Dr Vino's wine blog

A news item in time for travel season: You might remember that last year France passed a law requiring two breathalyzers in each car–including rentals–at all times. The French were shocked to discover that the law passed as the result of a bare-knuckles practice known as “le lobbying.”

Well, in case you had breathalyzers on your packing list for France this summer, you can take them off because the French breathalyzer law was suspended back in January.

Meanwhile, in other news in the Department of Blood Alcohol Content, the National Transportation Safety Board here has recommended reducing the BAC from the current 0.08% to 0.05%. I haven’t read up enough on the recommendation to know if it would reduce the 10,000+ alcohol-related fatalities in the US, a tragically high figure. Intuitively, it seems the answer would be yes since four beers at 5% abv in a 90-minute period for a 180-pound male does seem like taking onboard way too much before getting behind the wheel. What do you say? At any rate, the lack of response from the wine industry has been surprising. Other industry groups, such as the Alcohol Beverage Institute and the National Restaurant Association, predictably lambasted the proposal. At any rate, we know that the policy decision won’t be influenced by lobbying…

“Craft beer is too hoppy. Discuss.” I tweeted that the other day in response to this Slate article. It sparked a good conversation on the twittuh and it seemed worth continuing here.

While I like hops, there are a ton of hoppy and overly hopped beers in the market today as well as high-alcohol beers. But that’s okay. It’s probably a phase akin to liking high-alcohol, fruity wines dripping with 200% new oak. They’re obvious and almost everybody gloms on to them at some point, usually the beginning, of their enjoyment of wine.

But there will likely be a backlash against big beers. As opposed to wine, where wineries can be locked into one style thanks in large part to location and grapes planted, breweries can pursue various styles at once, meaning the backlash could come to fruition quicker than wine. In part, that’s what pils and session beers are all about, which are lower in alcohol and refreshing. I had the Tank 7 Farmhouse ale the other evening, which, at 38 IBUs, was not too hoppy (though 8% alc is getting up there but the beer has good balance).

What’s your take on hops–the secret to good beer or too much of a good thing?

Continuing the significant changes unfolding at the Wine Advocate over the past six months, the publication has announced new terms and rates for trade subscribers. Previously, subscriptions were line-priced at $99 a year. Going forward, trade subscriptions will be $199. What do they get for the extra fee? Employees can use the same login. And trade accounts get to reproduce the WA’s scores and tasting notes as shelf talkers.

This is a bizarre choice for at least three reasons: it’s hard to enforce, any enforcement would breed ill-will among the trade, and it significantly reduces free marketing for the publication in the form of shelf talkers. Retailers who use scores are not loyal to publications; rather, they are mostly loyal to high scores and will use whichever is highest and free of legal entanglements/copyright issues.

Further, the new T&C insist on the shelf talkers use RPWA–Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate–for the publication as well as identify the critic by initials and use the publication’s logo.

I guess the new owners are making a calculated risk that by doubling the price, fewer than half the trade subscribers will bolt and they will still come out ahead on revenues. To me, it’s hard to see how these changes will expand the audience for “The Independent Consumer’s Guide to Fine Wine.” If you’re in the trade, what do you think of the new rates and terms?

Just catching up with this story…last fall, Rogue Ales in Oregon announced they had sourced a new yeast strain from an unusual place–the brewmaster’s beard!

Given the huge correlation between the hirsute and the hipsters, beard yeast could be the yeast El Dorado for “natural” wines. I guess the only question would be if it had to be labeled as such?

In 1789, the price of bread surged in France. And in heads rolled as a result.

Another symbol of France–wine–is being threatened with a 1,000% tax increase. Will riots break out across the country?

Who is the man with a set of grapes big enough to dare provoke the ire of the French winegrowers and wine consumers? It’s Yves Daudigny, a socialist senator from Aisne (“The Fightin’ Aisne”) in Picardie. I bet they don’t even make wine in Picardie! Wait, what’s that, Jimmy? Champagne is partially in Aisne, Senator Daudigny’s district? Okay, scratch that.

The Senator is clearly a tough nut to crack. Last year he proposed a 300% tax on palm oil in what was dubbed the “Nutella tax.” Mmm, taxes so high you can spread them on your bread in the morning.

Now he’s unleashing his tax machine on the wine industry, proposing to raise the tax from three euro cents to €0.30-€0.60 a bottle! This would bring it inline with beer and spirits. But we all know that beer and spirits deserve that tax. Was there ever a black and white photograph of a child toting a six-pack and a bottle of Johnny Walker under his arm? Non, monsieur!

Senator Daudigny, taxing wine in France is like taxing being French! It’s un-French to even consider it! Moreover, why would you want people to drink less wine? The wine industry is struggling because French people are not drinking enough of the stuff. If you really want a radical reform, try uncorking a take-your-wine-to-work day. Or Hug a Vigneron day. Or how about a subsidy for French wine? It’s already so expensive that people in Hong Kong are bidding bottles to stratospheric levels! Or subsidize hipster wines from the Jura or the Loire to jumpstart exports to Williamsburg and San Francisco.

Don’t make the winegrowers stage protests outside your office with pitchforks and corkscrews!

Robert Parker included some tasting notes on Bourbon in the most recent Wine Advocate. Over at the blog Scotch & Ice Cream, the author didn’t take too kindly to the fact that Parker put “his loafer-clad foot in our turf and has deigned to tell the masses what bourbon everyone should be drinking.”

I’ll leave you to discover the gems of the post yourself. But here’s one: “Apparently the wine world regards scarcity as a measure of quality.” Okay, and a spoiler: “The know-it-all wine critic has decided he is the arbiter of taste and quality on the American whisky scene while seemingly managing to not do even the most basic bit of research and self-education on the subject.”

FWIW: Scotch & Ice Cream thinks the Pappy Van Winkle 20 beats the snot out of the Pappy 23.

Rupert Murdoch, vintner? It’s true. Unlike fellow billionaire Warren Buffett who has invested on the less glamorous (but more profitable?) distribution side of the wine biz, the media magnate is going for the glitz–near Hollywood, no less. He’s buying what may well be the only winery in LA, the 16-acre Moraga Estate in Bel Air that was listed for $29.5 million. Murdoch broke the story on Twitter of all places; now the story has been picked up real estate blogs, which have abundant photos. The seller is Tom Jones, former CEO of Northrop Grumman.

I wonder if the wine will now have a certain, er, foxiness to it? If he were to rename it, what would it be called?

Moraga Vineyards

I was in Flatiron Wines last week and the staffer offered to sell me two bottles of Verset they were brokering from a collector. Verset? But didn’t he die a while ago? “Not Noël. They’re from his nephew Ira,” he joked.

He didn’t know that much about the producer (whose name is actually Alain but really is Noël’s nephew) and neither did I. Nonetheless, I bought the 2005 and said a quick prayer to Bacchus that it would actually be worth $49.95. Seemed like a reasonable bet given the quality of the appellation, the family name, and the store where I was buying it.

When I got home, I turned to The Wines of the Northern Rhone by John Livingstone-Learmonth. He writes that Alain has about one hectare (2.5 acres) of vines sprinkled over some to sites in Cornas–Reynards, Mazards, and Les Côtes, which is not enough to support his family of five children. Thus he works at a factory making garbage cans. Livingston-Learmonth writes that Alain Verset’s vinification is traditional–”whole bunches fermented for 10 – 15 days in concrete vats under the family home, and some pumping-overs.” Only indigenous yeasts power the fermentation and the wine is aged for up to two years in four- and five-year-old casks. Production is on the order of 900 bottles a year.

Curious and impatient, we uncorked the 2005 over the weekend. It was, indeed, a traditional Cornas, with little in the way of fruit notes, just stony minerals and a stiff backbone of tannin. Over a couple of hours it opened up but on the next day it had softened further. Savory and delicious syrah, the bottle was well worth the tariff. As M. Verset approaches retirement age from his factory job, perhaps he will make a few more bottles a year.

Find this wine at retail