Dr Vino's wine blog

Trader Joe’s, a national grocery store chain that sells wine (including “two buck chuck”) in many states, has recalled an Italian white wine because of visible bottle variation. Mark Fisher, a staff writer at the Dayton Daily News, who started a wine blog three months ago, originally exposed the situation at his local store and TJ’s eventually removed the wine from the store. But a comment on his blog from reader in California showed the same variation there, which led the chain to pull the wine nationally, although it may only be until they find out what’s going on.

A representative of TJ’s emailed an explanation: “What we found is that the blend of grapes of the darker colored Chiaro del Bastardo Bianco is not what we initially approved, although there is nothing wrong, qualitatively, with the darker blend…”

Too bad Trader Joe’s in New York doesn’t sell wine otherwise we could have investigated as well! Congratulations to Mark.

Technorati tags: wine | food & drink | Trader Joe’s

While many high-end restaurants offer their customers one night a week with no (or reduced) corkage fee, Montrachet in Tribeca has introduced something beyond their Monday night BYOB that may delight wine geeks even more since it is offered nightly: guess that wine.

You name the price range and the sommelier will bring a bottle and pour it blind. The more wine geeky details you get right, such as country of origin, region, producer, vintage, and grape varietal, the bigger your discount. Discounts range from 10 to 100 percent. A chance a free wine?!? The more confident you are, the higher a price point you’ll try.

I guess you’re taking your chances with more than the wine–Randall Lane writes in TimeOut New York that under new chef Richard Franabe the food is “maddeningly mediocre one night and transcendent the next.”

* * *

Why do some restaurants seem to always be “coming soon” and take forever to open? In the same issue of TONY, Heather Tierney writes that “the biggest headache, according to the chefs and the owners, is the wait for the liquor license from the State Liquor Authority (SLA).” The SLA takes into account the views of community boards who can oppose the granting of a liquor license on grounds of public drunkenness in the area. Jason Hennings, owner of the European Union whose launch has been delayed eight months, says of the community boards, “It really depends on catching them on a good day.”

* * *

And, finally, the same (double) issue of TONY notes the pending opening of Del Posto, “Molto Mario” Batali’s new restaurant that is big in every way: 24,000 sq ft, dining on three stories, and a 50,000 bottle wine cellar. Yikes.
Del Posto, way over on the West side: 85 Tenth Ave at 16th

Technorati tags: wine | food & drink | New York | restaurants

“There’s an old saying in Tennessee –— I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on…shame on you. Fool me… you can’t get fooled again.”

George W. Bush, Nashville, Tenn., Sept. 17, 2002

That same quotation could apply to the latest round of Wine Blogging Wednesday where the theme was “judge a wine by its label.” Derrick has posted his roundup of over 40 bloggers who agreed: we might buy it once based on the label but what’s in the bottle counts more.

Technorati tags: wine | food & drink |WBW

In the immediate days after the Supreme Court’s May 16 decision on direct wine shipments, New York wineries oddly embraced the decision to open the state up to competition. Governor Pataki assumed the most bullish tone saying “By permitting the interstate shipment of wine in New York, we will allow New York’s wineries to grow even more by opening the doors to new markets across the country that were previously closed to them.”

I expressed skepticism about this argument saying:

Shipments to consumers in New York from New York wineries are bound to decline. The small section of the population that currently orders directly from wineries will likely celebrate the diversity of being able to order from California, Oregon and Washington instead. So they [the wineries] are betting on increased demand from out of state buyers, seemingly a risky proposal.

This is one case where I would love to have been proven wrong. Unfortunately a story in today’s Newsday reflects the current situation:

When state legislators and Gov. George Pataki this summer approved a law permitting direct consumer shipments of wine into and out of New York for the first time, winery owners like Charles Massoud of Paumanok Vineyards raised a glass in celebration.

The party didn’t last long.

Today, Massoud professes the sobering conclusion that the law may be reducing his wine shipments while increasing his shipping and office costs.

“In the end, we are worse off today than we were prior to the bill being passed,” he said with an air of defeat at his Aquebogue tasting room yesterday.

Massoud, and perhaps others, are caught in a trap of stagnating orders and increasing costs. He admits in the story that he has sent only 20 cases of wine to other states. And in-state shippers are now required to get a signature for all wine orders, similar to out-of-state shippers. This has eaten into their lucrative Wine Club business since people must now be home to sign and it has imposed an additional $2,400 paperwork on the winery. Given that the case prices of wine at the winery range from around $200 to $400, the additional cost of paperwork should be fairly easy to digest.

It’s not as if the paperwork was unforeseen and some in the industry, such as Willy Frank of Chateau Frank and Dr. Frank’s Vinifera Wine Cellars, were also skeptical when Pataki signed the bill.

It is a tough new era for New York wineries, one of opportunity as well as competition. Those that succeed will be the ones that pursue quality winemaking, have easy access to capital, or have a loyal customer following. I can’t imagine these changes single-handedly bankrupting many of the states 219 wineries–if anything, it could ween them off the high-margins of direct selling that developed in the decades before May and back toward more traditional channels of selling wine. The winds of competition can be cold and quality is the best strategy for success.

Technorati tags: wine | food & drink |New York

Which restaurant has 200 people a week get engaged on its premises? OK, I’ll give you a hint–it’s a chain. And it serves three million diners a week. And pours one million cases of wine a year. It is: the Olive Garden.

Those are just some of the factoids I learned at last week’s Wine Media Guild luncheon in New York City. The program included the provocative pairing of Karen King, who until last month was the sommelier at The Modern (one Michelin star) and formerly with Union Square Cafe and Gramercy Tavern, and Michelle Kern, Beverage Director for Olive Garden, a unit of Darden Restaurants.

Since many wine enthusiasts have probably never set foot in an Olive Garden, Kern’s insights were pearls before wine geeks. The national chain of 557 restaurants has a truncated list of 38 wines but includes a high-end Barolo and an Amarone. The chain offers 33 wines by the glass and any wine by the glass is available for a free sample. In fact, they pour so many free samples that they end up giving away 35,000 cases of wine a year. Once a bottle is opened it is pumped with vacu-vin and dated; if it is not consumed within four days it is deep sixed.

Wine is an important part of their dining experience: they show people enjoying food and wine in their advertisements and customer satisfaction increases in surveys when wine is served. It is undoubtedly an important part of their profits as well since the price of many of the wines by the glass covers the enitre cost of the bottle.

Providing diners a consistent experience is of course key for the chain. In an industry notorious for high staff turnover, the Olive Garden has 35 certified wine trainers who are sent to Italy every year to visit the wineries and then in turn educate the 35,000 staff. All staff are required to undertake a five day training session and a couple of hours a day are dedicated to wine service. Incidentally, screwcaps are viewed positively since then there’s no need to fumble with the cork.

Wine enthusiasts rarely consider the bottom end of the wine market. But I was pleased to learn more about the philospophy at the Olive Garden since it is the first wine experience for many Americans and the chain seems to be doing a lot right. Who knows, I might just have to find one and go see for myself?!

Technorati tags: wine | food & drink |dining | wine media guild

Wine consumers in Michigan can rejoice about new legislation that allows direct shipping. But will it too be challenged in court? [CBD]

Meanwhile, New York consumers await UPS and FedEx to start shipping. (Really?!?) [NYT]

Is alcohol to be targeted for new tax revenue? A poll shows little popular resistance.

During the night, protesters sealed the entrance to the Bordeaux Wine Council (CIVB) with bricks. [Decanter]

Would you like some Champagne with your Boston Creme? Not any more. In an end to what has been an unlikely grouping of wines and spirits with fast food, Pernod Ricard is entertaining bids for its Dunkin’ Brands unit, which includes Dunkin’ Donuts, Baskin-Robbins, and ToGos. Three private equity bidders are making bids (including the Carlyle Group) as well as the owner of Arby’s. Pernod acquired the fast-growing unit, which generated $4.8 billion in sales last year, in its takeover of Allied-Domecq earlier this year. [NYT]

In other business news, the acquisitive Constellation has decided to drop its effort acquire Vincor, Canada’s biggest winemaker and owner of the Inniskllin, Kim Crawford, and Toasted Head brands, for $1 billion cash. Vincor’s shares had been trading higher than Constellation’s offering price on the hopes of rival bids and the shares dropped 8% in yesterday’s trading, cushioned by the announcement of a buyback and a dividend. Constellation’s chief executive, Richard Sands, said Friday. “In these circumstances, we will move on to other priorities.” Who’s next? Maybe even Vincor again the speculates the Financial Times. [AP]

And my wine of the week: Bouvet signature Brut, $8. A bargain bubbly with almost all Chenin Blanc. Find this wine

Technorati tags: wine | wine news | wine picks

The poll is up! You can now vote for which wine words or phrases you want to leave behind with 2005.

* Pinot Noir
* Mondovino
* watering back
* hedonistic fruit bomb
and many more…

Vote which ones to ban!

Technorati tags: wine | words and phrases | poll

I couldn’t make up my mind: sure the label was pretty, but an $8 California merlot?! Miles clearly would not approve. I was also unmoved so and asked my fellow shopper to help me decide with a game of roshambo, also known as “rock, paper scissors.” I lost. The merlot went in my basket.

Derrick at Obsession with Food blog (the only other wine/food blogger I have met in person!) decided to pick the theme of choosing a wine by its label for this month’s edition of Wine Blogging Wednesday. (By way of background, a different blogger each month picks a theme for anyone to contribute a tasting note on that theme.)

The merlot was from the Healdsburg, CA “winery + gallery” by the name of Roshambo where they apparently have “rock paper scissors” contests. The wine I chose was called “rockpaperscissors” (find this wine) and had a cute label with a hand in each of the three positions. The bottle had a Stelvin closure, wine geek speak for screwcap. The wine was very fruit forward but quite atypical of a merlot–more berry than the traditional plum. It wasn’t horrible but I’m not rushing out to get another bottle. I see from their web site that they have other wines and I’m always willing to be convinced.

As they no doubt say at the winery after losing a round: two out of three?

Technorati tags: wine | WBW | wine labels