Dr Vino's wine blog

Should wine lot numbers appear on the labels of American wines as they do in Europe?

The recent saga of Sierra Carche exposed some cracks in the process of wine making, wine reviewing, and wine buying. For those who haven’t checked out the saga (see Felix Salmon’s excellent summary over on Reuters.com), an influential critic gave a wine brand called Sierra Carche the score of 96, retailers sold the wine touting that score, but many consumers then found the wine undrinkable (as the critic also did 10 months later).

Although the mystery of how this could happen remains unresolved, the winemaker has pointed out there were three “lots” (a batch bottled under nearly identical conditions) of the wine and admitted one of those lots a different wine entirely that was bottled as Sierra Carche.

Charlie Olken, publisher of the Connoisseur’s Guide to California Wine, posted several comments on this subject on the previous thread about his experience with lot variation in domestic wines. An excerpt:

I cannot name the winery because of legal reasons, but I was asked to testify in a law suit in which a winery sued another company over wine lost in an accident. It turned out the winery had sold out of the wine in about eight months and simply went out on the open market and purchased wine in bulk and bottled it as their own under the same label. In discovery, it was found that the lost wine had 20% Chenin Blanc purchased at wholesale at a price way below what labeled grape would have cost.

Unless wineries are required to identify separate lots, whether they are bottling wine in California or Spain or Morocco, these kinds of events will continue to happen. Sometimes it will be only a slight difference in character as in the Ste. Michelle and Mondavi examples above, but the potential for mischief when anybody can bottle several lots under the same label is real and the Sierra Carche is not the only bad example.

Lot labeling has been mandatory in the EU since the early 1990s to facilitate traceability in the event of a recall or consumer complaint. Importer James Koch also posted to the comments: “I have been selecting wines by lot numbers since 1992 – a year after lot numbers started to appear on every bottle of wine – when I discovered that ‘bottle variation’ often is just the result by mixing up different lots. Due to the lot numbers I’ve been able to offer my clients the wines I tasted and selected on my wine buying trips – not only VERSIONS of it.” Koch also pointed out that lot numbers may be difficult to see since it can appear anywhere on the outside packaging material. Lot numbers must start with the letter “L” in Europe.

But American wineries are not required to print lot numbers on bottles. They should. And they should have a standard of 100 percent accuracy. Maybe some progressive wineries will start to do this as Bonny Doon has with ingredient labeling.

Several factors can cause bottle variation to the consumer and disclosing lots would at least provide more transparency. Remember all those consumers who found variation in Two Buck Chuck? Lot numbers could help sort out some of that.

Do you think critics should also list lot numbers in their reviews?

Alabama’s liquor authority has banned a label depicting a nude nymph (side view!) from a 1895 poster. The wine, Cycles Gladiator, made by Soledad, California-based Hahn, retails for about $10 and had sold about 600,000 cases since 2006. Although it is available in the other 49 states, Alabama regulations prohibit labels with “a person posed in an immoral or sensuous manner,” according to NBC Los Angeles. (Search for Cycles Gladiator at retail)

Since when is nude bicycle flying considered immoral or sensuous? Imprudent and unsafe would be more like it. If the nymph were in today’s Tour de France, she would at least be required to have a helmet!

In other important wine and cycling news, after the grueling day up Le Mont Ventoux, Lance Armstrong tweeted: ““went to dinner with the RadioShack guys [his new team]…had a few more glasses of wine than I normally would.” And after the tour he posted a pic enjoying a (large) glass of wine with cycling legend Eddie Merckx. The man clearly enjoys wine, so how long until we see an Armstrong celebrity wine? If it ever arrives, he will, no doubt, be fully clothed.

People in California have a higher opinion of the quality and the value of wine produced in their state than do residents of the other 49 states. This phenomenon, dubbed “the Sierra gap,” (no, after the Sierra Nevada mountains, not Sierra Carche!) comes from the 2008 Wine Market Council survey. Fully 63 percent of Californians think that California wine offers better quality than similar wines as compared to 54 percent of respondents not from California. And in the question of value, the split was even wider at 73 percent versus 58 percent.

This fascinating finding may bear upon our discussion of around the comments from wine importer Bobby Kacher about why so few tasty American wines under $12?

I asked John Gillespie, president of the the Wine Market Council how his survey data differ from the annual Gallup poll, which we discussed recently. As a reminder, our description on the Gallup wine drinkers: “If an alien landed in a room full American wine drinkers, it would meet mostly college educated, AARP eligible women, probably not from the midwest.”

Gillespie writes to describe how his results compare to Gallup:

You will see that among core wine drinkers (those who drink wine once a week or more often) there is a slight tilt in the direction of males. You’ll also see the a higher percentage of males are reporting an increase in their wine consumption. And when you look at the gender ratio by generation, you will see that younger groups are either gender neutral, or, in fact, skew male. So while the college educated AARP eligible female wine drinker does exist, we should keep in mind that just down the bar there are a couple of guys in their 20s drinking Malbec and texting their friends to come join them.

Among wine drinkers (also from the 2008 Wine Market Council survey of U.S. wine drinkers) is is true that a higher percentage of females (69%) say they prefer wine to other forms of beverage alcohol (56% of males say this). But
the reality is that among core wine drinkers (who account for about 90% of all wine consumed) there are more males than females, and that younger wine drinkers skew male, not female.

The Wine Market Council data also show that the youngest drinkers, a large generation younger than about 32 known as millennials, already consume the second most wine as a group and have the fastest growth rate at 46 percent. That’s quite a contrast to Europe, where younger drinkers are drinking less wine.

Slides after the jump. Read more…

What could President Obama bring Prime Minster Berlusconi as a gift for the host of the G8 summit? Berlusconi, an affluent and powerful man, can already get pretty much whatever he wants delivered to him poolside, after all.

Obama chose to present him with something he might never have had before, a gift of American wine! Specifically, a wine from the Vermentino grape grown in North Carolina’s Yadkin Valley made by Raffaldini Vineyards.

See the video below where Thomas Salley of Raffaldini explains how State Department officials requested samples of the wine from this Italian American family. And how the wine will be presented in a wooden case using old flooring from the Oval Office. Reduce, reuse, recycle!

Also note the transcript provided by FOX 8 in High Point NC, which hilariously misquotes Salley as saying, “The Vermentino grape is Sardinia variety so it’s native the the island of sardine.”

UPDATE: Whoops, Obama gave the wine to the Italian President, Giorgio Napolitano NOT Prime Minister Berluscsoni. Berlusconi will have to bum a sip from him.

Today’s Wall Street Journal has a piece on the luxury wine market that’s either sobering or heartwarming. If you’re in a producer, it’s probably sobering to read more about the sluggish sales, depressed prices for wines, the prospect of lost pricing power in the future, and possibility of increased merger and acquisition activity. But if you’re a consumer who is into high-end wines, it’s heartwarming to have the possibility to scoop up bargains, as one wine consumer does in the story.

The article suggests that “some of the newer operations [wineries] are using new marketing techniques to cope.” A case study:

Alpha Omega, a boutique winery in Rutherford, Calif., has begun using online services Facebook and Twitter to reach out to its customers. The winery three years ago began targeting consumers directly, and the strategy is now paying off; revenue is up 40% so far this year, compared with a year ago, in part because it doesn’t have to share many revenues with a distributor, says co-owner Robin Baggett.

Call me a skeptic, but I fail to see how the winery’s 296 friends on Facebook, 407 followers on Twitter and no blog can really help them move their wines (even if one of their tweets had a Palin-esque all caps consisting simply of “I love WINE.”) Their range of wines, crafted by winemakers Jean Hoefliger and Michel Rolland, starts with a $28 rosé and moves up to a $480 three-pack of reds in a wooden case. The WSJ article states that wines north of $25 are experiencing “a sharp falloff” so there must be some other secret sauce at Alpha Omega.

If it’s selling directly to consumers and bypassing distributors, then great. But I would imagine in this case that the 20% discount to club members speaks more loudly than their tweets.

Can social media really save the day for wineries? A story making the rounds these days is that the internet devalues everything it touches. But if both luxury and non-luxury wineries can somehow make social media work to increase their profitability while lowering prices to consumers, then that would be a heartwarming tale for all.

If an alien landed in a room full American wine drinkers, it would meet mostly college educated, AARP eligible women, probably not from the midwest. There would be relatively few men aged 18 (!) to 49. So says the polling group, Gallup. Almost.

In their annual survey of how and what American drinks, the smokin’ pollsters at Gallup point to a gender gap where men prefer beer and women prefer wine. (For beer-wine-spirits preferences, men are 58-19-18 while women are 21-50-24. Click through for full summary and charts.)

How does this square with your experience? In my own, I find a lot of enthusiasm for wine among them there young folks. And men and women seem equally into wine. But my evidence is purely anecdotal!

As to the economic effect of the recession, they say it is hard to sort out. But their main finding is that the percentage of Americans who drink alcohol is the same as last year, at 64%. Meanwhile, over on the Big Board, The AP has this about the quarterly numbers from Constellation (STZ): “Sales for the company, whose brands include Robert Mondavi wines and Svedka brand vodka, dropped 15 percent to $791.6 million from $931.8 million on the stronger dollar as well as the sales of the value spirits business, spirits contract production services and some Pacific Northwest wine brands.”

I recently stumbled on this olde tyme ad from Sonoma (in the Yalumba winery museum in Australia of all places).

In case you can’t read it, the ad says “Sonoma Valley Sobriety Test #1: If you can’t say Gundlach-Bundschu Gewurztraminer, then you shouldn’t be driving!”

I’d venture to say that both the Gun-Bun marketing and Sonoma sobriety tests have changed.

Drawing on the New Yorker profile of Fred Franzia, champion of wine under $10, last week we pondered the puzzle of why so few low-cost wines–say under $10 (or, perhaps, $15)–made in America are just not tasty. By contrast, several imported wines in the price range have appeal despite having to be transported and pass through the importer’s company as well.

Over 30 of you had your say in the post from last week. So I decided to put the question to several people in the trade. Today, we hear from Patrick Campbell and Veronique Drouhin Boss. Patrick Campbell of Laurel Glen Winery in Sonoma makes a tasty $10 California wine, REDS, billed as “a wine for the people.” Veronique Drouhin Boss is the winemaker at Domaine Drouhin in Oregon and is co-winemaker at her family’s negociant house in Burgundy, Maison Joseph Drouhin, which a Beaujolais Villages that is particularly lip-smacking in 2007 and is widely available for $9.95. Tomorrow, we will hear from an American wine importer with his views.

Question: why are there so few good American wines under $10 (or slightly higher) while there are many more imports at that price point? Read more…