just the ten - Top Ten Comment Pieces of 2009

With the end of the year looming, just-drinks is running a series of 'Top Tens of the Year' in the run-up to Christmas.

Today, it's the Top Ten Most Read Comment Pieces of 2009.

10 - Comment - EU, France fight war of the rose
April - Click here for comments

It is hard to fathom what the EU hopes to achieve by legalising the blending of red and white wines to make commercial rose.

09 - Comment - The erosion of brands
September - Click here for comments

How long can a brand hang on to its image while acting in a way that contradicts it? How long before the drink-buying public cotton on that there is a dislocation between the fine words and the grubbier deeds? Chris Losh considers the damage done to a brand when price becomes a selling point.

08 - Analysis - Premium Scotch whisky on the rocks?
October - Click here for comments

Recent figures from drinks heavyweights Pernod Ricard and Diageo suggest that premium Scotch whisky sales are suffering in the economic dowturn.

07 - Comment - Japanese fuel interest in Orangina sale
September - Click here for comments

There is always a bubble inflating somewhere. Right now that somewhere appears to be the soft drinks market. Intense interest among Japanese buyers has created an opportunity for US private-equity firms Blackstone Group and Lion Capital to sell Orangina, the iconic French juice brand, possibly for as much as the US$2.6bn they paid for it in 2006.

06 - Comment - UK Budget 2009
April - Click here for comments

Without wishing to be labelled as doomsaying hack, there really doesn't look to be much positive news emerging from Chancellor Alistair Darling's UK Budget Speech.

05 - Comment - Beer price rises will test Obama's tolerance
August - Click here for comments

Both Anheuser-Busch InBev - purveyor of the president's favorite tipple - Bud Light - and MillerCoors are raising prices at the same time, during a recession and while beer demand is slumping. With an 80% market share between them, it almost begs for an anti-trust review of the industry.

04 - Comment - Politicians out to Scotch Diageo
July - Click here for comments

Are Scotland's wrong-footed politicians rounding on Diageo to save face, or to save jobs?

Diageo has provoked wave after wave of public wrath from politicians across the political spectrum in Scotland since it announced it would cut more than 10% of its workforce in the country.

03 - Comment - Suntory/Kirin - Enter Godzilla
July - Click here for comments

The US has Budweiser, the so-called King of Beers. Soon Japan may have a Godzilla. Kirin, the country's biggest maker of suds, is mulling a merger with family-owned drinks maker Suntory, according to the local press. The resulting monster would have a dominant position in the Japanese beer market, could create lashings of synergies and might even do some damage overseas.

02 - Comment - Can twittering bring tweet success in business?
March - Click here for comments

While Chris Mercer has a healthy scepticism for online fads, he believes Twitter could be more than yet another means for people with little to say to say rather too much. As its business applications begin to be exploited, he suggests Twitter may be worth a second look.

01 - Comment - Diageo dashes taskforce hopes
September - Click here for comments

Diageo has fought a successful public relations rearguard action to shut the door on alternatives to its proposed job cuts in Scotland.