Dr Vino's wine blog

“There’s an old saying in Tennessee –— I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on…shame on you. Fool me… you can’t get fooled again.”

George W. Bush, Nashville, Tenn., Sept. 17, 2002

That same quotation could apply to the latest round of Wine Blogging Wednesday where the theme was “judge a wine by its label.” Derrick has posted his roundup of over 40 bloggers who agreed: we might buy it once based on the label but what’s in the bottle counts more.

Technorati tags: wine | food & drink |WBW

In the immediate days after the Supreme Court’s May 16 decision on direct wine shipments, New York wineries oddly embraced the decision to open the state up to competition. Governor Pataki assumed the most bullish tone saying “By permitting the interstate shipment of wine in New York, we will allow New York’s wineries to grow even more by opening the doors to new markets across the country that were previously closed to them.”

I expressed skepticism about this argument saying:

Shipments to consumers in New York from New York wineries are bound to decline. The small section of the population that currently orders directly from wineries will likely celebrate the diversity of being able to order from California, Oregon and Washington instead. So they [the wineries] are betting on increased demand from out of state buyers, seemingly a risky proposal.

This is one case where I would love to have been proven wrong. Unfortunately a story in today’s Newsday reflects the current situation:

When state legislators and Gov. George Pataki this summer approved a law permitting direct consumer shipments of wine into and out of New York for the first time, winery owners like Charles Massoud of Paumanok Vineyards raised a glass in celebration.

The party didn’t last long.

Today, Massoud professes the sobering conclusion that the law may be reducing his wine shipments while increasing his shipping and office costs.

“In the end, we are worse off today than we were prior to the bill being passed,” he said with an air of defeat at his Aquebogue tasting room yesterday.

Massoud, and perhaps others, are caught in a trap of stagnating orders and increasing costs. He admits in the story that he has sent only 20 cases of wine to other states. And in-state shippers are now required to get a signature for all wine orders, similar to out-of-state shippers. This has eaten into their lucrative Wine Club business since people must now be home to sign and it has imposed an additional $2,400 paperwork on the winery. Given that the case prices of wine at the winery range from around $200 to $400, the additional cost of paperwork should be fairly easy to digest.

It’s not as if the paperwork was unforeseen and some in the industry, such as Willy Frank of Chateau Frank and Dr. Frank’s Vinifera Wine Cellars, were also skeptical when Pataki signed the bill.

It is a tough new era for New York wineries, one of opportunity as well as competition. Those that succeed will be the ones that pursue quality winemaking, have easy access to capital, or have a loyal customer following. I can’t imagine these changes single-handedly bankrupting many of the states 219 wineries–if anything, it could ween them off the high-margins of direct selling that developed in the decades before May and back toward more traditional channels of selling wine. The winds of competition can be cold and quality is the best strategy for success.

Technorati tags: wine | food & drink |New York

Which restaurant has 200 people a week get engaged on its premises? OK, I’ll give you a hint–it’s a chain. And it serves three million diners a week. And pours one million cases of wine a year. It is: the Olive Garden.

Those are just some of the factoids I learned at last week’s Wine Media Guild luncheon in New York City. The program included the provocative pairing of Karen King, who until last month was the sommelier at The Modern (one Michelin star) and formerly with Union Square Cafe and Gramercy Tavern, and Michelle Kern, Beverage Director for Olive Garden, a unit of Darden Restaurants.

Since many wine enthusiasts have probably never set foot in an Olive Garden, Kern’s insights were pearls before wine geeks. The national chain of 557 restaurants has a truncated list of 38 wines but includes a high-end Barolo and an Amarone. The chain offers 33 wines by the glass and any wine by the glass is available for a free sample. In fact, they pour so many free samples that they end up giving away 35,000 cases of wine a year. Once a bottle is opened it is pumped with vacu-vin and dated; if it is not consumed within four days it is deep sixed.

Wine is an important part of their dining experience: they show people enjoying food and wine in their advertisements and customer satisfaction increases in surveys when wine is served. It is undoubtedly an important part of their profits as well since the price of many of the wines by the glass covers the enitre cost of the bottle.

Providing diners a consistent experience is of course key for the chain. In an industry notorious for high staff turnover, the Olive Garden has 35 certified wine trainers who are sent to Italy every year to visit the wineries and then in turn educate the 35,000 staff. All staff are required to undertake a five day training session and a couple of hours a day are dedicated to wine service. Incidentally, screwcaps are viewed positively since then there’s no need to fumble with the cork.

Wine enthusiasts rarely consider the bottom end of the wine market. But I was pleased to learn more about the philospophy at the Olive Garden since it is the first wine experience for many Americans and the chain seems to be doing a lot right. Who knows, I might just have to find one and go see for myself?!

Technorati tags: wine | food & drink |dining | wine media guild

Wine consumers in Michigan can rejoice about new legislation that allows direct shipping. But will it too be challenged in court? [CBD]

Meanwhile, New York consumers await UPS and FedEx to start shipping. (Really?!?) [NYT]

Is alcohol to be targeted for new tax revenue? A poll shows little popular resistance.

During the night, protesters sealed the entrance to the Bordeaux Wine Council (CIVB) with bricks. [Decanter]

Would you like some Champagne with your Boston Creme? Not any more. In an end to what has been an unlikely grouping of wines and spirits with fast food, Pernod Ricard is entertaining bids for its Dunkin’ Brands unit, which includes Dunkin’ Donuts, Baskin-Robbins, and ToGos. Three private equity bidders are making bids (including the Carlyle Group) as well as the owner of Arby’s. Pernod acquired the fast-growing unit, which generated $4.8 billion in sales last year, in its takeover of Allied-Domecq earlier this year. [NYT]

In other business news, the acquisitive Constellation has decided to drop its effort acquire Vincor, Canada’s biggest winemaker and owner of the Inniskllin, Kim Crawford, and Toasted Head brands, for $1 billion cash. Vincor’s shares had been trading higher than Constellation’s offering price on the hopes of rival bids and the shares dropped 8% in yesterday’s trading, cushioned by the announcement of a buyback and a dividend. Constellation’s chief executive, Richard Sands, said Friday. “In these circumstances, we will move on to other priorities.” Who’s next? Maybe even Vincor again the speculates the Financial Times. [AP]

And my wine of the week: Bouvet signature Brut, $8. A bargain bubbly with almost all Chenin Blanc. Find this wine

Technorati tags: wine | wine news | wine picks

The poll is up! You can now vote for which wine words or phrases you want to leave behind with 2005.

* Pinot Noir
* Mondovino
* watering back
* hedonistic fruit bomb
and many more…

Vote which ones to ban!

Technorati tags: wine | words and phrases | poll

I couldn’t make up my mind: sure the label was pretty, but an $8 California merlot?! Miles clearly would not approve. I was also unmoved so and asked my fellow shopper to help me decide with a game of roshambo, also known as “rock, paper scissors.” I lost. The merlot went in my basket.

Derrick at Obsession with Food blog (the only other wine/food blogger I have met in person!) decided to pick the theme of choosing a wine by its label for this month’s edition of Wine Blogging Wednesday. (By way of background, a different blogger each month picks a theme for anyone to contribute a tasting note on that theme.)

The merlot was from the Healdsburg, CA “winery + gallery” by the name of Roshambo where they apparently have “rock paper scissors” contests. The wine I chose was called “rockpaperscissors” (find this wine) and had a cute label with a hand in each of the three positions. The bottle had a Stelvin closure, wine geek speak for screwcap. The wine was very fruit forward but quite atypical of a merlot–more berry than the traditional plum. It wasn’t horrible but I’m not rushing out to get another bottle. I see from their web site that they have other wines and I’m always willing to be convinced.

As they no doubt say at the winery after losing a round: two out of three?

Technorati tags: wine | WBW | wine labels

Aren’t they the little sweet ones? Er, the wines. Barbara and Jenna Bush were spotted sipping dolcetto, the tannic red wine from Northern Italy that literally means “little sweet one,” at Dino in Cleveland Park (Washington DC). The twins may be yin and yang, just like the grape’s description on the wine list:

Delightful: Rich, Straightforward, Friendly, Gulpable
Explosive: Ripe, Juicy, Fresh, Berry Flavors

What’s more interesting than the “star gazing” aspects of the story is the discovery of the restaurant that has an innovative and well-priced wine list, including many wines available three sizes: 3 oz pours, quarter liters as well as regular 750ml bottles. Dean Gold, a former wine and cheese buyer for Whole Foods, opened the restaurant (to somewhat mixed reviews) over the summer and decided to offer wines at $10 above retail. Now for wine geeks (do we count Barbara and Jenna among us now?) that’s worth seeking out!

Technorati tag: wine | Bush twins

In Live and Let Die, James Bond battles Mr. Big’s diabolical plan for world domination: to flood the streets with free heroin and drive out the other dealers. Once users are hooked, the villain can raise the price of smack and control the market.

Slate brilliantly made this analogy to Google’s business model recently. Give them free email, free blogging, in short, free smack for techies, and then they’re hooked on you through sunk costs and lock-in effects.

The reason I bring this up now is because this blog was down for four hours last evening. I run this blog on Blogger.com software, which is owned by Google. And the price of this blog you might wonder? It is free.

But my landlord doesn’t live downstairs and I can’t pound on his door and demand that he turn the blog back on. So I thought I would post a suggestion for people who are thinking about starting a new blog: use Typepad. Yes it costs $10 a month but hey, it’s worth it. Consider these additional features that Typepad has and blogger doesn’t:

1. Recently posted comments displayed on sidebar. Sometimes readers stumble on an older post through a Google search and post a comment but that is lost since it is far down on the blog.

2. Ability to truncate displayed posts. You can get a flavor of a posting from the first paragraph or two and maybe it’s not your cuppa tea (glass of wine?).

3. Categories!! A problem that I had for a long time with the usability of blogs was that they are a chronological spew of information. Typepad offers the ability to categorize postings so if you are only interested in wine recommendations, for example, then view only those. Wine commentary and analysis? Check out a display of those postings.

4. Trackback. Ease of tracking links back to a posting.

5. Technorati. Technorati is a clearinghouse for information in this digital age. It seems that Blogger based blogs have a hard time getting automatically indexed because the feed is outdated.

6. Images are easier and more flexible.

7. Free user tracking.

8. More details about posted comments such as the IP address of the poster and their email address.

And many more I’m sure…This is a hard posting for me to write since not only am I a fan of Google and their legions of clever engineers, there are costs for me moving my blog’s URL. But unlike heroin addicts, I am not dependent on this Mr. Big. If moving the blog means not only keeping the lights on this winter but also getting some of the above accoutrements (consider them blogging equivalents of heat and fresh paint) thrown in as well, then I won’t have any other choice.

PS- While on the subject of technology, I just downloaded the web browser Firefox 1.5 and it is great!

Technorati tags: wine | blogs | blogging | google