Dr Vino's wine blog

Over the weekend I was out to dinner at a nice restaurant and encountered something I hadn’t seen for a while: the iceberg wedge slathered in blue cheese and bits of bacon. I told my cousin sitting next to me that I was surprised to see this retro dish on the menu, remarking that the last place I had read about it was when Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft with a net worth of $14 billion, was “dipping bits of iceberg lettuce into a ramekin of blue cheese dressing” at his canteen, a private dining room at a Seattle steakhouse. My cousin assured me that is coming back thought not as comfort food as I had suspected, but as an ironic appetizer. Yes, ironic!

Well, no matter why it’s coming back, the dish is appearing on tables again. And if that’s the case, then let’s help the Steve Ballmer and others. Which wine would you pair with an iceberg wedge and blue cheese dressing (bacon optional)? Or does that blue cheese dressing make it…impossible?

Recipe and photo credit at seriouseats.com

When asked the last time he had mistaken Burgundy for Bordeaux, Harry Waugh famously replied, “not since lunch.” Frequent drinkers today aged 26 – 34 have more confidence than Waugh since 78% of them think they can tell the difference between merlot and cabernet sauvignon, even more similar than Burgundy and Bordeaux! (Hmm, not the only place we Americans have a lot of confidence…)

That’s one of the many interesting findings I learned at the Wine Market Council’s presentation in New York City on Tuesday that included survey and market data. To set the backdrop, Nielsen’s Danny Brager presented data that showed wine and spirits are taking market share away from beer. That’s the good news. But, thanks to the economic headwinds, prices are falling modestly. And that may also be good news if you’re a consumer. Indeed, 73% of consumers surveyed say they are finding good wines available at lower prices. Citing data from the Beverage Information group, John Gillespie of Wine market Council said that the latest estimate for the size of the wine market is 291 million cases, up from 278 million cases the year prior. That’s up from 207 million cases ten years prior and is the eighteenth consecutive year of growth in the US wine market.

John Gillespie broke down some of the demographics of wine drinkers. The most important point is that 21% of those surveyed drink wine once a week, which makes them “core” drinkers. These core drinkers, in turn, consume 91% of the wine in America. So they’re the ones driving the bus. After a focus on baby boomers last year, John focused this year on the millennials, the cohort that is aged 18-34 (well, 21-34 for wine purposes). He found that the generation is large enough to split and that the older subgroup of 26-34 year olds drinks wine with more frequency, in greater quantity and are more experimental than their younger peers and the older bracket, Generation X. These older millennials are really into wine and are also online a lot, visiting wine websites, tweeting and doing status updates on Facebook more than any other age group.

Also worth noting was that across all generations, “high end” purchasers (wine over $20) a month, are very engaged online. Oh, and they’re even more confident about telling cab from merlot, clocking in at 83%. Harry Waugh would be even more impressed.

Okay, only about five years late on this. But, thanks to site reader Quizicat drawing a parallel to our recent discussion of moscato, I’ve learned that I missed an episode of “30 Rock” where wine featured prominently. Jack Donaghy is delighted to have his name on his own sparkling wine from Long Island and he shares it with Liz Lemon. They toast each other, take a sip–and then both spit it out and retch, with Liz scraping her tongue with her fingers. Jack wonders how he is ever going to sell 10,000 cases of this wine…

When Tracy likes it, Jack has the idea of getting the hip-hop star Ridikulous (played by LL Cool J) to flog the wine in a performance. In the spirit of full disclosure, Jack informs Ridikulous that Robert Parker wrote that “Donaghy Estates tastes like the urine of Satan after a hefty portion of asparagus.”

But how many points?!?

You can see the episode on Netflix streaming or buy it on Amazon or iTunes.

Here’s a wine store that looks just like any other high-end wine store…right? So where in the world is this particular store? Include the store name for full credit. (Image credit to follow.)

Many of us wine writers praise the trend to lower-alcohol wines. But there’s one low alcohol wine that has taken off yet generated little coverage: Moscato.

Sales of the $6 sweet, fizzy white that ranges between 5 – 9 percent alcohol have almost doubled each of the past two years, albeit off a small base. The top-selling Barefoot moscato, made by Gallo, had $31 million in sales in 2010. A spokesperson for Gallo told Marketwatch “What makes this so exciting is that it’s bringing new users to the wine category.” Yes, and where there are “users” there is “innovation” such as Beringer’s “red moscato” that adds zinfandel and petite syrah for some red and black cherry flavor. Yellow Tail recently introduced a moscato.

Moscato has now taken a revered place in pop culture as hip-hop performers are touting it. Yes, it’s a sign of the times that we’re no longer in a Cristal economy, but a Moscato one. Here’s a taste of the hip hop lyrics from Ab-Soul: When things get hard to swallow / We need a bottle of moscato. And Trey Songz’ “I Invented Sex” (wherein he also admits to drinking “Ace“: It’s a celebration / Clap clap bravo. / Lobster and shrimp and a glass of moscato / finish the whole bottle.

I’ve recommended Moscato d’Asti as perhaps the ultimate wine for newbies so it doesn’t surprise me that it has taken off, presumably poaching market share from white zinfandel. But good moscatos from Piedmont producers such as La Spinetta or Elio Perrone, with acidity undergirding sweetness, are not the wines driving this lastest trend. But that’s fine. I adopt a live and let drink approach–if this is a “gateway” wine then so be it. Maybe next they will discover Riesling.

What do you make of this moscato madness–a good thing or the next incarnation of Nasty Spumante?

The business school students sniffed, swirled and spit the three glasses of Sauternes in front of them. They had come from places like Columbia, Northwestern, Stanford, and Harvard to sit under the tableaux and tapestries at the French Consulate on Fifth Avenue, try wines and answer questions, competing to win the big prize: making it to the finals in Bordeaux.

The challenge in this flight of sweet wines (that also included one from Barsac), was to identify first, which two wines came from the same vintage. Most teams got this one right. But then came the harder question: which vintage did those two wines come from?

Only one team guessed 2002, the correct answer, the group from Read more…

A parody from the BBC show “Mitchell and Webb.” Merger!

Would you drink wine if it weren’t for the alcohol?

Researchers at UCLA are threatening to put this difficult question to wine enthusiasts as they move a “sobriety pill” to clinical trials. Of course, we already have a device for sobering up: the credit card statement. But the researchers are working with extracts of the oriental raisin tree that have been used to treat hangovers in China for five centuries. The pill, based on dihydromyricetin (DHM), a component of the extract, has been found successful in reducing the effects of alcohol and hangovers in lab rats. That’s right, rats fed the substance after binging on alcohol no longer craved greasy breakfast nor did they spend the morning avoiding bright lights and loud noises! Read more at NewScientist.com.

The researchers say they are developing the pill to combat alcoholism, which seems debatable. But it does lay bare the motives for wine enthusiasts: would you continue to pay for and provide tasting notes for fermented grape juice if it gives you the same buzz as Welch’s?

Or would you actually drink more knowing that you could taste through every wine in a given region, pop a sobriety pill, drive home and go for a five-mile run in the morning?