Contrary to WHO, recent medical research shows that wine is safe for cancer
• Medical research concerning heart disease indicates that wines are safe to drink 
• More medical results suggesting that wines are usually safe to drink
• Another official study indicating that alcohol is not necessarily a risk for cancer

What I would like to do in this current post is point out another recent commentary article, by Dr Erik Skovenborg, that seems to me to make a set of very important points regarding the current negative attitude of the World Health Organization (WHO) towards alcohol:

An unattainable WHO condition for the enjoyment of wine
August 26, 2025
Dr Erik Skovenborg

The essential point of the article is this: Science can’t prove a negative. So, as Skovenborg quotes the UK Health Security Agency:

“As the nation’s top public health advisory body, it’s a pretty regular occurrence for Public Health England to release health advice on a range of topics. Often enough, the bottom line for one of these pieces of advice is that the issue at hand ‘poses a low risk to health.’ Sometimes it’s even a ‘very low risk.’ What we never say, however, is that it poses no risk.”

That is, science can never prove that alcohol poses no risk to health, only that it is or is not a low risk. However, the WHO does require precisely that:

“To identify a ‘safe’ level of alcohol consumption, valid scientific evidence would need to demonstrate that at and below a certain level, there is no risk of illness or injury associated with alcohol consumption.”

So, as Skovenborg notes, “there can be no scientific demonstration of a 100% safe level of alcohol consumption ... Nevertheless, the WHO recommends an unattainable condition for the enjoyment of wine: the scientific demonstration of a 100% safe level of alcohol consumption.”

What we can all do, however, in light of the fact that virtually everything in life is risky, is decide whether any given circumstance poses an acceptable risk to us personally.

Dr Skovenborg provides an excellent discussion of evaluating the magnitude of the health risk of light to moderate wine enjoyment. This risk cannot be zero, as required by WHO, but there is little evidence that the risk to health is high. I recommend that you read his article, and take his discussion quite seriously.

PS. The latest news is: Moderate drinking linked with lower mortality in Parkinson’s patients.

Australia’s domestic wine market

Australia is currently the 12th largest wine market by volume in the world (but the 5th largest wine exporter in the world, as discussed last week: Australia’s wine export situation). So, I thought that it might be interesting to have a quick look at some of their actual statistics. This can be done using the Wine Australia: Australian wine sector at a glance.

Below, I have compiled the data for the past four reports.

The volume and value of the wine in the market went down and then up again during that time. This only partly reflects the decreasing pattern in global wine consumption (Global wine consumption really is at its lowest for a very long time), and Australia’s decreasing production. Also, Australia has been up to 10th largest global market, although it is now 12th.

The amount of imported wine in the domestic market was about 1/5th, but decreased at the end. So, the global market does make a considerable contribution to the Australian market.

The top-selling still wine varieties in the off-trade market by value varied considerably across the 4 years. Shiraz was, not unexpectedly, at the top for most of the years, with about 1/5th of the market. Two white varieties have been next during that time, with Sauvignon blanc being replaced as second by Chardonnay. Cabernet sauvignon has had about 1/10th of the market, although it was missing early on. Pinot noir was another popular variety, as was Pinot grigio.