Dr Vino's wine blog

Another decanting article = sigh, right?

I gave the topic a whirl in an article over on wine-searcher.com to separate the good advice from the sediment.

I am not even synthesizing it here since it would be as reduced as a young Cornas; uncork something and surf over to check out the whole article.

The past few summers, wholesale lobster prices have plunged lower than the ocean floor. Yet lobster prices in restaurants have remained unaffected, a disconnect I have pondered over many a lobster roll washed down by Chablis or Champagne.

Apparently, James Surowiecki, who writes the New Yorker’s The Financial Page, has also stared down the same disconnect but he has taken it one step farther: he has written this week’s column about it.

In short, he finds that commodity pricing doesn’t apply to lobster since it is entrenched as a luxury good in the food world; cut the price and people may actually be turned off as they think it’s inferior quality. In the world of luxury products, psychology matters more than than the cost of raw materials.

He also notes Simonson and Tversky’s work on context-dependent preferences and choices. They found that if consumers were presented with a low-priced and mid-priced object to choose between, the selections would be split. But if a third, higher-priced object was added to the product mix, then consumers chose the mid-priced item 40% more often.

Lobsternomics has some application to the wine world. If input prices were to fall for high-end grapes, it’s unlikely producers would cut wine prices for the similar psychological reasons (indeed, we saw this with the flash sales after 2008 instead of outright price cuts).

Also, Simonson and Tversky’s work is applicable to wine lists where the mere presence of DRC on a wine list may move more malbec. What do you think about the effect of relative pricing on wine lists (or stores)?

But one way that the law of supply and demand is not repealed in the world of wine is when the cost factors go up. Then, as when hail vastly reduces supply, the relative scarcity forces prices up; whether they fall again remains a matter for empirical research–and consumer psychology.

The Daily Show’s Jason Jones heads California to examine the National Raisin Reserve.

I hope he also got a chance to tap into the nation’s wine reserve, while on location!

Savor the wine bling of the day: a tiny cognac snifter that attaches to ring. In fact, there are other size glasses–click the image for the full lineup that is putting the “wear” in glassware.

I hope that whoever wears it doesn’t like to gesticulate.

The folks at Kermit Lynch wine merchants started a minor twit-flagration the other day by tweeting this provocative quote from the esteemed importer himself: “To me Chardonnay means white Burgundy, and the rest are, for better or worse, pretenders to the throne.”

The descent immediately ignited, lead by P. Cap, the fastest saberer in the East. “DISAGREE!” he tweeted, adding “Agrapart, Bouchard, Larmandier, Salon… Dude this conversation is POINTLESS!!!”

Covering the other still wine versions of Chardonnay, he added, “Ganevat, Overnoy, Mt Eden! Anybody else gonna join this conversation???” Others did, suggesting Miani, Borgo del Tiglio, Clos du Mesnil, Leclapart, and Sandhi. Certainly the list could go on.

What do you think? The statement is certainly provocative and largely correct: From Chablis to Chassange, the whites of Burgundy amply demonstrate the heights of the grape, showing why it is one of the top in the world. But the quote is also unnecessarily antagonistic: The stylistic pendulum has swung toward white Burgundy among Chardonnay producers (and consumers) around the world. Rather than dismiss producers outside of Burgundy who make chardonnay as mere “pretenders to the throne,” why not be more encouraging, nodding and noting the stylistic shift while singling out some leaders? Or is it damning with faint praise to call them Burgundian? Well, it least it is praise, which tends to go down easier on social media.

Americans love soda so much that we drink 44 gallons a head last year. But soda sales have slowed, as Americans drank 52 gallons of soda in 1998. So that’s a decline of 18%. Even though that change hasn’t been reflected entirely in America’s waistlines, the secular decline has led to some to argue that “peak soda” is over.

Of course, we’re drinking a lot of other things such as bottled water, coconut water (!), and the juice of pomegranates and acai berries. For beer, the consumption arrow is pointed down (and sentiment is in free-fall). But wine consumption per capita has risen every year since 1993.

So there you have the current score: soda, 44 gallons, red arrow; wine, 3 gallons, green arrow.

Oh, and for a bonus chart of the day, check out the latest poll data from Gallup. They show that Americans of all ages are more into wine than 20 years ago. Only 14 percent of the youngest drinkers then liked wine as their preferred drink (compared to 71 percent who like beer); 29 percent of that cohort now says wine is their preferred drink (with only 43 percent liking beer the most). Young people today like wine twice as much as they did then. And people over 50 don’t really like beer.

The famed Eisele vineyard of Napa Valley has a new owner: Francois Pinault, number 74 on the Forbes billionaires list. Pinault’s Artemis Group, which owns Chateau Latour among other wine properties, has agreed to purchase Araujo Estate Wines from Bart and Daphne Araujo. The price for the 162 acres, including the 38-acre Eisele vineyard, was not disclosed in this statement.

“Araujo Estate and its jewel, the unique Eisele Vineyard, have been producing consistently one of the very best wines of Napa Valley,” Frédéric Engerer, CEO of Chateau Latour, said Read more…

No corkscrew, no problem for this guy. All you need is a samurai sword, a blowtorch, a golf club, a chainsaw…

Which is your fave? I liked the first one and the “epic win.”