Archive for the 'American wine' Category

The 2022 wine harvest is well underway

The 2022 wine harvest is underway! I’ve been reposting some winery photos and videos over on my Instagram account as stories. This wine harvest incredibly early: mid-August for some grapes in Northern California, the third week in August for Champagne (incredible for one of the most northerly wine regions), and some pinot nero in Piemonte.

In case you haven’t been outside this summer, it has been incredibly hot and dry–everywhere. Nazi ships that sunk long ago have reappeared in the Danube because the water level has receded so much, the Rhine has been almost impassible, there’s even a drought in southeast England, and the Loire is showing way too much sandy bottom. And we haven’t even gotten to the wildfires that have battered Spain, Portugal and even Bordeaux…

We’ll have to see ultimately what this means for the quality of the vintage. But fingers crossed and best of luck to all those vignerons! The past three years have all been crazy, one way or another. Read more…

Zoom tasting with Anthony Filiberti of Anthill Farms

The global nightmare known as coronavirus has brought enormous tragedy, uncertainty and change to the way we live. In the pre-2020 part of my life, I led lots of wine tastings, large and small, in real life. They were fun and informative! Now that we are all in a pants-optional world of Zoom, it’s no surprise that wine tastings are happening “virtually” now.

I have led a couple of dozen during the quarantine, mostly for private groups and corporations looking to reconnect. While they do have certain limitations, namely, the fact that it’s hard for most people to open more than two bottles a night, they do have advantages including being able to display maps and photos and videos more easily than in many group settings.

anthony filiberti anthillOne other huge advantage is that we can be joined by winemakers! Such is the case for a public tasting I am leading on Thursday, 5/28 at 6 PM eastern. Anthony Filiberti, winemaker at Anthill Farms in Sonoma, will join us. I ask him a few questions, then we will taste the elegant Anthill, Sonoma Coast, Pinot Noir 2018 together and have a general discussion. (find this wine) So grab a bottle if you can, or even if you can’t, join us on Zoom!

Anthill Farms site

The Kincade fire is awful

The Kincade fire has already burned 54,000 acres in Sonoma County, roughly the size of the area also under vine. There have been mandated evacuations of 180,000 residents and the 3,400 first responders have it only 5% contained. Strong winds have blowing sparks and embers huge distances but the winds are moderating. The governor has declared a state of emergency. Power outages have further disrupted many lives in the Bay Area.

It is terrible. Follow Twitter #kincadefire for the latest updates. Fortunately, for all the loss of property, no human lives have been lost. Please post in the comments about places where we can donate to help. Symbolically, buying a bottle of Sonoma wine could help show that we are thinking of them.

And then there are they Getty and Tick fires in Southern California…

Floods, hail, late frosts, and fire have all threatened vineyards around the world in recent years. The changing climate has really affected winegrowing dramatically.

Wine spills onto the docket at the Supreme Court


On Wednesday, the eyes of wine geeks and those in the wine industry will turn to the the Supreme Court. Wine will be on the docket, and, as you might expect, reds and whites do not map on to a political right and left. A love of wine is non-partisan even though no justice has ever proclaimed “I love wine” during confirmation hearings (only beer gets this kind of admiration!). At stake on Wednesday is whether wine shops can ship across state lines.

The biggest wine case the Supreme Court ever decided was Granholm v Heald in 2005. In their decision, the majority ruled that states could not discriminate between out-of-state wineries and in-state wineries—either they had to open up to shipping from all wineries or close the whole thing down. Fortunately for wine enthusiasts, almost all state chose to open up so consumers across the country now at least have the right to order wine from wineries.

But it has remained an open legal question whether this freedom for wineries to ship also applies to wine shops. In fact, Read more…

Trump – Macron state dinner wines


Last night’s state dinner in honor of French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte was the first of Donald Trump’s term. Would the current occupant of the White House shatter wine protocols at state dinners? Would the teetotaler whose name adorns a Virginia winery serve his own wine?

The White House has a tradition of serving only American wines at state dinners. This president was not going to put waves in that particular chardonnay glass–MAGA and all that. The menu included a chardonnay and a pinot noir from Oregon’s Willamette Valley, the white from Domaine Serene and the red from Domaine Drouhin. The focus on Oregon is apt since it is an area that has attracted many French winemakers and makes many wines in a Burgundian style. The Drouhin family was the first French family to buy vineyard land in Oregon back in 1987. And perhaps because the White House Events usher who selects the wine likes symmetry, he put Domaine Serene on the menu as the family behind it bought a property in Burgundy in 2015.

The official announcement of the menu had some interesting verbiage, noting the vines at Domaine Serene were “a combination of French plants from Dijon.” The statement continues that the wine was “aged in 40 percent French oak barrels for more than 12 months”–what of the remaining 60%? The Domaine Serene site clarifies that the wine was aged in 40% *new* French oak barrels. That makes more sense. On the Domaine Drouhin “Laurène,” the state dinner site says that the wine was “fermented in French Oak barrels.” (Can you believe they found two wines made in America that were aged in French oak? :P) By contrast, the Domaine Drouhin site says that the wine was first “fermented with indigenous yeasts, and then placed into barrels (French oak, never more than 20% new).” Details!

The White House Events usher also has a predilection for pairing off-dry sparking wine with ice cream. So he subjected the diners to an off-dry sparkling wine with dessert. Hopefully, someone can have a summit with him to lay down all off-dry sparklers with dessert!

Also, check out how Trump is holding his wine glass–eegad, someone alert Robert Mueller of this wine crime!

Full menu after the jump. Read more…

China targets US wine in tariff showdown

American wine has just gotten a dubious distinction: it features on a list of 128 items that may be subject to new Chinese tariffs. (spelling tip: tariffs ends in “FFS”!)

Saber rattling in trade between the US and China is escalating. The Trump administration announced $50 billion in tariffs on Wednesday and China responded yesterday with a more modest $3 billion. Of course, the two sides could be posturing and may come to an agreement before the tariffs hit the fan.

At any rate, wine featured on the list of items that would be hit with a 15% tariff into China. The US exports $79 million of wine to China, which seems like a drop in the Slavonian oak barrel of world trade. (Pretty small beer…) So even though it might sting in California, it is something of a backhanded compliment to US wine that it is seen as symbolically significant.

The US wine market is large and thirsty: by far the majority of wine produced in America gets consumed in America. California wine sold at retail fetched $35 billion in 2016. Beyond that, about a third of the wines consumed in the US are imported into what is a $60 billion market.

China is also a large and growing market for wine. As small as the US exports are to China, they were up a very healthy 47%. Australia, by contrast, with its small domestic market, has aggressively provided wine to the Chinese market. A new free trade agreement between the two countries means that Australian wine will have no tariff next year. France remains the largest source of foreign wine to China both in terms of value and volume.

Helping the wildfire recovery

wildfire_recovery

The wine country fires caused a lot of damage, that we know. But as the fires come under control and some residents return to their greatly altered lives after mandatory evacuations, we are starting to get a handle on the extent of what happened. Here is a sad list of 22 wineries damaged by the fires in both Sonoma and Napa. And there’s speculation that undocumented immigrant workers, vital to the system of wine making, may not return since they do not qualify for disaster aid and much of the low-cost housing was damaged.

Sadly, there have been reports of price gouging as well as insurance payouts being insufficient to cover some damage. One estimate put the total at $3 – $6 billion.

Clearly, the regions need a lot of help. As wine consumers, the most obvious thing we can do is to buy wine from the affected areas. There are a variety of local charities to contribute too as well. And in the past few days, sommeliers and winemakers have organized a charity tastings to raise funds to aid the wildfire recovery effort. The first will be locally in Healdsburg, also in SF and NYC. I expect these will be very well attended.
Read more…

Fires savage Napa and Sonoma

On Sunday night, a fire got out of control somewhere north of the Bay. Seasonally dry conditions had left the area like a tinderbox. So when whipping winds of up to 70 mph hit the initial flames, they spread, well, like wildfire. Tragically, the blaze has now prompted the evacuation of 20,000 people, burned over 1,500 homes, incinerated 73,000 acres and left 11 people dead.

Santa Rosa in Sonoma has been hit particularly hard. The flames have also jumped to Napa and Mendocino counties.

The NYT has some shocking photos from before and after. SFgate has coverage too–the video with the homes crackling as they burn really pulls on the heart strings. And this video driving down a street after the Tubbs fire is haunting. And these photosEsther Mobley of the SF Chronicle has been tweeting tons of updates.

The vintage 2017 may be tough in many parts of the wine world, but this is by far the worst.


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