Dr Vino's wine blog

SPIT: carbon footprint
Forget the mode of transport or the weight of the glass bottles; my co-author neglected this in our calculation of wine’s carbon footprint: grape drying by helicopter in Napa! [NPR]

SIPPED: watching grapes grow
Viticulture & Enology is one of the sexiest majors at Cornell. Well, with the helicopter blow driers, why not? (Oh and what type of positioning is happening in their vineyard?!) [CornellSun.com]

SIPPED: buying binge
Chinese investors are no longer satisfied with mere wine: now they are buying wineries in Australia and Bordeaux. [Bloomberg, BBC]

SIPPED: wine in food
Short ribs feature at Men’s Health — with a delicious braising wine (and drinking) from Dr. Vino. But will it give you six-pack abs?

SIPPED: more wines at better prices?
The Pennsylvania governor released a report on privatizing the state’s liquor stores. [businessweek]

SIPPED: snappy advice
GQ.com has a fun list of 25 wine tips that may run counter to expectations (cool photos too). If you like your tips in book form, I mentioned many of these items in Dr. Vino’s guide, A Year of Wine.

SIPPED: Yeoman wine
James Conaway, who wrote Napa a couple of decades ago, now turns his eyes and palate to Virginia and its wines on the pages of Garden & Gun (really, who doesn’t get their wine news there?).

SPIT: brainwashing
As we did here recently, Matt Kramer also expresses distaste with the idea of “brainwashing” among wine consumers [WineSpecatator.com]

SPIT: left on the block
Sign o’ the times? Lafite fails to sell at auction in Hong Kong. “There weren’t so many buyers.” [Bloomberg, WSJ]

SPIT: AOC
So what if Anjou producer Olivier Cousin wrote “Anjou Olivier Cousin” on his box? Well, the authorities that preserve origins already have a monopoly on those initials so his wrist has been slapped the spanking paddle has been broken out with large fines threatened. [levindesamis]

SIPPED: Bacchanal and bananas
The Montmartre Harvest Festival is underway in Paris, celebrating the one remaining vineyard there, complete with kids’ programming, a parade for Bacchus and a tribute to France’s overseas holdings (not sure of the wine angle there…).

SPIT: brown bags
Wine picnics in Paris: what NYC could emulate if it weren’t for open container laws…enjoy a last gasp of summer this weekend! [Enjoy the photo above and more at WineTerroirs]

SIPPED: Prohibition
PBS has a three-part documentary airing next month about Prohibition. It’s directed by Ken Burns and based on the book “Last Call” by Daniel Okrent. Fire up the TiVo to see the battle of the “wets” vs the “drys”: the first episode is entitled “A Nation of Drunkards.” [WITF]

SPIT: Puritanism
Professor Lena Brattsten has offered a wine appreciation course to Rutgers undergrads for twenty years. And for twenty years, it has had an outlandishly long wait list. Remind me: Why aren’t there more undergraduate wine classes? [Rutgers.edu]

SIPPED: Manhattan harvest
A blogger joins what is perhaps Manhattan’s only grape harvest, 350 pounds from a single labrusca vine on the UES dubbed Chateau Latif. [Treehugger]

SIPPED: a Riesling rap
“My Riesling’s so tasty/I drink it so hasty/because it plays well with sausages in their casings.” [youtube]

SIPPED: remembrances
A touching piece that balances the pleasure of learning about wine with the horror of 9/11. [esquire]

SIPPED: quality
The Muscadet region, known for quantity over quality, now boasts three sites officially recognized as superior, as crus, including Clisson. So glad the authorities are catching up! [larvf.fr]

SNAPPED: fun pics of the 2011 harvest in the Loire (one of which is above). [Wine Terroirs]

HAMMERED: $500k of Lafite
A vertical of 25 solid cases of Lafite from 1981-2005 sold for $539,280 to an “anonymous Chinese phone bidder” at a Christie’s auction in Hong Kong. Great way to dump those ’91s! [WSJ]

SIPPED: going postal: The budgetary crisis at the US Postal Service puts wine shipping on the table. [NYT]

SPIT: frauds
Mike Steinberger summarizes the recent reactions–and adds his own–to Parker’s recent report on tasting fraudulent wines. [winediarist]

SIPPED: edumacation
My next NYU wine course runs Oct 12 – Nov 16. Registration and details.

SIPPED: English
“Drops of God,” a serial comic book from Japan that is purportedly addictive and moves the Asian wine markets, will finally be published in English next month. (Backgrounder)

SIPPED: horreur!
Lafite actually declined eight percent since April. [Liv-Ex]

SIPPED: getting pissy
Gerard Depardieu, vineyard owner, makes air travel fun for everyone. [NYPost]

SPIT: breathalyzer
An iPhone app tells you if you’re buzzed. But you don’t breathe into; rather, it’s a sobriety test of data entry. Would Gerard have passed the test?

SPIT: beer
Wine in Thailand: It’s not just for old, rich folks anymore, apparently. [BK]

SPIT and left for dead: bad web design
A Slate columnist examines the incredible suckiness of restaurant websites. Winery web developers, take a look!

SIPPED: keepin’ it klassy
Forget screwcap or cork: a company has just been authorized to put Bordeaux in a can. That should solve their marketing problems to young people since it will now be easier to shotgun!

SIPPED: robots again
Robots, last seen in our 2006 threat-down, are again meancing the sommelier class with their e-tongues! The new challenge comes from Catalonia but fortunately a somm bats it down at the bottom of the story. The world of dining remains safe for humans! But will the e-tongues threaten critics next, dunking into wine and spitting out points? [CNN]

SPIT: 2010 Bordeaux futures
Simon Staples of BBR in London says that total Bordeaux 2010 futures declined by 50% from the previous year, citing high prices and small releases from the chateaus. Only five percent of sales went to Asia. But auctions are still growing at a 46% clip in the first half. [Bloomberg]

SIPPED: winery stores
A new law in NY will allow wineries to open up to five sales rooms throughout the state. That’s all well and good, but why should wine stores owners still be limited to only one store in the state?

BOOSTED: …awareness!
Young Austrian winemakers have posed scantily clad for a calendar to boost…awareness! Of Austrian wine. Which one is Miss Gru Vee again? Appearing later this year: a calendar of old hag winemakers from the mountains. [Decanter]

CRASHED: shipping container
A forklift lifted 462 cases of wine 20 feet in the air! No, this isn’t the Guinness World Record for machinery; instead, the load fell to the ground destroying the Australian shiraz therein. Although the vintner, Sparky Marquis, is crying over spilled wine, he was also insured. [NYT]

SPIT: infomercials
RJonwine has a detailed account of this past weekend’s conference of wine bloggers in Charlottesville, VA. He decried the preponderance of “paid-sponsor presentations” on the program. Another blogger who is disenchanted with blogging finds the whole event salvaged by hanging out in the wee hours with fellow wine enthusiasts.

MULLED: deposits
Massachusetts may expand its bottle deposit program to include more beverages. If they were really serious about encouraging recycling, they’d raise the rate too.

SIPPED: me on the teevee
Well, sort of. Thirteen.org has a new magazine called MetroFocus, which has an article on NY wines. Spot the Dr, Vino quotage, more or less accurate!

SIPPED: informative infographics
A very cool map of world trade in wine from Rabobank. Just wish it were higher res!

In honor or “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me” bringing their weekly news quiz to the NYT, we offer a news roundup this week in quiz format.

1) According to a new study released, the Napa Valley will be “unsuitable” for what by the year 2040?
a) Luxury resorts
b) Walnut trees
c) Premium grape growing
d) Honeymoons

2) Surveillance cameras captured a former sommelier attempting theft, casually walking off with a Read more…