Dr Vino's wine blog

Maryland, the home of the Fightin’ Terps, threatens to turn its wine lovers into perps: The laws governing these five and a half million residents make it a felony to order wine online and have it shipped to their homes. To purchase wines, consumers residing Annapolis, Baltimore or along the Chesapeake must buy from a local store; comparison shopping through retailers on the internet or ordering directly from a winery is illegal. (Small wonder neighboring DC is the thirstiest non-state in the nation.)

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)

SPIT: volume (how vial!)
Two companies have developed oxygen-free, trial-sized bottles, 50ml in size (1/15th of a normal bottle). The goal is to send samples more easily from wineries to consumers. But don’t try to share this bottle over candlelight with your romantic partner unless you want the evening to end before it starts. Perhaps the best use would be a 100ml size since that is the maximum liquid allowable on planes. Ziploc, anyone? [AP; Wines & Vines]

SIPPED: a new look
Eric LeVine, who won the voting here to become the wine person of the decade, has rolled out a gorgeous, comprehensive redesign with new functionality of cellartracker and on the URL grapestories.com.

SIPPED: Recovery
Chile’s wine industry is digging from the massive earthquake. According to an official statement from Wines of Chile the total damage 125mln liters, 12% of last year’s harvest, and valued at $250 million. They state that the industry’s exports “will return to normal within a very short period of time and without major difficulties.”

SIPPED: the ride continues
Consumers have filed a class-action lawsuit in California against E&J Gallo over the faux pinot, Red Bicyclette. [PRweb.com]

Why don’t green-minded vintners and vignerons always display their eco-friendly methods on the label?

I’ve often asked why and replies generally come in the form of the producer’s desire to have the wine liked for the quality as opposed to the methodology per se. Or, where organic in spirit, a common reply has been a dislike for administrative costs of filing and/or wanting to maintain the flexibility to spray if necessary.

An academic paper presents findings that may not lead to more eco-labeling: Certifying a winery as organic or Biodynamic will raise the price of wine 13 percent but putting that on the label will see the price fall by 20 percent.

Magali Delmas and Laura Grant, of UCLA and UCSB respectively, examined 13,400 California wines from an eight-year period ending in 2005 to reach their conclusions, which will appear in a forthcoming issue of the journal Business & Society. It’s certainly possible to quibble with their data: only 28 of the all-California wineries were certified and only 16 of the wines in the data set received the eco-labeling. The wines were expensive (about $37 a bottle) and the quality bump, as measured by WS scores, was slight (less than one point) as well as low, scoring less than 84.

They explain the premium for certification largely as the good will recognition akin to club membership. It would be interesting if they could explore quality further as I think that could be more convincing than the social effect in explaining the premium.

To explain the discount for labeling, they cite various winemakers who say that “organic” remains a stigma in the eyes of consumers. Such a comment seems oddly disconnected with the current era of Whole Foods and local and sustainable foods; younger consumers don’t see it as a stigma, I’d venture to say.

Part of the reason for the discount, they argue, is consumer confusion over the various labels and certifications, particularly since so few wines qualify for the organic standard, thus only qualifying for the looser “made from organically grown grapes” standard. They also show that consumers have little knowledge of Biodynamics with only 17 percent of respondents in a previous study being familiar with the term and only eight percent having tried a Biodynamic wine. (Of the respondents who were unfamiliar with the term, the single largest response as to what it meant was that it was genetically engineered or modified.)

What do you think–why is there an apparent discount for eco-labeling as opposed to eco-certification?

Delmas, M. and Grant, L. Forthcoming. “Eco-labeling Strategies and Price-Premium: The Wine Industry Puzzle.” Business and Society. (pdf)