Dr Vino's wine blog

SIPPED: Stalinist architecture in St. Emilion!
A bottle of wine allegedly in Hitler’s cellar at the Berghof sold for $900 at Alexander Autographs recently. The label might have raised some questions since has only St. Emilion, Frankreich (German for France) emblazoned on the front with no producer name, a vintage of 1934, and what a blog at the NY Times describes as a “Stalinist-style structure towering over the church.” Donald and Petie Kladstrup, co-authors of Wine and War: The French, the Nazis, and the Battle for France’s Greatest Treasure, told the NYT blog that Hitler “occasionally drank wine, though he preferred beer.” What ever happened to his being a teetotaler?

SPIT: translation
A lot of wine descriptors could be interpreted as bedroom talk. But Jim Boyce writes about a case worthy of Engrish.com, a Chinese back label that cuts to the chase: “Yellow flowers and a beautiful apricot color with a strong musk. Rich texture with sweet f*ck in sweet orange peel and apricot flavor at the end of a clean. Drink now.”

SPIT: Champagne corks
Champagne, perhaps the last regional holdout (ex-Portugal) from the assault of screwcaps, now has The Maestro. Although we mentioned it previously, details are now out: The new closure, which hides a crown cap (think: beer) under a plastic cover and lever, will soon adorn select bottles of Duval-Leroy champagne. TIME says that it is “far easier to use than a conventional stopper— no struggling to hold the heavy bottle as you twist, no worrying that you’ll take someone’s eye out with the cork.” But, really, a lever doesn’t add to the bottle’s aesthetics–get a grip! [see video of the Maestro in action]

SPIT: wine
In France, consumption continues to fall. So do exports. “French households drank almost 10 percent less wine last year than in 2007, and exports by French vintners sank 15 percent by volume and almost 30 percent by value in the first quarter of 2009, the agriculture ministry reported.” [AP]

SIPPED: ID
Equifax, a credit rating agency, is developing a service to strengthen online identities, which could be particularly useful to verifying the age of someone who wants to buy wine on the web. [Bits blog]

Photo: Alexander Autographs

We recently discussed why there are so few tasty low priced wines from America, particularly compared to imports. Later, I decided to put the question to wine importer Bobby Kacher. Robert Kacher Selections is strong in bargains from Southwestern France; I highlighted the Tariquet Sauvignon (find this wine) in my book with wine recommendations, A Year of Wine, as one of 10 great wines under $10 (REDS from Patrick Campbell was also included).

Question: why there are so few good American wines under $10 while there are many more imports at that price point?

Bobby Kacher: A related question is why do so many American wineries make such expensive wines? So many American wineries have developed new, highly-allocated wines from very young vineyards that sell for $150 or more a bottle. They are trying to sell you the spin of romance and lifestyle. I visited a winery in California once and calculated just how much it cost to make Read more…

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…

E & J Gallo, the enormous, privately held wine company, is well-known (notorious?) for protecting their brand. Ernest and Julio sued their own brother Joseph in 1986 to prevent him from marketing his cheese as “Joseph Gallo.” They also sued unrelated East Bay company, Gallo Salume Inc., to limit the number of their meat products that could carry the name.

A couple of weeks ago, E & J Gallo cranked the lawsuit-o-meter up a notch: They sued a Seattle gourmet food store for selling a Spanish pasta called Gallo. On the forums of the Seattle Times, Steve Winston, the owner of The Spanish Table in Pike Place Market, comments that Pastas Gallo dates from 1874 while E & J Gallo dates from 1933.

In Ernest Gallo’s obituary, the Times of London further summarized Gallo’s legal actions:

In 1990 the company successfully sued the Gallo Nero wine consortium of Chianti who had used the word “gallo” (cockerel) on their bottles. Ten years later the brothers took the Chianti wine-makers to court again over their domaine name.

In the meantime they put pressure on a small domaine called Santa Marcellina in Chianti because they had a “Marcellina” trade-mark among the many they had patented. In 1994 they attacked a Mexican company called Pasatiempos Gallo. In 2002 it was the turn of a lady potter in Texas, who used the word “gallo” because she made ceramic representations of roosters. Gallo himself made no excuses for his behaviour, saying: “We don’t want most of the business. We want it all.”

While it’s no doubt important for mark holders to protect their marks, there’s no point in being a cockerel about it. The situation smacks of Monster Cable’s overreaching and suing a mini-golf company and engendering consumer ill will. Perhaps we should take a page from Gizmodo’s book and come up with a list of items that Gallo legal eagles might want to put in their sight:

Pico de gallo salsa
The Year of the Rooster
France
Rossignol skis
Coq au vin
Le coq sportif
Cockfights

For enophiles, one of the great travesties of the past few years has been the rise of a new puritanism in France. Yes, the country perhaps most associated with wine has, paradoxically, also seen increasing amounts resistance to wine from some parts of society. In my book Wine Politics, I’ve compared this (French?) twist with America and how the two countries seem to be headed in opposite directions; many others have also commented on these changes.

Perhaps the most jaw-dropping of the actions relates to wine and the internet. A French court ruled early last year that Heineken’s web site was illegal to display in France, which sparked fears and confusion among wine web sites and Microsoft pulled wine ads. Also, in another decision last year, a court fined the newspaper Le Parisien €5,000 for a champagne review article claiming that it was no different than an advertisement and should run the disclaimer: “Alcohol abuse is dangerous to your health.”

That could never happen here, right?

Well, not entirely. According to this article on ABCnews.com, under new Federal Trade Commission regulations on Consumer Product Testimonial and Endorsement Rules, product reviews on blogs may soon fall under the same liability standard as advertisements. (Given the various claims to the tune of “lose thirty pounds in thirty days,” one might easily be forgiven for not even realizing that there even were advertising standards.) The most obviously affected category would be paid reviews, but those, rightfully, shouldn’t count as editorial anyway.

“It would only affect bloggers who are paid to write reviews but the sticky issue that is raised is what happens if a product is given for free,” an FTC spokesman told ABC News.

That could raise a host of issues for wine bloggers as well as wine journalists whose articles appear on the internet. But whether a review of a free sample wine (as opposed to a purchased wine) could ever be seen as basis for liability, as it might in an infant car seat as the focus of the ABC story, seems like an incredible long shot. The subjectivity of reviews (what, you couldn’t find notes of raspberry and saddle leather?) and the bottle variation among consumers in different states would be two strong aspects running against any enforcement of this FTC act. As they probably say in fine print on the weight loss ads, results may vary.

One way to connect the dots more closely might be if the blogger in question were, say, a wine retailer or a winery who also happens to sell wine. There’s a lot of web content, be it blogs or Twitter or Facebook updates, emanating directly from wine sellers and marketers that might fall under this increased stringency from the FTC.

As Matt Drudge might say, “developing…”

Simon Staples of Berry Bros & Rudd, a patrician wine shop in London, has an estimate in today’s NYT on the actual cost to make a bottle of Lafite, which sells for about $500 retail (find this wine). To the tape:

Mr. Staples pointed to the example of Château-Lafite Rothschild, a first-growth Bordeaux, which soared from £675, or $955, for a 12-bottle case in the 2002 futures to £4,000 a case for 2005 — which he called “the best vintage I’ve ever tasted.” But despite merely average years subsequently, the price only fell back to £3,500 in 2006 and £2,800 in 2007. He estimated it cost the château €10, or $13, to make a bottle of the wine.

Wow, talk about return on investment! I actually get asked the question a lot about whether a winery’s costs are really reflected in a higher priced bottle. Certainly, there are expensive ways to make wine and there are inexpensive ways to make wine.

But according to a fascinating exposé in the Revue de Vin de France, even the expensive way to make wine is wildly profitable. Consider some of their examples: the cost of Petrus is 30 euros and it retails for 4,500€; Dom Perignon costs 22.80 to make and retails for 129€; a generic Bordeaux wine might cost 1.38 euros to make and retail at a supermarket for 1.86€.

“Le veritable prix des grandes bouteilles” Revue de vin de France, February 2009.
“Bordeaux futures, wine investment, waste, insurance – sipped and spit“

SIPPED: sanity!
French winegrowers feared that a bill making its way through the legislature could prohibit free tastings at the vineyard/winery, often an important sales channel (and one that can offer fantastic prices too). The increasingly powerful health lobby was pushing the bill but, in the end, the health minister, Roselyne Bachelot, was able to prevent some promotional wine tastings from inclusion as well as striking down a proposed ban on wine advertising on the internet. Other changes include raising the drinking age from 16 to 18. See jancisrobinson.com for more perspective on the current law. And learn more about how France got to this point in my book, Wine Politics.

SPIT: insanity!
In 2007, Illinois wine consumers became legally prohibited from buying wine from out-of-state wine stores, thereby reducing a national market for wine to a local one. State Representative Julie Hamos from Evanston–where I lived for several years and, ironically, the home of the once-powerful Woman’s Christian Temperance Union–has submitted a bill to repeal this restriction. The Chicago Tribune had an editorial in support of the new bill calling the current situation “boneheaded.” Learn more about how America got to this point in my book, Wine Politics.

SPIT: minimum pricing
Prime Minister Gordon Brown of the UK rebuffed an attempt to set high minimum prices for alcoholic beverages. The chief medical officer, Sir Liam Donaldson, sought the increases, which would have doubled the price of some beer and spirits and set a minimum price of £4.50 for a bottle of wine as a strategy to combat binge drinking. Separately, Scotland is set to impose minimum prices on alcohol by year-end. [Guardian]

SIPPED: more celebrity wine
The latest entrant into the crowded field of celebrity wines is Sting (who has chosen the downturn in the NYC real estate market to offload his Manhattan apartment, btw). The two red wines will come from his 300 hectare (!) Tuscan property and are, as yet, unnamed. Will they go with Message in a Bottle? [The Times of London]

Buying crudité and rosé at the same time might help New York solve its budgetary woes. Or so Governor Paterson thinks.

That’s why he has proposed to allow food stores to sell wine, a subject we discussed the day the idea was floated. To recap the budgetary logic, he proposed to more than double the excise tax on wine and increase the points of sale beyond the 2,400 wine and liquor stores in the state and allow the 19,000 grocery stores to sell wine. The Governor’s office estimates that it will bring in an additional $150 million over three years, presumably from new store license fees and excise taxes rather than an increase in overall purchases. The deficit for next year alone is forecast to be $15 billion.

Shortly after I moved to New York State from Chicago four years ago, I was looking for a supermarket wine for a story and wondered where you found “supermarket wine” in New York. The answer is epitomized in this store I saw the other day, which we can call “Wines & Liqu” since that’s the only part of the neon sign that was illuminated. It’s these stores, uninspiring package stores, that don’t much invest in human capital and stock high-volume brands that will be most threatened by the impending change.

But alongside the Wines & Liqu stores are thriving boutiques that is probably the best concentration of wine stores in the universe. Read more…