Archive for the ‘News’ Category
Is China Cooling Off?
April 13th, 2011 by Tom Johnson
While we tend to think of China as a nation of vast and growing wealth, remember it’s also a country where the Communist Party is the only legal political organization and more than 150 million people subsist on less than $1 a day. So it perhaps not surprising that, a few weeks ago, the Chinese [...]
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Forgery Update: Spelling Counts
April 12th, 2011 by Tom Johnson
I reported previously on Chinese forgers flooding the British Isles with counterfeit discount wine. Yeah, well, perhaps they were not as crafty as I initially thought: The bogus bottles (of Jacob’s Creek wine) can be easily spotted by the bungled spelling on the labels. Twenty were found with labels on the back claiming the drink was [...]
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Trump Buys Virginia Winery, Brags About It
April 11th, 2011 by Tom Johnson
Donald Trump has bought Kluge Winery in Virginia. The winery has fallen on hard times and he not-at-all-boastfully touts the deal he got: “I’m really interested in good real estate, not so much in wine,” he said. “This place had a $28 million mortgage on it, and I bought it for $6.2 million. It’s a [...]
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The Walmart of Wine Counterfeiting
April 6th, 2011 by Tom Johnson
Police in Great Britain have seized 80 bottles of counterfeit Jacob’s Creek wines. Spokesman Simon Thomas said: “This counterfeit product is of very low quality and substandard taste. Tests indicate the content is not harmful but anyone with doubts concerning the authenticity should not consume it.” The fake £10 wine is believed to be from China and [...]
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For Their Next Trick, They’re Going to Reserve Every Hotel Room in Cancun Forever
March 29th, 2011 by Tom Johnson
Chinese businesses, flush with capital, are buying vineyards and chateaux in economically depressed Bordeaux. The latest: Laulan Ducos, a Cru Bourgeois chateau far, far out on the Medoc Peninsula. It is the second to be taken over by Asian investors in little over a month, and the sixth Chinese-owned vineyard in this celebrated wine-producing region…Such is the [...]
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What Vaynerchuk is Up To
March 17th, 2011 by Tom Johnson
Gary Vaynerchuck is ceasing production of Wine Library TV, arguably the most successful wine blog of them all. He’s not disappearing, though. He’s just going mobile. Vaynerchuck will now educate and entertain the wine-drinking masses with metaphors second only to Charlie Sheen’s via daily episodes on Daily Grape. The online destination and mobile application serves [...]
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Go Ahead and Laugh
March 14th, 2011 by Tom Johnson
Kent State University in Ohio now offers a degree in oenology. One of the important turning points in the development of California wine was the opening of the oenology program at U.C. Davis. Davis’s focus on scientific winemaking specific to California’s terroir helped elevate the California wine industry from its home winemaking roots to the [...]
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Lightweight Bottles vs. Snappy Wine Openers: And the Winner Is…
March 10th, 2011 by Tom Johnson
Maker-of-snappy-wine-opener Sunbeam recalls its Skybar™ wine opener for causing bottles to explode. The Skybar™ Air Pump Wine Opener works by pumping compressed air through the cork into the bottle. That pressure (theoretically) pushes the cork up and out of the bottle with a satisfying pop, providing the techno-fillip that certain gadget aficionados seek. Considerably less satisfying is the [...]
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Proof That the Chinese Aren’t New To Wine
December 14th, 2010 by Tom Johnson
Archeologists near the ancient Chinese capitol of Xian have uncovered a bronze vessel filled with what they believe to be 2,400 year old wine. While lots of people wanted to taste the 200 year old Champagne recently salvaged from beneath the Baltic Sea, no one seems to be lining up to taste the ancient Chinese [...]
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He Could Make the Argument That the Wine Was French to Begin With
November 30th, 2010 by Tom Johnson
As a result of what one spokesman for the French government described as behavior “incompatible with the professional conduct required of a French diplomat,” the French Consul in Hong Kong has been recalled to Paris after stealing two rare bottles of wine from a private club. Hong Kong media reports say the wine bottles were worth [...]
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