1) As a previous post-er said, rightly, Pinot Noir is a grape. It is not an appellation. Plant Pinot Noir anywhere – in Canarsie, in Wasilla, in Helsinki – if it bears fruit, that fruit is Pinot Noir. The Merlot that was supposedly used in the blend – the Merlot that makes, among other wines, Chateau Petrus – is not a traditional grape in the Languedoc either.

2) That thing we call Terroir: The language that you cite comes from INAO texts, the decrets by which appellations are defined. They are more hortatory than they are useful. The words “tradition” and “typicity” have done more to subvert the quality of French wine than a Gallo-Boisset partnership could accomplish in the wildest of their dreams.

IMHO terroir applies to that which is immutable: the soils, the subsoils, the elevation, the exposition, the opening of the countryside, the microclimate. While finding the right grape variety for a specific place is important, it is not the most important factor: terroir is. Plant Sauvignon Blanc in a Grand Cru vineyard of Chablis, treat it well, and you’ll have a great white wine. [In the name of typicité, such a practice is not allowed by the appellation. -Ed.]

3) As long as we encourage the production of great, terroir-specific wines, there is nothing wrong in allowing a parallel universe of beverage wines. I know that I was not born with a tastevin in my mouth. I started out with Mateus, Lambrusco Riunite and Zellerschwartzekatz (sp?) which had the added attraction of a plastic black cat attached to the neck of its bottle. We all start somewhere. There’s nothing wrong with well-made, reliably pleasant, affordable wines – so long as they don’t endanger “real wines.” In fact, they probably introduce people to wine in a non-threatening way and may lead a large percentage of those people to drink better and more authentic, site-specific wines.

4) And just for the record, I hated Mondovino. It was as simplistic and wrong-headed as this article. Nossiter, hyperventilating with a glass of Chablis on a terrace on the Place de l’Odeon with Charlotte Rampling. Spare me.

On Friday afternoon, Adam Borden resigned as executive director of the pro-reform group. The Baltimore Sun reported that he had lobbied aggressively for the cause–even calling a delegate’s mother–and ruffled some feathers. They quote him as saying he was resigning because he didn’t want his style to hurt the cause. His resignation letter is reproduced here in full after the jump.

Some key contacts:
Marylanders for Better Wine and Beer Laws and their page On Facebook
Delegate Dereck E. Davis, Chair, Economic Matters Committee
Senator Joan Carter Conway, Chair, Education, Health and Environmental Affairs Committee
House Bill (80/141); Senate Bill (26/47)

Sent this morning from the Marylanders for Better Beer & Wine Laws:

My name is Adam Borden, and I’m a wine drinker.

I am also the Executive Director of Marylanders for Better Beer & Wine Laws, a non-profit advocacy group trying to legalize wine shipping in our state. Friday, I spoke for the last time in that capacity. I am hereby announcing my resignation as Executive Director effective immediately.

When I first took over Marylanders for Better Beer & Wine Laws 15 months ago, I always knew consumers wanted wine shipping. What I neither knew then nor could have imagined was just how substantial our group would become. During my tenure, MBBWL has increased its membership from 1,500 members to over 20,000. Our elected officials have been inundated with calls, emails and faxes pleading with them to finally make this a reality. Not just fine wine drinkers are upset that wine cannot be delivered. I received an email last week from someone who is angry that he can’t send a bottle of wine as a gift to someone … and he doesn’t even drink. Period.

Wine shipping is not just a consumer issue. Our supporters are also county governments, chambers of commerce, economic development agencies, wineries, retailers, gift basket makers, entrepreneurs, farmers, grape growers … the list goes on and on. The only people not on this list are the liquor wholesalers, who refuse to this day to meet with us. They do not want wine shipping because it would amount to 1% of the wine sold in the state … and these are wines they don’t even carry.

Sure, they espouse arguments that seem legitimate like worrying about the kids, the difficulty the state might have in collecting taxes or the detrimental impact on local liquor stores. These arguments like all their others are smokescreens. They are cover for the plain business interest driving their motivation. They will stop at nothing to maintain their stranglehold on Maryland’s liquor supply and fear that wine shipping is the proverbial “camel’s nose under the tent” that would loosen their profitable franchise.

Who are these “barons of booze” to quote the Washington Post? The two main distributors in this state are estimated to supply 70-80% of the total liquor and wine in Maryland. It is a duopoly. These companies are enormous, operating in multi-state jurisdictions and grossing hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. It is estimated that they and their friends have contributed to the campaigns of over 80% of the Maryland General Assembly.

Many in leadership have said that 2010 is NOT the year to debate wine shipping. Why not, I ask you? Because our leaders fear angering what is arguably the most generous political patron in the state at a time that every incumbent Delegate and Senator desperately needs campaign funds.

But all of this is not news to any of you. If the wine shipping debate truly rested on its merits alone, our elected leaders would have passed it long ago. Instead, the bill has been hijacked by the liquor lobby. Friday, we announced that we came to a critical common understanding with our opponents on this issue. We can finally agree on one thing: they want this bill killed more than anything else. They will stop at nothing to see it defeated rather than work on a meaningful compromise. No matter the thousands of constituent letters and telephone calls, no matter the prominent levels of support throughout the state, no matter the logic of our arguments, our elected leaders are hard-pressed to challenge the liquor lobby.

I am still an optimist. I have not given up hope. There are so many good people in the General Assembly who want this to pass that I still continue to believe that 2010 can be our year. Direct shipping will not create world peace. It will not solve our budget crisis (though it will indeed help). Nonetheless, direct shipping will do so much good for so many people all over Maryland that I know its day is just around the corner.

In the course of growing and building Marylanders for Better Beer & Wine Laws, I have pursued a grass-roots approach. Rather than play an inside game, we have gone directly to voters around Maryland to inspire them to take action. We’ve always played by the law but not always by the rules of Annapolis. As a result, my advocacy for this issue has sometimes rubbed politicians the wrong way. My own state senator from the 43rd District, Joan Carter Conway, is probably the most notable example; however there are others.

Because I care so much about this effort and about seeing Maryland enter the 20th century, let alone the 21st, I announce my resignation today. I hope my stepping down will in some small way advance the cause, allowing others to pick up from where I leave off. I would hate for my involvement in this legislation to be the reason for its demise one more year. Paul Hoffstein, a dear friend and fellow wine lover, will be taking over as interim director until someone more permanent can fill the position.

I want to be clear, though, that my resignation is in no way a concession of defeat. Nor does it mean that I will stop advocating for direct wine shipping, which I believe in wholeheartedly and have dedicated more time to than I can possible quantify over the last year and a half. I have taken no money from the organization and stand to gain nothing from the passage of this legislation.

I stand before you to deliver this message, “With my resignation today, there is NO reason that I know of, with the exception of the all powerful influence of Maryland’s liquor lobby, that this year’s direct wine shipping bill should not become law.”

If I have any regret about what has happened, it is only that I have not been able to share this news with any of our thousands of supporters before now. I want to thank each and every one of them for their continued dedication, especially those here today to testify on behalf of the house bill in Economic Matters this afternoon.

I am not yet a cynic and pray that our elected leaders will prove me wrong. With so much support and so many legislators behind this year’s bill, I continue to believe that 2010 will be our vintage. Thank you.

Tastefully yours,

Adam Borden
Former Executive Director
Marylanders for Better Beer & Wine Laws
4315 Underwood Road
Baltimore, MD 21218
Tel: (443) 570-8102

http://www.mbbwl.org

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/mbbwl
Twitter: http://twitter.com/mbbwl
MeetUp: http://www.meetup.com/Marylanders-for-Better-Beer-Wine-Laws/
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=1873279
Donate: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=2184279

Maryland is also home to 38 wineries today. Seeking to jump-start the domestic wine industry after Prohibition, the US Department of Agriculture turned to this mid-Atlantic state, opening an experimental winery in Beltsville, Maryland. Even though it was not long-lived, today’s wineries follow the early trail blazed by the Feds. The only problem: they cannot ship their wines to consumers in-state or out-of-state. In a recent survey (pdf), all but one winery respondents found this to negatively affect their business.

The keys to reforming the laws that have kept Marylanders locked out of the wine cellar for several decades may be within reach. Although the legislation has been introduced every year since 1981, Adam Borden, executive director of Marylanders for Better Beer and Wine Laws, says that this year it has majority support in both houses.

But the legislative path is not without roadblocks. Who has screwcaps big enough to stand in the path of this legislation? Senator Joan Carter Conway, chair of the Health and Education committee, threatened to stifle the bill in committee despite six of nine members being co-sponsors. But today, a committee in the House will hear testimony on the issue.

Robert Parker, Maryland’s best-known wine consumer, will not be testifying today since he is traveling, according to Borden.

Marylanders for Better Wine and Beer Laws and their page On Facebook
House Bill (80/141)
Senate Bill (26/47)

Thanks to shortfalls in state budgets, state authorities are increasingly looking to liberalize liquor distribution according to a piece in the WSJ yesterday. The issue is in play in at least Washington State, Virginia, North Carolina, Mississippi, and Vermont.

Privatization could be a mixed bag for wine enthusiasts. Consider the story of Chicago parking meters.

In early 2009, without much debate, the city council decided to sell a 75-year lease to operate the city’s parking meters. A private group led by Morgan Stanley paid $1.2 billion (about 60 times 2008 meter revenues), a portion of which helped plug the immediate budget shortfall. The first thing the group did was raise the meter rates. Then the group raised rates again, quadrupling in some areas during year one. In the first few weeks, there were reports of vandalism of the meters, a lack of repair from the new authority, confusing new meters, a lack of response to citizens and journalists who called with questions, and a higher incidence of parking tickets (the revenue from which the private group keeps). A poll last fall found that nine out of ten Chicagoans didn’t like the deal and Mayor Daley (“mayor for life”) saw his approval rating drop below 35 percent.

This example has a couple of lessons for wine. First, privatization does not equal liberalization: slothful monopolists who raise prices and limit choices can be either public or private. So as states contemplate privatizing alcohol distribution, the key aspect is fostering competition that allows niche distributors to emerge to sell fun, small production wines from the Cote Chalonnaise, or wherever. And why not take liberalization all the way and mandate out-of-state shipping from both wineries and retailers at the same time, with a mechanism to secure tax collection? Or allow ways for innovative retailers, restaurants or wineries to handle their own sourcing or supplying of wines, free of a middle tier? Or allow multiple distributors in a state to carry the same wines?

Further, privatization can easily be botched by the short-term thinking that drives most politicians: Don’t sell a 75-year lease for something that the private firm(s) can recoup in a fraction of that time. Privatization would also create more private profits that could be cycled back into electoral campaigns for politicians, further entrenching the prevailing three-tier system. Whether or not you want to raise a glass to that may depend on where you live.

Well, if you’ve ever thought that then you will like Governor Paterson’s latest proposal to allow wine sales in food stores. He tried it last year but the measure was poorly thought out since it just focused on the grocery stores selling wine and not what would happen to current wine and spirits stores. Ultimately, it met resistance, and was dropped.

But it has been re-animated this budgetary year and this time the governor is trying to mollify the opposition by allowing wine stores to also sell “non-alcoholic beverages, food products, newspapers, cigars, gift packaging, glassware and storage items for wine and spirits.” (Note: no beer.) Licensees could also have more than one store, buy with other shops in a consortium, sell wine to restaurants and bars, have 60 days to pay for suppliers wine instead of 30 and, yes, have ATMs!

Such concessions constitute an admission that the proposed reform will hurt the business of existing wine stores. Indeed, the group opposing the reform, The Last Store on Main Street, claims it will cause the closing of almost 40 percent of New York State’s 2,400 wine stores. The group also claims that liberalizing wine retail laws would lead to an increase in underage drinking. It’s too bad they played the underage card since it always seems to be stooping to fear-mongering. Is there more underage drinking in the 35 states that do allow wine purchases at grocery stores? I doubt it.

While the New York laws are in many ways absurd, the best pro-consumer argument in support of them is that the there are so many great wine shops (particularly in and around the City). The protectionist laws have contributed to the building of an incredible wine culture. Retailer Jeff Zacharia commented that he thinks the number of fine wines available in the NY market would shrink if the proposal passes. Unfortunately, he did not elaborate on this point.

Will that culture remain without the laws? Probably, almost entirely; there are great wine cultures in San Francisco and Chicago to name a couple of cities where supermarkets sell wine. But it will be less profitable for good wine merchants as some wine consumers opt for the convenience of throwing a wine in their grocery cart, hence the governor’s concession to allow sell food and knickknacks. (For the boring shops trading on location–last year we called these the wine & liqu–they will have to rely on spirits sales and ATMs. Or step up their service or selection.)

New York budget politics are uncertain but this proposal seems better designed for passage than last year. But if it is going to happen, why not sweep away the remaining restrictions and allow wine stores to sell beer, as grocery stores will be able to sell both, and allow them to open at 9 AM on Sunday. Stay tuned for the log-rolling between now and April 1.

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.

SWIRLED: wine tax increase
The Senate finance committee considers raising the federal excise tax on wine (and beer)–and introducing a tax on other beverages, such as soda–in the name of funding health reform. The last increase in the federal excise tax on wine was 1991, when it was increased to $1.07 a gallon for still wine under 14% alcohol. Prior to that, the rate had been stable since 1951 at $0.17 a gallon.

SPIT and SIPPED: New Vine Logistics
New Vine Logistics, a Napa-based company that provides order fulfillment to 200 wineries and may have been involved in the back end of Amazon wine, startlingly ceased operations a week ago. But faster than you could say “Chrysler,” it found an apparent savior in Inertia Beverage Group. Follow the action over at wineindustryinsight.com.

SPIT: signs as a threat to the environment
The steep hillside vineyards of Hermitage may be preserved under an environmental heritage act. Such an action could jeopardize the signs of Chapoutier and Jaboulet on those hillsides (“one of the region’s most beloved landmarks” according to the Chapoutier web site), which may have to be removed as a result.

The wine in question is a so-called vin de paille, or straw wine, made in miniature quantities. This sweet wine has its origins in the Jura, the Alpine region of France, and gets its name from the straw mats that the grapes are dried upon for months after harvest and before a long fermentation (Stein said his takes 12 months). Germany has many sweet wines, of course, but the sweetest wine of all, the Trockenbeerenauslese, gets its sweetness from the distinctive botrytis rot.

The lanky, hirsute Stein told me yesterday that covertly made his vin de paille for decades and labeled it as a Trockenbeerenauslese, as you can see in the picture. But he wanted to make it legally and brought the issue to a German judge, who turned down his request based on the 1971 German wine law, which claimed that grapes in the vin de paille were not fresh enough. Stein appealed. The next court turned him down. Eventually he appealed to the European courts and won the right to make vin de paille from the 2007 vintage. He added the court granted him the exclusive right in Germany to make vin de paille.

The 2003 that I tasted is a lovely, rich dessert wine. If I were a judge, I wouldn’t ban it.

As to the other Rieslings in his portfolio, they are all very good and interesting. But the standout for me was the Stein Bremmer Calmont Riesling Spatlese Trocken 2007. The delicate, slight sweetness (7.5 grams of residual sugar–all natural) embraces a vital core of acidity and minerality. Very nice.

In an op-ed in yesterday’s NYT, wine shop owner Marco Pasanella makes the case that he and other independent shops should be allowed to expand to have more than one location and be able to sell bread, cheese, microbrews, and, yes, recyclable bags, which they are not allowed to currently sell. I’ll drink to that! In fact, it is absurd that this corollary is not in the proposed reform legislation and should be corrected immediately.

I stopped by Pasanella & Son last week for a book signing. It is a handsome shop with an antique Fiat on the floor; the wine selection is excellent. The staff did a fantastic job setting up the event and it was great to see so many people, particularly from the neighborhood turn out. In his op-ed, Marco says that the staff at a local shop will remember a customer’s name. In fact, one woman there that evening told me that the staff member actually remembered which wine she had bought on her previous visit when she couldn’t. Bet that won’t happen at D’Agostino.

Also check out their clever and popular free wine and movie nights, Sip ‘n Cinema!

“If You Sell Wine, Then Let Me Sell Cheese” -NYT op-ed
New York City wine shops, a map

SPIT: insanity!
In 2007, Illinois wine consumers became legally prohibited from buying wine from out-of-state wine stores, thereby reducing a national market for wine to a local one. State Representative Julie Hamos from Evanston–where I lived for several years and, ironically, the home of the once-powerful Woman’s Christian Temperance Union–has submitted a bill to repeal this restriction. The Chicago Tribune had an editorial in support of the new bill calling the current situation “boneheaded.” Learn more about how America got to this point in my book, Wine Politics.

SPIT: minimum pricing
Prime Minister Gordon Brown of the UK rebuffed an attempt to set high minimum prices for alcoholic beverages. The chief medical officer, Sir Liam Donaldson, sought the increases, which would have doubled the price of some beer and spirits and set a minimum price of £4.50 for a bottle of wine as a strategy to combat binge drinking. Separately, Scotland is set to impose minimum prices on alcohol by year-end. [Guardian]

SIPPED: more celebrity wine
The latest entrant into the crowded field of celebrity wines is Sting (who has chosen the downturn in the NYC real estate market to offload his Manhattan apartment, btw). The two red wines will come from his 300 hectare (!) Tuscan property and are, as yet, unnamed. Will they go with Message in a Bottle? [The Times of London]

That’s why he has proposed to allow food stores to sell wine, a subject we discussed the day the idea was floated. To recap the budgetary logic, he proposed to more than double the excise tax on wine and increase the points of sale beyond the 2,400 wine and liquor stores in the state and allow the 19,000 grocery stores to sell wine. The Governor’s office estimates that it will bring in an additional $150 million over three years, presumably from new store license fees and excise taxes rather than an increase in overall purchases. The deficit for next year alone is forecast to be $15 billion.

Shortly after I moved to New York State from Chicago four years ago, I was looking for a supermarket wine for a story and wondered where you found “supermarket wine” in New York. The answer is epitomized in this store I saw the other day, which we can call “Wines & Liqu” since that’s the only part of the neon sign that was illuminated. It’s these stores, uninspiring package stores, that don’t much invest in human capital and stock high-volume brands that will be most threatened by the impending change.

But alongside the Wines & Liqu stores are thriving boutiques that is probably the best concentration of wine stores in the universe. Check them out on my map of NYC wine stores if you want to explore some of the rich tapestry that blankets NYC. In the best of times, these stores would have little to fear from Costco, Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, Food Emporium, and Fresh Direct (oh wait, they already do) selling wine. But this is not the best of times; it is the worst of times economically so an erosion of even a small percentage of these stores’ business could bring them to the edge of a precipice.

So the challenge for these stores is to make this into an opportunity. One option is to take a page from the Chicago store playbook and add cheese, cured meats, and craft beers, sort of a gourmet deli with a strong wine focus. Another option is to continue to invest in staff training, since big box retailers all too often let the flaps of paper do the talking. In my view, the staff represents one of the great assets of small stores; forming a good relationship with someone on the staff can be worth it’s weight in, well, Cabernet. A final strategy that requires more capital (you remember back when banks made loans, don’t you?), would be taking a winning wine store and expand it to other parts of the city or state.

Many stores offer a discount to purchases of 12 bottles or more, in part because they get volume discounts when they buy from wholesalers. But food stores selling wine could siphon off the one or two bottle customer. Far be it for me to want to clog up my wallet any more, but perhaps a loyalty card scheme might come in handy and apply a discount retroactively after twelve bottles purchased. Or take a page from the air miles rewards program and offer customers tiered service through loyalty discounts or other perks based on total expenditure in the year. Price competition is likely to be more acute in the next chapter of NY wine retail, particularly if interstate wine shipping becomes a more widespread reality (but even this holds within it the opportunity to legally expand the market for boutique wines to states that don’t have such a varied selection).

Could interesting wines end up on supermarket shelves? Absolutely; I’ve certainly gotten interesting wines in supermarkets in Chicago and California. But supermarkets often operate with a regional buyer who sets up an approved list. And the list at even the best may not be extensive and small wineries, often the source of tasty bargains and interesting splurges, may not on the list since they don’t have sufficient volumes to supply a regional or national chain. As to drinking locally made wine, it’s probably a fair guess that since most wineries in New York don’t produce a lot of volume, they wouldn’t be winners under the reform either.

It will be fascinating to see what New York wine retail looks like in five years, assuming the proposed legislation passes. But to survey what the situation looks like now and hopefully generate some ideas, I’ve talked to several wine shop owners about their stores and their thoughts going forward. Check back for the first in our 2,400 part series, Better Know a Wine Shop.

Adieu, Copia?
Copia, the wine, food and art museum and restaurant in Napa City, closed on November 21 and has filed for Chapter 11. The original $55 million in funding came at least half from Robert Mondavi. The NYT promises more coverage tomorrow. [Diner's Journal]

Biodynamics is poop
In what promises to be a salty interview, French actor-vintner-restaurateur Gerard Depardieu–who once joked that his mother’s amniotic fluid was actually wine–disdains biodynamics claiming the vineyard treatment “doesn’t exist.” Then he claims that he uses biodynamics at his Chateau de Tigne property in Anjou only because he is “poor.” [Decanter]

Michigan: no delivery?
A federal court struck down Michigan’s law that prohibits out-of-state retailers from shipping to Michigan residents while allowing local wine stores to deliver. While the case is on appeal, a new bill in the legislature tries to create a level playing field–by preventing local wine stores from delivering! See the op-ed against the bill in Crain’s Detroit Business.

The duty on a bottle of wine under 15 percent alcohol in the UK is £1.46. Throw in VAT at 17.5% and you can see why it is essentially impossible. Even wines under £4.99 have a distinct aroma of taxlicious since 40% of the price paid at the register ends up going to HM Treasury.

That’s one of the things I learned writing a short piece about wine politics for The Guardian & Observer guides to wine, which appeared on Saturday on news stands in the UK (a second part of the guide will follow shortly and I have another piece in that). Fortunately, since I can’t pop down to a WH Smith and pick up a copy, the full contents of the section are available on the Guardian web site. Be sure to check it out for more fascinating articles by Jancis Robinson, Steven Spurrier and others.

Mike mentions the growing ranks of quality producers who have had wines refused by the tasting portion of the appellation process. When the list includes names such as Jean Thevenet, Didier Dagueneau, Eloi Dürrbach, Marcel Lapierre, Thierry and Jean-Marie Puzelat, Marcel Richaud, Georges Descombes, and Philippe Jambon, you’ve got to wonder if that doesn’t say more about the appellation politics itself. But there’s one other notable rule breaker who could be included in that list: Philippe Pacalet.

I caught up with Pacalet at the IPNC last month in Oregon–his first visit to the U.S. In the above picture he poured me a taste of his absolutely delicious 2005 Pommard, light in color and body with terrific aromatics, from a tea kettle shaped decanter (find this wine).

Pacalet is the nephew of Marcel Lapierre, one of the leaders of natural wine in France whose scrumptious Morgon 2006 I’ve mentioned before. In the 1980s, he developed an affinity for natural wines working with his uncle and Jules Chauvet, an important figure in the early days of natural wines in France. Today, he is a winemaker but doesn’t own any vines–he rents. He explained that he does not add sulfur to the grapes after harvest, works with the indigenous yeasts, and doesn’t add enzymes or tannins. (See this SF Chronicle article for a backgrounder on sulfur and sulfites; Pacalet does use some right before bottling.)

While I was standing in line at the final salmon bake dinner with Jamie Goode, author of The Science of Wine, Pacalet told us that he believes that much of the vinifera vines in France have been weakened by generations of inbreeding, which makes them susceptible to disease. His solution would be to genetically modify the vines to have greater disease resistance, which would reduce the need for spraying. Pretty provocative for a natural winemaker.

At breakfast the next day (IPNC is like a reunion weekend for pinotphiles), Pacalet told me that his 2005 Corton-Charlemagne was denied the appellation, which meant for him “30,000 euros in the trash.” When I asked him why doesn’t make it as a lowly vin de table and join the list of producers above, he said “I don’t pay taxes to make a vin de table.”

Since then, he’s become a member of the Corton-Charlemagne syndicat, or the rule-setting board of local producers.

So we have to be ready: we need a motto. Britain did it. Then Freakonomics blog urged their readers to come up with one for America in six words. Collectively, we drink and now YOU can decide: Post your suggestions in the comments here for America’s new motto as the top wine consuming country.

Ray Isle, who writes his own excellent blog (now with pictures!) when he’s not giving wine seminars in Aspen or writing his wine column for Food & Wine magazine, will join me as a mini-panel of flag pin-wearing judges. We will cull through your suggestions and select some finalists for your voting, starting next Tuesday.

And to up the ante from our usual prize of mere “glory,” whoever submits the winning slogan will win a signed copy of my just-about-released book, Wine Politics: How Governments, Environmentalists, Mobsters, and Critics Influence the Wines We Drink. That’s right, the book that tells the story of wine in France and America through the lens of industry politics could be yours for the Fourth of July.

So put down your flag for a second and start typing your slogan for America as world wine leader!