Adulterated Wine: The Documentary
March 13th, 2010 by Tom Johnson
The British documentary series Dispatches looks at adulterated wine. It’s 47 minutes long and Channel 4 producer/reporter Jane Moore gets a little huffy about things that aren’t really all that consequential. I, personally, don’t get all that cranked up about oak chips, for example. On the other hand, by the time she gets to the trash-strewn soils of Champagne it’s clear that she’s really onto something and that the wine industry’s opposition to disclosure of ingredients is indefensible.
You can watch it here or go here and download it to your iPod.
I know, I know. It’s a little more than a year old, but I never saw it before and its really good.
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Yet Another Ground-Breaking Wine Experience You’re Not Allowed to Have in Kentucky
March 12th, 2010 by Tom Johnson
The Rhone Rangers are sponsoring a Grenache tasting March 27 from 2:45 – 4 PM Pacific Time. There are two ways to participate in the event:
- You can go to the tasting, which will be held in the Ft. Mason Center in San Francisco.
- You can tune into the tasting via the web, listening as the wine makers discuss their approach to wine making, sipping along using 2-ounce wine samples you can buy in advance and have shipped to you.
Unless, of course, you live in Kentucky. Here, participants in this event risk monetary fine and jail time, since shipping even tiny amounts of wine into the Commonwealth is a felony, unless you’re a licensed distributor of the sort that makes regular and generous campaign contributions.
UPDATE: A regular reader notes that samples can be shipped to Indiana, which is about 400 yards away across the Ohio River. You could — I’m being entirely theoretical here — have your wine shipped to a friend on the other side. A quick check of Google Maps confirms that there are bridges across the river at regular intervals. Choose an apprpriate bridge depending on whether you’re driving a car or a train.
Don’t forget: Kentucky law requires that you pay sales tax on items purchased out of state. Called the Kentucky Consumer Use Tax, you can pick up form 51A113(O) here.
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Are the Chinese Taking Over the World?
March 12th, 2010 by Tom Johnson
The Telegraph reports that China has become the largest non-European importer of Bordeaux wines. They have, specifically, passed the United States as a consumer of Robert Parker’s favorite wines.
Mon Dieu! Est-ce la fin?
You mean we’re not still number one? Or even number two? But Number three? In fact, if you count France itself, we’re number four. Chant that at the Olympics and see how it feels.
Do I need to spell it out for you? Do you get the picture? Are you prepared? Have you stockpiled gold and ordered non-hybrid survival seeds so you can make it through the collapse of the United States as a relevant economic and geopolitical entity?
Yeah, well: looking deeper into the data indicates maybe this development isn’t all that threatening. The Chinese, fat with profits from the manufacture of lead paint and discount underthings, certainly have a lot of cash to spend on Petrus and Coke. It’s also apparent that United States, doomed though we may be to economic collapse and a return to the Bronze Age, is not entirely on the Two Buck Chuck bandwagon.
China bought the equivalent of 18.25 million bottles of Bordeaux for $102 million, a per-bottle cost of $5.60. Americans bought about 15.5 million bottles at a total cost of $191 million, which translates to $12.30 per bottle. The Chinese, in other words, are drinking a little bit more of a lot cheaper French wine than we are.
One of the reasons for that is surely domestic wine production. In 2006, the last year for which I could find statistics (pdf), the United States produced 23.5 million hectoliters of wine, or just over 7 liters per American, which worked out to just about exactly how much wine Americans consume (pdf). The Chinese, on the other hand, produced 11.8 million hectoliters of wine, or just under 1 liter per person, while consuming 1.2 liters per person. The Chinese need to import more day-to-day French wine, while the United States produces plenty of regular stuff and tends to import more of the kind of wine that one uses to impress the boss or maybe get the wife into that Christmas present that’s never been out of the Victoria’s Secret box.
So, as you can see, it’s not all Petrus and Coke for them, and it’s not all poverty and humiliation for us.
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My Favorite Wine Article in a Long Time
March 11th, 2010 by Tom Johnson
W. Blake Gray at the Los Angeles Times has written a spectacular article about Zinfandel field blends.
Joel Peterson and his son Morgan Twain-Peterson own one such vineyard, called Bedrock. Twain-Peterson, currently writing his Master of Wine dissertation on field blends, calls it one of the four greatest old vineyards in Sonoma Valley, along with Monte Rosso, Old Hill Ranch and Pagani Ranch.
Those vineyards are the source of some great wines: Ridge “Pagani Ranch” and Ravenswood “Old Hill” are two of my favorite Zin-based wines because of their complexity. But Bedrock has the most interesting history.
It was originally planted in 1854 by William Tecumseh Sherman and Joe Hooker, who would become better known in the next decade as Civil War generals. After the root louse phylloxera treated the grapevines like Sherman treated the South, in 1888 the vineyard was replanted by George Hearst, father of media mogul William Randolph Hearst.
It’s a really terrific article. Read it all.
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I’m Not Sure What She’s Saying, but I Love the Way She Says It
March 10th, 2010 by Tom Johnson
From Genevelyn Steele Swallows:
Lap up this hard and hairy monster with something soft and simple and fried–eggplant Parmesan, immersed in good olive oil and glistening with melted mozzarella, a faint fairy dusting of cheese crystals and a pair of white cotton underwear, lodged in the backseat for sopping.
Posted in From the Web | Comments (1)
In Which I Stop Before I Make a Complete Boob Out of Myself
March 10th, 2010 by Tom Johnson
Joe over at 1 Wine Dude is confused by large-format bottle names and wants suggestions about new naming conventions. After I crack wise in comments, other commentors with better reading comprehension skills come along and answer the question Joe actually asked, suggesting the use of, for example, Star Trek names.
That gives me the idea of naming bottles after actresses. Google proves conclusively that you can find anything on the web, at which point I lose interest in the project because it’s immature even by my low standards.
But I think Joe’s readers will probably make it funny, so read the comments.
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It’s Not Bad News For Everyone
March 10th, 2010 by Tom Johnson
People have a tendency to focus on the bad news, and today’s wine market sure has a lot of that. But if the wine industry bad news is that people have stopped buying wine over $15, the good news is that people are buying a lot more wine under $15. Companies with good product in that segment are doing very well, thank you.
Wines & Vines reports an attempt to quantify just how well by market research firm Information Resources, Inc.. IRI looked at 98 wine brands selling more than 100,000 cases a year in the U.S., scoring each in 10 categories, including dollar and volume sales, sales growth and market share of sales in drug and grocery stores. The result is the ”Top 30 Momentum Brands,” wines between $3 and $15 a bottle that are gaining the most traction in today’s nearly traction-free economy.
The winner is Ménage à Trois. The rest of the list can be found here.
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Potential for Trouble: High
March 9th, 2010 by Tom Johnson
A wine tasting that describes itself thus:
Find out for yourself what Girl Scout Cookies pair best with selected wines 
More than anything else, it’s the winking emoticon that scares me.
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Some Kind of Stinky
March 9th, 2010 by Tom Johnson
Tom Mansell over at Palate Press has a good piece on the effects of sulfur in wine.
UPDATE: Link was broken. Now the link is fixed.
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Could This Be the Future?
March 8th, 2010 by Tom Johnson
La Vida Buena Vineyards in Mendoza, Argentina, goes condo.
La Vida Buena Vineyards is not a Time Share or Fractional– you receive a Deed Fee Simple to your vineyard. But because La Vida Buena Vineyards comprises fifteen small vineyards on 108 acres it can collectively offer many things a stand alone 5 acre vineyard cannot, for example low monthly vineyard maintenance fees starting at USD$175.00 that include on-site 24/7 Workers, Worker’s House, Vineyard Manager, Agronomist, Argentine Accountant to handle all aspects of owning a vineyard…
It is, the website says, a “turnkey operation.” Pony up and you’re in the wine business “confident that there will always be a lovely residence to stay and enjoy one’s efforts and investment.”
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