Tasting sized pours – perks, fakes, critical wine, and health
Perks
Become a non-executive member of the Board of Directors of UST Corp (NYSE: UST), which owns several wineries as well as Skoal “smokeless” tobacco, and you can get a $5,000 worth of the company’s wine! (That’s 555 bottles of $9 Columbia Crest.) Other officers get a similar allowance and the CEO Vincent Gierer gets a $6,500 allowance “to foster the use of the Company’s wine products at events they host.” Mmm, yummy wine products. Granted, some of this sum goes for “the maintenance and/or installation of security systems” for all that wine booty. But you’d think with his $6 million salary, he could have afforded that anyway. [SEC filings via footnoted.org]
Declines
Constellation Brands (NYSE: STZ), the biggest publicly traded wine producer announced disappointing earnings thanks to “pricing pressures that it blamed on rising supplies of competing Australian wines and reduced consumption in Britain.” The shares fell to a multi-year low on Thursday. [Forbes]
Rises
French wines tacked on two percentage points in the US market–at the expense of Australia, according to an AFP story. “The export figures show that we are going in the right direction. We must advance toward the path of committed reform,” said Louis Regis Affre, managing director of the Federation of Exporters of Wine and Spirits in France (Fevs). [Sapa-AFP]
Fakes
Sir Ian Kershaw, author of an award-winning two-volume biography of Hitler, said he was “immediately skeptical” when reading reports of the sale of an $8,000 “Fuehrerwein” at auction. Was it the fact that Hitler was a teetotaler? He doesn’t mention that but he points out that “a Tafelwein, a low-class table wine, was, even in 1943, not a particularly dignified present, even allowing for Hitler’s scant knowledge of wines,” he said. “Beyond this, an earlier wine bottle carrying a picture of Hitler – or at least a Nazi emblem – had been banned as kitsch.” Indeed. [thisislondon.co.uk]
Let’s get critical
Critical Wine, a new movement that “aims to raise awareness of the potential ills of globalization,” will hold an event April 3-4 in Verona, just after VinItaly. Wolfgang Weber writes “participating wine producers work with indigenous grape varieties, practice organic or sustainable viticulture, and exhibit some sense of their particular territorio.” The marketing of resistance? [Wine & Spirits, no link available]
Cuvee chez soi
Home wine making is on the rise. [BusinessWeek]
Armagnac fights cancer the scientific journal Thrombosis Research reports. No word on the effects of cognac. Or E&J Brandy. [via decanter.com]
Legendary investor Warren Buffett has his own elixir, and it’s not red wine: “The good news: At 76, I feel terrific and, according to all measurable indicators, am in excellent health,” Buffett said. “It’s amazing what Cherry Coke and hamburgers will do for a fellow.” [AP]
On March 4th, 2007 at 7:16 pm ,Joe wrote:
France has gained two points at the expense of Australia? Red Bicyclette smashing those slow moving lobsters, I suppose. Funny – the blogosphere thinks France is dead. The French are great at marketing – give ’em time, and they will come back.
On March 4th, 2007 at 7:53 pm ,Dr. Vino wrote:
Well, great wine makers, yes (also some bad ones though). But wine marketers? I think the Aussies are the category killers in that domain. But I’m with you Joe–I wouldn’t be surprised if the upward trajectory for French wines continues, at least for a little bit.
Cheers,
Tyler
On March 4th, 2007 at 10:01 pm ,Joe wrote:
Sorry, I should clarify – I meant the French are good marketers of virtually everything, just not (yet) wine. You are correct that the Aussies are category killers, for now.