Dr Vino's wine blog

SPIT: Wine tasting menus!
John and Dottie, WSJ wine columnists known for their sunny outlook, go negative on NYC wine pairing menus. Le Bernardin takes it the hardest. To the tape: “”Very little went right. The sommelier didn’t hear a word we said…Each white wine was served in the same kind of glass…not one of the seven wines we were served was poured from a full bottle…Most important to us, the pairings themselves were uninspired….We felt very much like we had been treated as hayseed tourists who ordered the tasting and wine-pairing menus only because we didn’t know how to pronounce the names of any of the dishes or wines.” Price: $280–for the wine only. And a parting shot on the phenom: “when we order the tasting menu, the restaurant puts us on its schedule, which is generally too rushed.” [WSJ]

SIPPED: Amazon swirls and sniffs
Move over Manuka honey: Amazon may soon sell wine along with its growing non-perishable grocery line according to the Financial Times today. This would be a welcome entrant into the brier patch of online wine retail. The more retailers, the merrier the wine consumer! The story has a mention of fellow wine blogger Tom Wark. [FT.com]

SIPPED: foreign owners in Bordeaux
Properties producing mid-range wines on the periphery of Bordeaux have been squeezed in recent years. But they may find relief from foreign buyers as evidenced by Haiyan Cheng, 28-year-old daughter of “vastly wealthy Chinese businessman,” Zuochang Cheng. She bought a property–a first for a Chinese buyer in the region–for $3 million and plans to renovate it and expand the vineyards. [NYT]

SPIT: Merlot (again), this time for headaches?
Merlot can’t get no lovin’. Malolactic fermentation may improve the taste of red wines but it also fills them with tyramines and histamines, which cause allergic reactions in many people. “Merlots seem to be particularly high,” UC Berkeley Professor of Chemistry Richard Mathies said although his research is inconclusive. [Red orbit]

SIPPED: Amen to that!
Taking Communion may soon help Chilean farmers get a fair price for grapes. The clergy and parishioners at Manchester Cathedral evaluate the wine today for potential introduction as possibly the world’s first “Fairtrade” Communion wine. Seventy percent of the churches in the Diocese serve Fairtrade tea and coffee. [BBC]

SIPPED: Drink for causes, part II
“For each bottle of wine you purchase as futures from his Lookout Ridge Winery, [Sonoma vintner Gordon Holmes (and former Wall Street publisher)] donates a wheelchair in your name to one of the world’s 100 million needy people desperate for mobility.” Andy Erikson of Screaming Eagle fame is one of the winemakers. (find this wine) [Bloomberg]

SIPPED: French wine sales
Sales of French wine rose seven percent in 2007. Is the 2003 Iraq-induced hangover finally over? [IHT]

SIPPED: French wine sails
Belem, a three-masted barque first launched in 1896, will begin transporting 60,000 bottles of wine by sail from the Languedoc to the British Isles in an effort to reduce wine’s carbon footprint. Will gerbils power the refrigerated containers? [AFP]

SIPPED and SPIT: climate change and wine
A big shindig in Barcelona attracted some cult winemakers to discuss global warming and wine; although Al Gore could only make an appearance via satellite, wine bloggers Alice Feiring and Catavino were on the scene.

SPIT for SIPPING: Nicole Kidman
Nicole Kidman caused an uproar because she mighta, coulda had a glass of wine during the Oscars last Sunday. Unlike Gisele who caused a stir by sipping wine at the Super Bowl, the big deal with Keith Urban’s wife was not the wine selection itself; rather, she is pregnant. Kidman’s agent has defended her client, denied the allegation, and called the accuser an “idiot.”

Related:
-“Knocked up: expecting moms and defying expectations”
– All abord the Tesco barge
(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.

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]

Playing dirty
Wine.com, a retailer with big ambitions (but a rocky past) and a largely meh selection of wines, rats on 29 online retailers who illegally sent wine to Washington state. How do they know? Because they were the ones who ordered the wine from those 29 stores! Scandale! For a fascinating thread check out Vinography where the CEO of wine.com appears in the comments along with several anonymous retailers in a clash of the business models. Booooo wine.com!! I am pushing my Cramer-style boooo button! [Vinography]

Mo’ moxie
Winemonger, an internet-only retailer specializing in the wines of Austria, has the chutzpa to offer a mixed case of their “best” wines with a 15% discount as a result of wine.com’s actions — and they have pledged 10% of the proceeds to the Specialty Wine Retailers’ Association, an organization that probably counts many of the 29 “busted” retailers among their members. Enter discount code: ISUCK at checkout. [winemonger]

Mo’ money
Tom Wark, who writes a fiery blog and is the head of the SWRA, has calculated that wine and spirits wholesalers contributed a staggering $50 million to political election campaigns from 2000 – 2006. Yikes! If that’s what they spend on lobbying, just think what the profits are! For a backgrounder on the politics of wine shipping, check out this story from the LA Times. [Fermentation]

Mo’ betta blogs
Wine & Spirits magazine doesn’t put much of their content online, alas. But two of their senior editors have now started blogs. Peter Liem, who lives in and loves Champagne, has started his “Besotted Ramblings and Other Drivel.” Wolfgang Weber, Italian critic, has started “Spume.” Check them out!

Ceci n’est pas une pub
A French court has ruled that newspaper articles that review wine must carry the same health warnings that apply to advertisements to alcohol advertisements. But don’t consume journalism (and blogs) in moderation! [Decanter]

More carbon footprints
Science magazine of the AAAS has a piece entitled “The Wine Divide” in the January 11 issue about the carbon footprint research I did with Pablo Paster. Welcome Science readers! Consider subscribing to the site feed or the monthly email updates. And congratulations to Pablo! As of next week, he will be analyzing the carbon footprint of everything in a new weekly column for Salon.com.

Related: “Developing: the next shipping battle”
Image 1 from winemonger.com

Growing pains?
Elaine Sciolino, an NYT France correspondent, ventures to Champagne. As demand for Champagne rises, she examines the fascinating politics of expanding the boundaries of the growing region–is it a boondoggle or a necessity? [NYT] Peter Liem of Wine & Spirits also addressed this question on this blog in September.

Small is beautiful
A Business section story tracks the “grower Champagne” trend, with picks. [NYT]

Big is beautiful
Mike Steinberger, who wrote about grower Champagnes several years ago, now rides to the defense of the big houses and their entry level, nonvintage blends. Shocking! Fortunately the world is still on its axis since he spanks Moët White Star rightfully calling it “execrably sweet, with a confected, cloying taste that made me want to run for my toothbrush.” [Slate]

Old is beautiful
Mike Steinberger fires off another piece this time observing the trend toward buying 30+ year old Champagne at auction. Paradoxically, buyers not much older than the bottles themselves seem to be the source of much of the demand. [Portfolio]

Champ-Angleterre?
Are Champagne houses really contemplating a move to England? Maybe the world IS spinning off its axis?! [Telegraph]

Budget bubbles
Executive Pursuits columnist Henry Hurt III fears a decline in his purchasing power next year. So he had a couple of friends over and poured them nine bubblies blind to see if he could get away with pouring sparkling wine instead of Champagne. They trash the, ahem, grande dame, and praise the lowly Boyer brut, a $9.95 sparkling Burgundy (find this wine). Booyah, Boyer! Happy new year, indeed! [NYT]

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Comrade, would you prefer red?
The sommelier becomes an official occupation in China, “to help meet surging demand in the increasingly prosperous nation,” state media reported Sunday. Related: “nuts chef” also joins the list. [via AFP, thanks reader Grayman!]

Little Luxembourg, big gulp
China may be big, but Luxembourg is thirsty. The Grand Duchy consumes the most alcohol per capita of any country in the world. France, Ireland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic round out the top five. [MSNBC]

Menu for Hope
See the creative donations from food and wine bloggers — bid and help UNWFP! [Chez Pim]

Claret, no merci
English wine outsells than Bordeaux in England?!? So says supermarket Waitrose. Are they doing it for the smaller carbon footprint? [Decanter]

Dueling critics
The 2003 Quinault l’Enclos (find this wine), is it “all about finesse, balance, and purity” or “low in acidity, rather bland and yet again lacking freshness and definition. A couple of sips is enough.”? We love dueling critics–and it’s even more fun when the shootout is in one publication, in this case, Robert Parker’s The Wine Advocate! Incredible! Diversity of opinion is tolerated! [see more on Rockss and Fruit]

USB wine?!?
You might think this blend of wine and technology is from California, but this laptop spigot is francais–and in development until 2039. [link]

From feast to famine
The Australian wine lake has dried up. Was it the thirst of Chinese sommeliers? No, the industry has swung from glut to shortages in two years because of drought. [NZ Herald]

Vote Vino!
This site has been named a finalist for “Best Food Blog – Drinks” in annual awards at WellFed. Lend a click if you can! [WellFed.net]

Tesco Merlot, at seven knots
The British supermarket is transporting some wine via barge in canals to reduce emissions. This comes after the retailer started importing wine from Australia in bulk tanks thus “saving 15,840kg of imported glass” per container. Here, here! Did Tesco just became the odds-on favorite for the Dr. Vino green wine retailer of the year? Maybe. Depends how much air conditioning is on ye olde Tescoe barge. [Guardian]

Sideways, the musical?
Wine has conquered the silver screen with Sideways and two forthcoming wine movies. Now our favorite beverage turns its sights on Broadway (well, off-off Broadway). Michael Green, Gourmet wine contributor, is the force behind the interactive production that encourages the audience to “see, swirl, smell, sip, and savor WINE LOVERS — a romance in six glasses.” On their web site, Green says that it’s a send-up of the “theatricality” of wine education–wait, he doesn’t mean my forthcoming class, does he? Limited run, Dec 1-3, 8-10.

Glug, glug: Thanksgiving edition
You know what you poured at Thanksgiving. But what about everybody else? Dr. Debs linked to Cellartracker, a wine cellar management tool, sorted by open date. In my tryptophan haze, I found it a fascinating snapshot of almost 10,000 wines poured. The top six producers were American. [cellartracker]

E-tailer goes bricks and mortar
While most wine retailers struggle to work out selling wine over the internet, Wine.com opens it’s first “bricks and mortar” location, a 2,000 sq ft store, in Berkeley. [PRnewswire]