SPIT: double standards
Speaking of the FTC, Blake Gray, former wine columnist for the SF Chronicle, has a lengthy post decrying the fact that the new FTC regulations come down harder on blogs than they do traditional media. [Gray Market Report]

SIPPED: funding freer trade
Frustrated by interstate shipping laws that thwart the ability to purchase wine out of state for 47 states? Consider bidding on wine lots in an auction to benefit the Specialty Wine Retailers Association, which fights legal battles for freer trade.

SIPPED: red wine
Chocolate milk, of all drinks, tries to muscle red wine out of the health news headlines: According to recent research as reported in the NYT, “flavanoid-rich cocoa” found in chocolate milk appears more effective at reducing inflammation that leads to atherosclerosis than regular milk! But the effects still aren’t as pronounced as with red wine. I can see it now: the choco-cabernet smoothie!

SIPPED: symbolic pricing
Joe Montana’s 500 acre estate that spans the Sonoma-Napa county line, is up for sale. The former 49ers QB, who also has a wine label, listed the property at $49 million. [WSJ]

SPIT: symbolic pricing
7-Eleven, the chain of 15,000 convenience stores, has announced their own wine label, Yosemite Road. Instead of pricing it at $7 and $11 a bottle for symbolic purposes, it will retail for $3.99. Aha! Maybe this will be the home of the choco-cabernet Slurpee? [AP]

SIPPED: another city winery
Hong Kong eclipsed New York City as the wine auction capital of the world this year, that we know. But this just in: Hong Kong has had a winery in the city limits since 2007. [CNN]

SIPPED: web voting
The website Foodbuzz recently distributed some blog awards and this blog won the category “blogger you would most want to be your personal sommelier.” Thank you for your votes but my question is, true to blogger stereotype, does that mean I have to pour wine in my pajamas? [Foodbuzz]

SIPPED: American wine
The White House continues pouring only American wines, so far from four states at official events. The first state dinner is coming up next month–stay tuned for what the Obamas pick for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh! [Obamafoodarama]

SPIT: American wine; SIPPED: generosity
While dining in lower Manhattan last weekend, Chief Justice John Roberts and his wife Jane sipped a bottle of Villa Mangiacane, a Chianti. When they finished their meal, they offered the rest of the wine to a neighboring table, specifically, Gay Talese who blogged about it for City Room.

SIPPED: wine service tips
A budding restaurateur offers his first 50 service tips for his staff, including several wine related ones including “For red wine, ask if the guests want to pour their own or prefer the waiter to pour.” [You're the Boss, NYT]

SPIT: old vines; SIPPED: apartment complex
Philip White, a wine writer in Australia, has a scathing critique of Constellation, one of the world’s largest wine makers and marketers, and their apparent plans to scale back in Australia. Particularly irksome to him was the uprooting of John Reynell’s 161-year-old vines at Reynella; 41 “tiny apartments” will replace the vines. [INDAILY]

SPIT: Iron and SIPPED: tannins
Tannins have always gotten the bad rap for mucking up red wine pairings with fish. But it turns out that it’s actually the iron! Read Ray Isle’s funny take on the research.

SPIT: the frontal cortex
“we shouldn’t expect our poor olfactory cortex to be able to reliably assign an exact point score…” [Scienceblogs]

SIPPED: Spooky decorations
TheSnarkHunter points us to this seasonal wine shop display at Biondivino in San Francisco; if you know of other good ones, hit the comments!

UPROOTED: vines
The crisis in Australia has forced the uprooting of grape vines and vineyards not to be tended to the tune of about 8,000 hectares. One industry observer suggests 20,000 hectares need to come out of production. [Adelaide Now]

SIPPED: seasonal drinking
In a subject near and dear to our hearts, Patrick Comiskey suggests some white wines for fall, ones that are “more zaftig, more mouth-filling.” [LA Times]

SIPPED: consolidation
Binny’s, a multi-store retailer in Chicago with revenues of $200 million, has agreed to purchase rival Sam’s, which had sales of $60 million in 2007 according to the Chicago Tribune.

SIPPED: tasting sized pours
Food and wine festivals remain popular, despite the economic downturn, as more are added every year. Food & Wine magazine, which pioneered the Aspen Food & Wine classic 27 years ago, now runs nine festivals around the country and in the Caribbean. [WSJ]

SIPPED: Bergerac bling
Russian oligarch Eugene Shvidler brings his own stimulus package to Chateau Thenac, in off-the-beaten-path Bergerac. “”Am I a wine aficionado? No. Would I call myself a big specialist? No. My approach was to buy the most expensive equipment and the most expensive consultants.” [Guardian]

SPIT: Doctor’s orders
Sean Connery, as James Bond, once had instructions on how to serve Dom Perignon ‘53 (hear audio). Now, diagnosed with a heard condition and told by his doctor not to drink alcohol, he sips (value) red wine on the theory that it is good for his heart. [winespectator.com]

And from food blogs, “Debate Rages: Is the Blogosphere Killing Thoughtful Food Journalism?” [grub street]

SIPPED: more nudity and wine
In Burgundy, 713 people take off their clothes to be photographed among the vines–all in the name of demonstrating against global warming. Randall Grahm had the bon mot on twitter: “Cotes de nue-its?” [greenpeace.fr]

SIPPED: Hong Kong
Hong Kong surpasses London and NYC as the largest wine auction market according to a story on Reuters. The Asian market for wine is “in danger of overheating” while the US is “weak” according to David Elswood, Christie’s international head of wine.

RIP: Gourmet magazine
After a review by McKinsey consultants, Conde Nast has decided to close Gourmet, the venerable food magazine. But if BusinessWeek, which lost $43 million last year, has attracted many bidders, why isn’t Conde putting Gourmet up for sale? Or making Anna Wintour stay at an EconoLodge?

SIPPED: changes in NYC dining
The new Michelin guide NYC comes out tomorrow; Daniel has been promoted to three stars, Alto rises to two stars and Corton debuts with two. Why Eleven Madison Park only gets one star is anyone’s guess. [Bloomberg]

Also in NYC dining, Chanterelle will now be closed permanently. Their long-time sommelier, Roger Dagorn, will now join Porter House according to Off the Presses.

And in NYS, the State Liquor Authority has a backlog of 3,000 applications; a report suggests a bureaucratic overhaul that may include making BOYB easier for new restaurants. [NYP]

SPIT: Canadian wine from Canada
Canadian wines can contain 70% imported wine and still say “cellared in Canada” on the label. Big companies are for the practice according to The Economist, who calls it “Blended deceit from the nanny state.”

SIPPED: pre-wine!
The Burcak is flowing in Prague. The cloudy proto-wine grape drink (pictured above) is a pre-fermentation wine that revelers delight in drinking. Legend has it that the Burcak continues to ferment in your stomach, leaving a lasting buzz, er, impression. [Globespotters]

SPIT: imports
Beverage Information Group reports that overall wine consumption in the U.S. rose 0.9 percent in 2008 to 294.7 million 9-liter cases. In a reversal of a recent trend, they report that imported wines dropped 1.8 %, while domestics rose 1.9%. Their culprit: the weak dollar.

SIPPED: Stomp!
The WSJ has a round-up of wine festivals around the world that include many grape-stomping opportunities.

Alert Hodgson!
A Fresno State student wine wins “record” 49 medals. [Collegian]

SPIT: reporting on Champagne
An article on JancisRobinson.com criticizes recent coverage of Champagne’s 2009 harvest. Main quibble: “After the harvest there will not be masses of grapes left to rot on the vine.”

SIPPED: changes in Chicago
Sam’s Wine & Spirits closed their South Loop location last month and now will close their Highland Park store. Meanwhile, Illinois now has an increased tax on wine, rising $0.13 per bottle to $0.28. As a result, distributor Rocky Wirtz has sued the state. Five other states recently raised taxes on wine.

SIPPED: Binge shopping
Annual wine sales at big box stores in France bring out “legions” of consumers. Carrefour sold six million bottles during its sale last year. [AP]

SPIT: bodybuilders
A new, lightweight (300g) glass bottle will debut in the UK next year. [Decanter]

SIPPED: “indelible stain”
Michael Broadbent’s lawsuit against Random House, publisher of the The Bilionaire’s Vinegar, only serves to draw attention to the “indelible stain on his record” that the Rodenstock/Jefferson bottles represent. [Slate]

SIPPED: wine geekdom
Jamie Goode explores the love-hate relationship between oxygen and wine, corks and screwcaps. [Wines & Vines]

SIPPED: public sector frugality
A general in the British Army made the news for £1.49 supermarket Merlot for his guests–among other cost saving measures. No moat cleaning for him! [Timesonline.co.uk]

SIPPED: private label brands
“A $3 unknown wine at Safeway makes you think ‘how can it be any good?’ while a $3 wine with the Trader Joe’s imprimatur makes you think ‘how bad can it be?’” [Wine Economist]

SPIT: pricing information
A pet peeve: winery and wine store web sites that don’t make it easy to tell the price and/or legal possibility of shipping without doing an arduous check-out or profile procedure.

SIPPED: lobbying
The Village Voice looks at the jockeying behind the legislative initiative to allow supermarkets to sell wine.

SIPPED and SPIT: growth (of the viticultural kind)
The AP offers more reporting on the coming harvest “under economic cloud.”

SIPPED: a second life for those OWCs
Wine crates as serving trays.

SIPPED: tree planting
An Australian winery will attempt to offset its carbon emissions by planting up to 10,000 trees worldwide. Let’s hope the trees fare better than those planted for Coldplay! [Perth Now]

SPIT: a tip of the hat
In the recent double issue, NY mag ran a long piece about ethical eating that included a mention of the carbon footprint of wine. Ditto Newsweek in their current double issue.

SPIT: bottled water
Mother Jones has a long article on the making of FIJI bottled water.

SIPPED: Chateau Plastique
The LA Times reports on the rise of plastic wine bottles. While PET bottles are lighter and therefore welcome from a carbon reduction perspective, it bears mentioning that plastic can’t effectively be recycled (from plastic bottles to plastic bottles), only “downcycled” (from plastic bottles to park benches). [See comments for update]

SIPPED: rise of byob
A piece on theatlantic.com praises Philadelphia’s culture of BYOBs. But then adds this kicker: “For serious BYOBers, the only problem with this arrangement is that they’re better off purchasing their wine in another state.”

SIPPED: responding to critics
After Jeremy Parzen called reporting about Brunello on decanter.com “egregiously disinformational,” Decanter handed the their most recent update over to Parzen and his co-blogger Franco Zilliani. Check out the latest on “Operation Mixed Wine.”

SPIT: sales
The NYT summarizes the effect of the recession on the California wine industry: “Brutal.” It continues: “Cash may be trickling, but anxiety is gushing forth.”

SWISHED: retail change in NY
A proposal to reform New York’s retail and allow wine sales in supermarket failed earlier this year. One state Senator has introduced new legislation that would allow not only wine sales in supermarkets but also food sales in wine stores and a “medallion” system instead of licensing. Owners could operate more than one location in New York, also a change. Time will tell whether this initiative fares differently. [LoHud]

SIPPED: ultra low prices
An (unlabeled) Australian wine is selling for $1.99 at a store in Sydney, or “cheaper than water.” Meanwhile, John Brecher and Dorothy Gaiter estimate that the value of juice in Fred Franzia’s new Down Under Chardonnay (retail: about $3) costs “about 35 U.S. cents or less.”

SIPPED: Schmoozing and blogging
Wine Business Monthly reports from the Wine Bloggers’ Conference; Jim Gordon of Wines & Vines has tips for bloggers.

SPIT: stems on Air France
Air France has introduced a new line of stemless wine glasses in Business and First (aka Affaires and La Première). Are the wines served any good? Hit the comments with your on-board experiences.

Since when is nude bicycle flying considered immoral or sensuous? Imprudent and unsafe would be more like it. If the nymph were in today’s Tour de France, she would at least be required to have a helmet!

In other important wine and cycling news, after the grueling day up Le Mont Ventoux, Lance Armstrong tweeted: ““went to dinner with the RadioShack guys [his new team]…had a few more glasses of wine than I normally would.” And after the tour he posted a pic enjoying a (large) glass of wine with cycling legend Eddie Merckx. The man clearly enjoys wine, so how long until we see an Armstrong celebrity wine? If it ever arrives, he will, no doubt, be fully clothed.

SPIT: wine and coke
Bulgarian authorities found bottles of Bolivian wine (yes, it exists!) to contain massive amounts of liquid cocaine! According to Decanter.com, all but 68 of 1,020 bottles of Bodegas Kohlberg wine were found to be liquid cocaine. Wow, that would have been a shocker to open one of those from your local store! More evidence that mixing wine and coke is never a good idea…

SIPPED: Department of What The…
Decanter also reports that a winery in Brazil (yes, there are some!) will be making its first ice wine. The Perico Winery is making the wine for export in 2010 from a vineyard 1,300 meters (4,265 ft) above sea level.

SIPPED: Grande Pinot
Starbucks is going local. In a store rolling out this week in Seattle, the chain will be trying out a “coffeehouse” format, eschewing the ‘Bucks name and logo. According to a story in the Seattle Times that includes tales of their local snooping, the location “will serve wine and beer, host live music and poetry readings and sell espresso from a manual machine.” But will they have grande nonfat Pinot?

SPIT: family relations
Gary Heck of Korbel has sued his daughter, Richie Ann Samii, for defamation in postings on Craigslist. She denies the allegations in the Sonoma Press Democrat. The two are also involved in legal maneuverings over a multimillion dollar stake in the company.

SIPPED: fraud
Why do the empty wine bottles that fetch the highest prices on eBay correlate with those that are the most expensive and presumably authentic when full? An academic study (in progress) suggests counterfeiting. [Freakonomics]

SPIT: fraud
Researchers at the University of Bourgogne in Dijon have developed a way to track the barrels used for aging a wine: using a mass spectrometer. Each forest has an identifiable fingerprint for its lumber and that can be traced for 10 years after leaving the barrel. The researchers suggest that it could prevent fraud in wine, passing off a less expensive wine as a pricey one. But perhaps its best use might be to track whether the barrels came from the same pricey forest they claim to be from–or a low cost competitor. [New Scientist]

SIPPED: Wine paraphernalia on display
The Art Institute of Chicago has a two-month exhibit called “A Case for Wine: From King Tut to Today.” They describe the exhibit as the first of its kind at “tracing this beloved libation’s surprisingly significant role as a stimulus and source of artistic endeavor.”

SIPPED: red wine in the Tour
And if you were third overall in the Tour de France, what would you imbibe the evening before the rest day? Check out Lance Armstrong’s tweet for his answer: “Made it to Limoges…Gonna have dinner, drink a glass of red wine, talk to my kids, and crash out!!” Hopefully it was the real deal and not the powdered “wine.”

SIPPED: jugs
Dottie Gaiter and John Brecher recommend jug wines. But little jugs, really, just magnums. No Carlo Rossi. [WSJ]

SIPPED: viticultural sprawl
On Friday, the federal authorities that regulate wine gave the thumbs up to a new American Viticultural Area. And true to our rule, that the bigger they are, the more useless they are, this 29,914 square mile sprawlapalooza, our largest AVA, covers portions of Iowa, Minnesota, Illinois and Wisconsin and will be known as the Upper Mississippi River Valley. The TTB writes in the announcing document (found here as pdf) “We designate viticultural areas to allow vintners to better describe the origin of their wines and to allow consumers to better identify wines they may purchase.”

SIPPED: divine intervention
An Italian priest blamed Holy wine he had consumed at four masses that day when he was pulled over–and arrested–for drunk driving. [Daily Mail]