Dr Vino's wine blog

Here I am in McMinnville, Oregon reporting live from the International Pinot Noir Celebration! This annual event, now in its 21st incarnation, attracts hundreds of pinot-philes from around the world to the Willamette Valley. They are treated to two-and-a-half days of vineyard visits, talks as well as tastings of the wines made from the grape hailing from not just Oregon but also France, California, New Zealand and beyond.

At breakfast this morning I was standing in line for some delicious local berries and assorted breakfast fare and fell into conversation with a group of six enthusiasts from North Carolina. Bob Crenshaw, who owns Health Habit, a retailer of “natural foods, fine wine” (as his business card states) with his wife Susan, was the most seasoned veteran of the group: he has attended the event an astonishing 19 times. What brings him back, I asked?

“The wine, the food, the people,” he replied. And there you have the IPNC in a nutshell!
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Well, if only that were this morning. Read more…

The annual Gallup survey about the drink preferences of Americans is now out. After edging ahead of beer in 2005, wine has now fallen behind beer by eleven points, 42-31.

Really? I hadn’t noticed. Wine bars are springing up in many cities across the land as are better and better wine shops.

It might be a sign of the weak economy with more people saying they prefer beer, which is less expensive. But polls also bounce around a lot. And they’re simply surveys of attitudes, not actual behavior. It will be interesting to see if 2008 is the sixteenth year of consecutive growth in wine consumption in the US. What’s your bet?

Dear Dr. Vino,

If you had to take a bottle of American wine to Bulgaria that reflects the most recent trend in American winemaking, what would that bottle be? I want to take a bottle to my key participant in my academic study (who is one of the best winemakers in Bulgaria) when I head out next month to the wild Balkans. If this is an impossible question to answer, forgive my boldness (& ignorance) and please ignore it!

Impossible–never! It’s a great question, actually. I thought about American wines recently for a piece that I contributed to on Forbes.com about ten independent wines from the good ole US of A. I’d probably take one of those. Many of them actually run counter to the trend in higher alcohol levels so I’d point out that they are, in fact, anti-trendy, or the beginning of a new trend, perhaps. And then maybe bring a Turley that I’m trying to get rid of just for laffs.

What about you? Which wine would you bring if you were in this reader’s shoes?

Could it really be true that David Beckham bought his wife Victoria (fka “Posh”) a winery in Napa for (only) “seven figures” for her recent birthday? So reported the Sun in the UK. Apparently the couple got into wine while he was playing for Real Madrid and, now living in California, may have taken the plunge. However, the fact that it remains unobserved in wine circles makes me skeptical that it really happened. But let’s talk about it anyway!

A columnist on MSNBC later reported on other reporting, looking for a motive:

“David feels like Victoria needs something to do other than shopping and going to parties,” a source told Full Disclosure. “He is hoping she will get into the wine business and settle into some kind of regular routine.”

Ouch! SFLuxe.com throws cold water on the idea of their buying a property, instead suggesting they bought into The Napa Valley Reserve. A $150,000 deposit buys the right to purchase wine, from a half a barrel to three barrels. Members can be as involved as they like, picking grapes off the vine (in stilettos?) or punching down the cap.

What should be the name of their wine? The Sun suggested Chateau Posh, describing it as thin bodied.

If they do buy a winery, they would be the latest celebrities to buy one. Brangelina recently signed a long-term rental in Provence and Johnny Depp bought Venssa Paradis a vineyard there as well.

Should you be able to drink wine in a park with a picnic?

This question arose during the Q&A after my talk at the Beard House last week. Funny, wine politics extends to parks!

It turned out that the woman who posed the question had, in fact, just sipped wine at a picnic in Prospect Park in Brooklyn–and all in her party were ticketed! At $25 a head, that ended up being a $150 wine experience that she and her friends would no doubt could have lived without. Or the most expensive rosé they had ever tasted.

For those of you who might wonder why they were issued a citation, city law bans open containers of alcohol in parks or beaches. Mayor Bloomberg did get in trouble in 2003 when some people were ticketed for drinking beer on a beach while he was photographed days later listening to the Philharmonic with people having wine near him.

Are these blue laws outdated and we should be able to uncork rose while in the park? Have your say in the latest poll!

poll now closed

Last week I shot some video with Eric Arnold of First Big Crush fame, now also of Forbes.com fame. The first video–and my video debut–is now live! I pick ten independent American wines for Independence Day. Head on over to Forbes.com for the story (with slide show) or cut straight to the video.

What would be on your list of independent wines?

Also, check out this story from Bloomberg–who knew AVAs could be so fun! Regulatory columnist Cindy Skrzycki does a good job recounting the story that led the Feds to reject the petition for a Viticultural Area named Tulocay in Napa. Quotage from Dr. Vino.

E Pluribus Vinum will be the new motto for America, soon to be the top wine drinking country in the world! Katie of Ramsey, N.J. suggested it and you voted it.

As a prize, I sent her a signed copy of the hottest (only?) wine book to be released in July, my own, Wine Politics: How Governments, Environmentalists, Mobsters, and Critics Influence the Wines We Drink. Thanks, Katie, and thanks, all, for your votes!

Cities used to be for beer making. Wine, traditionally made near the vineyard, is moving into cities at warp speed.

First wineries infiltrated Brooklyn, as Brooklyn Oenology and Bridge Urban Winery have done and Abe Schoener will do in Red Hook later this year. Next up: Manhattan. City Winery, a night club meets wine bar meets winery, will open at 143 Varick St in the fall.

Michael Dorf, owner of the nightclub the Knitting Factory among other pursuits, is heading the City Winery. Grapes will be trucked in from New York State, California and possibly beyond to be made into wine under the supervision of David Lecomte, a French trained winemaker who has made wine at Chapoutier and Herzog, the kosher winery in California. People can buy a barrel (approximately 250 bottles of finished wine) starting at $5,000 and track its progress. Crushpad, which pioneered this approach in San Francisco, will also open a facility in NYC in the fall.

While the winery space will be for members (aka “barrel owners”) only, the nightclub/wine bar will be open to the public with more than 50 wines by the glass and an event space for up to 400. Oh, and there’s a state-of-the-art sound system.

Read more about City Winery and the bureaucratic hoops they had to jump through including licensing and waste removal issues at Wines & Vines (they could send all that pomace to Delluva Day Spa instead!). The Village Voice also had a recent piece on the trend.

Tipster Steve points out that times have changed since 2000 when the “last” winery moved out of NYC as tax incentives and rising costs lured the kosher Kedem to Bayonne, NJ. The barrel always rolls…