Dr Vino's wine blog

Inspired by HRH Jancis who wrote over the weekend about value wines in the UK, I thought I would point out why there will never be a “two buck chuck” (aka Charles Shaw) wine in Britain. Even though many supermarket retailers stock custom labelings for their own brands, taxes in what has historically been a beer drinking country make it hard to find “extreme” values.

Because retail prices include all taxes, it is difficult to find a good wine under £5 (about $10). To wit:

VAT = 17.5%
Plus per bottle flat tax of £1.24
Retailer mark up is 25-30%
Importer mark up is 25-30 % (but retailers can be importers)
Plus transportation costs

So a £4.99 wine thus breaks down something like this:
4.99 retail
4.24 pre VAT
3.00 pre flat bottle tax
2.25 retailer cost
1.60 importer cost
1.40 pre shipping cost
0.99 ex-cellars price, which includes bottling, fixed costs of winery, etc. So that’s about 50 p worth of wine!

Poor things. No wonder the Brits love going to the continent. Buy direct!

(Thanks, Gary!)

Technorati tags: wine | wine prices | United Kingdom

A reader recently posed this question:

At 10:08 PM, Trailady said…
You seem to be an expert on wine, so I must ask…. Was the wine in the wedding miracle of Jesus (in the Bible) fermented wine or unfermented grape juice? This has been a long raging debate in some circles. Just thought I’d ask.

Thanks Trailady but it seems more like a Bible question than a wine question. That being the case, I asked José Gonzalez, a classics scholar formerly at Harvard and now at the University of Oregon who reads the New Testament in its original Greek (and is a wine zealot), for a reply. He said that the question of fermented/non-fermented is one that is only confronted in American religious circles and offered this reply. –Dr. Vino

==================================================

For what it is worth: the Greek word, “oinos”, is used for fermented drinks, generally from the grape, but also from barley, palms, lotus plants, etc. That it can be used to refer to fermented drinks not of the vine follows precisely from its being the common word for “fermented must”.

As to the passage itself: “Everyone serves the good wine first, and when the guests have drunk freely, then that which is worse. You have kept the good wine until now.” You need not be a Greek scholar to realize that “to drink freely” (“methuomai” or “methuskomai”) must mean “to get drunk” or “to drink excessively” (as in fact it does). What other rationale would there be for the host to bring out the “worse” wine later, except to make sure that by then the guests are intoxicated enough not to be able to tell the difference between the good and the bad? Once you grasp the logic of the headwaiter’s comment it necessarily follows that the “good” wine served first (and, consequently, the one Christ created) must be fermented: it would be a miracle indeed to find the guests intoxicated with grape juice!

In vino veritas? Move over!

A funny (copyrighted) cartoon from the New Yorker:

check it out

Technorati tag: wine

Put a pushpin where you are!

Wine bloggers
(If you want to put a link back to your site, put in the full URL, e.g. http:// )

And another map for readers of this site! Granted, I’m not sure why anyone would want to do this, but hey, why not?! Google maps are cool.

Technorati tags: wine | wine blogs | google maps

If you’re a wine lover, chances are you’ve thought about diving in a wine lake. Or maybe just splashing some wine aromas on you.

Well that is Christian Delpeuch is hoping. General director at negociant house Ginestet and head of the Bordeaux Wine Council (CIVB), Delpeuch has just launched a new line of wine perfumes. Her “Botrytis” is for Sauternes-ophiles who love the noble rot. “Le Boisé,” a unisex offering for oak enthusiasts, comes in a wood case (natural cross-marketing potential to American Chardonnay lovers). Now smell this, a perfume blog, reports that le boise has a blast of “very strong, very spicy cedar” that dwindles to oak and sandalwood. The perfumes retail for €53 per 100ml (but have been seen on eBay for $8.25 buy-it-now price).

But will she market her Sauvignon Blanc with pi-pi du chat? Or fresh cut grass?

How about the alluring musty cellar? Wet dog? Herbaceous or vegetative? Spin that aroma wheel, baby! A woman’s neck is certainly a more dignified place for surplus wine to end up than a gas tank.

Technorati tags: food & drink | wine | perfume