Dr Vino’s wine blog

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What $30 would buy in…
1988: Second growth Bordeaux
1998: Fifth growth Bordeaux
2008: Cru Beaujolais
2018: Vinho verde?!?

A new wine made from certified organic Malbec grapes will soon be available in the United States. But instead of a bottle, the wine will use lightweight packaging known as TetraPak, traditionally associated with juice boxes, in the name of lowering its carbon footprint.

Matthew Cain, regional sales director for fine wine importer Kermit Lynch for nine years, will be importing the wine through his new company, J. Soif. “Over a period of time I came to the realization that the wine business just doesn’t work,” he told me in a telephone interview last week. “Eighty percent of wine is drunk within a week. It doesn’t make sense to put nine liters of wine in a 40 pound box and ship it thousands of miles.” Read more…

Last summer, some Italian police were trained as sommeliers. They have been kept busy.

First, 600,000 bottles of Brunello di Montalcino from Castello Banfi have been impounded because the wine, which should be 100% sangiovese, may have had other grape varieties blended in. Not a big deal, really, but it is in contravention of the Brunello di Montalcino standards.

Now, thanks to a tip from Gabrio, I’ve learned that there is another, more serious adulteration scandal affecting 70 million liters of Italian wine. According to this poorly translated page from L’espresso, fertilizers, hydrochloric acid, sulphuric acid and maybe more have been found in some low-end wines in Italy. The perpetrators cooked up the “hellish cocktail,” apparently, in an attempt to stretch wine by adding water and sugar. Then they used the industrial acids to break the sucrose (sugar) down into glucose and fructose, which are allowable and prevented detection. Yikes. L’espresso calls it “the largest food adulteration ever discovered in Italy.”

Gabrio writes “This is a serious problem that can damage the Italian wines image like the ethanol scandal that happened 22 years ago…That is the reason why I stay away from the mass produced wines.”

Do you think Italy has more fraud than other countries? Or are the authorities just better at sniffing it out?

What wine lover doesn’t love the “reefer”? Simmer down, I’m talking about the refrigerated shipping container. Jancis Robinson had a piece in the FT about this chilling topic on Saturday.

As if that didn’t spark your interest in this aspect of logistics, it reminded me of a conversation I had a few weeks ago with a bigwig at a large Australian wine producer. He told me that they track the temperature fluctuations in their transportation containers via sophisticated thermometer. They have data–hour by hour if necessary–for the duration of the voyage. Sometimes the container gets “trans-shipped” and can lie around for weeks on a dock Singapore, a locale not at the top of everyone’s “cool and dry” places.

Here’s the really interesting part: in Japan, the importers demand the data and refuse the wine if it has been cooked. In the US, no. He also said they have different blends for different markets but that is not exactly news.

The only thing worse than having wine be corked is when it is cooked!

Related: “Wireless message in a bottle” (image)

I’ve been frustrated many times as a wine enthusiast when looking for a specific wine only to find it available at a store, say, in California. Since I live in New York, California retailers are not legally allowed to send it to me–though whether they will is another question. Eric Asimov, the chief wine critic for the New York Times, has admitted to being a “lawbreaker” as a result of these laws. Other retailers, such as Sam’s Wine in Chicago, will not ship to New York.

As a wine enthusiast, I’m for greater liberalization of wine shipping laws. Freer markets means greater availability and probably lower prices. The Supreme Court decision in 2005 paved the way for greater possibilities of shipping directly from wineries to consumers. But the legal situation of shipping from out-of-state retailers remains a murky area, illegal on the books of too many states.

A quick and dirty political analysis can help explain why. Wine wholesalers want the wine to pass through their warehouses so they can profit from the sale in their state. There are few distributors and they have a narrow economic interest and thus have the ability to lobby the state powers that be. As I discuss in my forthcoming book, Wine Politics: How Governments, Mobsters, Environmentalists and Critics Influence the Wines We Drink, this can really hurt you if you live in a smaller market.

The main economic counterbalance to distributors are shops and some local ones may not welcome out-of-state shipping. But many of the best shops want to able to ship freely to Texas, Florida, New York and beyond. And for citizens and wine consumers, wine shipping is so far down the list of policy objectives that we are never likely to organize around this issue. But the laws aren’t going to change by themselves.

So check out the Specialty Wine Retailers Association, the main group fighting for a liberalization of shipping laws. In fact, they are having an awareness campaign right now and you can even contribute to the organization to help fund their legal fight (I got an email from Sherry-Lehmann last week saying that Ken Starr–still hard to think of him as one of the “good guys” even after his role in the previous Supreme Court case–is leading the charge. Raise money to pay Ken Starr’s fees!). Yes, in the short term, their members stand to benefit from a reform in the legal situation. But in the long term, there will be greater innovation and perhaps even new entrants in the field as even Amazon intimated last week.

So check out the SWRA and support them in some way, if even by signing up for emails. Together, consumers and specialty retailers can form a coalition of the swilling to change the laws. Let’s push for change so that we don’t all have to wear “Free Eric!” T-shirts!

image

SPIT: dollars!
I was just poking around on this web site and I came across some prices of the previous vintages of wines currently in the market. The Loire, Rhone, Champagne, Beaujolais–many prices have risen, sometimes 20 percent in a year! Eeegad. Ben Bernanke, importers, where’s our price stability?! We might have to cut back.

SIPPED: euros in New York!
Robert Chu, a wine retailer in the East Village is accepting euros for payment. Financial site Minyanville suggests that the “euros accepted” sign is, in fact, a contrary indicator and foreshadows a dollar rally. As lovers of imported wine, we can but hope! (But why did they neglect the supermodels refusing dollars as payment as a contrary indicator a few months ago?) Did they check out the generous (for him) rate of 1E = $1.25 he charges? (Thanks, Mark!)

SIPPED and SPIT: American wineries!
A Silicon Valley Bank report claims that 51 percent of US wineries will have new owners by 2018. But with the dollar so low, how many of them will be foreign? [PR Newswire]

SIPPED: diversity!
Dr. Vino makes a suggestion for a way to play the weak dollar, but not here, instead, on Reuters.

Image: a reduced-sized, reworked crop of an image attributed to Shannon Stapleton/Reuters.

Stephen Bitterolf is one of two wine buyers at Crush Wine & Spirits for “the wall,” an undulating display for the store’s wines under $55. (Wines over $55 are in “the cube.”) He went on a trip to Germany last fall and is a huge fan of riesling. Here he shares his favorite value and splurge rieslings, best value regions, the most “impossible” food-wine pairing that he has overcome, and discover why he keeps his cellar hundreds of miles from where his mouth is. He’s pictured above with venerable importer Rudi Wiest and keeps a blog of his tastings and travels as “Drinking at work.”

Riesling: It’s not just for grandmothers anymore. Why are you so into it? Read more…

“The Bryant Park Project,” a very good program on NPR, asked me to discuss (live!) the issue of interstate wine shipments this morning (segment is here). What with the Giants’ upset victory yesterday and Super Tuesday tomorrow, I’m glad that the politics of wine saw the light of day! Hopefully some momentum is building on this important issue especially after Eric Asimov’s story from last week in the Times.

And speaking of the Super Bowl, which wine to you think Gisele was sipping up in the booth?

Status Costquo
Judges in the Ninth Circuit Court ruled two to one against Costco, which sells almost a fifth of all wine in Amerca. The judges upheld the Washington Liquor Board’s ban that prohibits distributors from offering deeper discounts to big retailers, varying prices from one retailer to another, and making deliveries to specific stores instead of a central warehouse for retailers. Changing the status quo could have led to reduced wine prices since Costco stores in Washington could buy wine more or less directly from wine producers. [Seattle Times]

Rosenblum sold to furriners!
“Diageo buys Rosenblum for £53m” read the headline in the Financial Times. Why the foreign coverage of a California winery acquisition? Oh yes, Diageo is a drinks multinational based in Britain. With the US dollar tanking, are foreign buyers going to start snapping up American wineries almost as fast as Manhattan pieds-à-terre? Who’s next: Jackson Family? Trinchero? In the case of Rosenblum, let’s hope this reliable producer of zinfandel will continue pumping out the good value vino. [FT.com]

Chew on this
“…if Americans were to reduce meat consumption by just 20 percent it would be as if we all switched from a standard sedan — a Camry, say — to the ultra-efficient Prius.” The meat-guzzler, love it. [NY Times]

Vino Italiano
The next Wine Blogging Wednesday theme has been announced: review an Italian red in seven words. Since having a good picture might help stretch that to 1,007, check out this month’s host and his tips on how to take better pictures of wine bottles. [Spitoon]

Design for wine
Yes, your design could win you free wine in the WBW logo contest, now underway. [WBW.org]

Four questions with…Dr. Vino!
I spoke with Paul Berger and gave him a few tips for NYC wine geeks. [NY Metro]

BREAKING: Behavioral economists at Caltech attached an EEG to the heads of 21 volunteers who knew not much about wine, fed them one milliliter of cabernet through a tube and the only thing they told them about the price, which wasn’t always accurate! Guess which one they always thought was better? The more expensive one, even when it was the same wine!

For a summary of this study, check out this BBC account, the best I’ve seen (with blog-worthy reader feedback too! And thanks to readers Grayman, Brian, Stephen and Terry for sending in versions of the story.).

Unfortunately using price as a proxy for quality happens all the time in the world of wine. That’s why, for example, Ace of Spades $300 nonvintage Champagne sells out when it tastes remarkably like the $50 version from the same producer. Hmm, maybe that’s why no samples of it were available during Vinexpo, a savvy crowd of trade tasters? Examples also abound of new producers who release wines at high prices in an attempt to signal quality that may or may not be there.

But, fortunately, price and quality are not always perfectly related. Just last month I poured two wines for participants at a tasting. One was quite a storied Napa producer and another was an unheralded producer from some dustbowl in Spain. They could see the bottles and some knew the Napa name. Which did they prefer? The Spanish one. And when I told them it was $15 vs $115, they rejoiced!

What do you say, is a higher priced wine always better? Share your thoughts and stories in the comments.

It’s too bad that the researchers’ next project is about pain–I was hoping they would repeat the wine quality test with Parker scores. I bet it would have an even higher correlation with perceived quality than price!

Image used with permission from DeLongWine.com