Dr Vino's wine blog

SIPPED: An invitation to piracy?
A load of 10,000 bottles of Bordeaux 2009 make their way to London via olde tyme sailboat. While the carbon footprint is near zero, someone needs to man the deck to keep an eye out for Bordeaux pirates. Avast me hearties! [dailymail]

SIPPED: fanning the flames?
“When the Chinese are willing to buy your entire year’s production, it is difficult to resist,” says Xavier de Eizaguirre of Chateau Mouton Rothschild. [Telegraph] Reports from other producers are not quite as bold for 2010.

SIPPED: US bling
A bottle of ’45 DRC RC sold for $124k at auction to…an American buyer! Perhaps the Chinese still remain focused on Bordeaux.

SIPPED: tiny profits
Wine.com, which has had troubles over the past decade or more, is making money: about $45 mln in FY2010 revenue, though only $800k profits, or about two percent. FY2011 revenue climbed 26% to $56 million. [bizjournals]

HOW TO maintain the stigma of box wine: prohibit “quality wine” from going in it, as is happening in British Columbia. [Wines & Vines]

Bursting melons! In China, thanks to overdoses of the “growth chemical” forchlorfenuron. US authorities allow it on kiwis and grapes, apparently. [AP]

SIPPED: running the numbers
With all the discussion about alcohol levels in wine, I’m pleased that the results of an extensive story I did for Wine & Spirits magazine is now online. (See our summary discussion.) In the story, we analyzed 84 randomly selected wines for alcohol levels and had some surprising findings.

SIPPED: Stiff upper lip
Foreign diplomats can brace themselves for a general downgrading of wine at British official functions. The Foreign Office has decided to dump the claret in the 39,500-bottle cellar and fund future wine purchases from it. The cellar is valued at about £800,000 ($1.3 million). But the most important question: will James Bond’s budget also be slashed from Angelus? [Guardian]

SIPPED: expense accounts
Sign o’ the times: the British may be selling but the Chinese are buying. Even if they’re not supposed to. Case(s) in point: officials at the state oil company, SINOPEC, splashed out $245,000 for bottle of Lafite and old Moutai. [WSJ]

SIPPED: judgment day?
Apparently the world is ending on May 21! Champagne and caviar tonight?

Drill, baby, drill! “Dentist Serves Beer and Wine to Anxious Patients” [NBC]

SIPPED: plunder
Bernie Madoff’s wines will be auctioned this week. In an otherwise banal (for a billionaire) collection two lots stand out: 1) Two-ounce bottles of vodka plundered from hotel minibars; 2) “One of the odder lots is a crystal decanter filled with a mysterious brown liquid.” [Bloomberg]

SPIT: Lafite on Craigslist
Somehow, after this, I doubt Craigslist will be selling a lot of Lafite en primeur.

SPIT: Chinese wine in “Chinese” wine
Q: What percent of a “Chinese wine” must come from China? A: only 15%.

SIPPED: Fines wines
Several big wine suppliers, including Diageo, Pernod Ricard, and Moet Hennessey have agreed to pay almost $2 million settle charges brought by federal regulators. The allegations charged that they paid “slotting fees” to get prime spots in Vegas–a practice not allowed in alcoholic beverages but common in other industries. The settlement (just don’t call it a fine!) is the largest in the TTB’s history of regulating the alcohol industry. If what happens in Vegas no longer stays in Vegas, perhaps the TTB will start a new wave of market enforcement nationally? [WSJ; TTB press release pdf]

SIPPED: TLC
An excellent, first-person account of planting a “vineyard”–eight Marquette vines in all–in Mt. Kisco, NY. [NYT]

SIPPED and SPIT: journalists at sommelier competitions
Alan Richman participated in several events of the Best Sommelier in America contest. During the course of it, he nearly sets his suit on fire and leaves such a mess trying to open a bottle that he says, “It looked like Freddy Krueger had entered the competition.” Oh, and the last graf reveas that Alexander Lapratt of db Bistro Moderne was the winner. [GQ]

SIPPED: Royal Wedding champage
A press release stated that magnums of Pol Roger brut reserve were poured at the reception following the Royal Wedding. Did English bubbly make an appearance at any of the festivities? If so, hit the comments.

SPIT: more Bordeaux bubble data
“[Simon] Staples has remortgaged his home three times in the last 10 years (in 2000, 2005 and 2009) to buy Bordeaux. Last year he recommended that his mother-in-law buy five cases of a particular Bordeaux at £2,400. These are now selling for £7,800.” [Guardian]

SPIT: corks
A winemaker from New Zealand eschews screwcaps and bottles his wines bound for China with corks. Why? “Prestige.” [Stuff.co.uk]

SIPPED: regime change
Bloomberg analyzes the impact on California wine of the recent changes at the Wine Advocate. One winemaker’s take on Parker’s departure: “I’m kind of sad to see him go. You know what he likes and doesn’t like, and it made things easier for us.”

RIP: Jess Stonestreet Jackson
The founder of Kendall-Jackson died last week bringing to a close a remarkable life that included making one of the best-selling wines in America. [NYT, SF Chronicle]

SIPPED: the unknown
Which bubbly will the esteemed quests raise in honor of the Royal Couple? The official wine has not yet been unveiled, but Will Lyons at the WSJ guesses it will be Pol Roger while Eric Asimov goes to England and comes back speculating it will be English sparkling wine. They may both be right as there will be multiple events on April 29 for Prince William and Kate Middleton. One thing’s for sure, it won’t be beer, since it has been banned from the festivities.

SIPPED: corks
A NZ winegrower ditches screwcaps in favor of corks for his China exports. Why? “Prestige.” [stuff.co.nz]

SPIT: A truncheon analysis
French riot police no longer allowed to have wine with lunch [Guardian]

SPIT: Mommy
Two firms are engaged in a legal tussle over the term “mommy,” specifically whether the new “mommyjuice” wine infringes on the mark “Mommy’s time out.” Either way, they’re fighting a rearguard battle: the next front for this demographic is for cougar juice! [ThomsonReuters]

SIPPED: the zany
Hardy Wallace (above) dropped in on the en primeurs tastings and handed out his scores ranging from 101.00 to 102.36 points in .17 point increments. He gets the award for best T-shirt! [Dirty South Wine]

SIPPED: three cask monte
Jancis Robinson provides a primer in the various ways that samples at the en primeurs tastings can be manipulated to show their best.

SIPPED: discrimination
Wendell Lee, general counsel at the Wine Institute, provides a further look into insidious nature of the apparent simplicity of HR 1161, a bill that would drastically affect wine shipping by reverting to regulations that pre-date Prohibition and supersede the Commerce Clause. [ShipComliant]

SIPPED: branding
The Food Network releases their own branded wine. Only question: do you drink it with food, or with TV (if at all)? [Eater]

SIPPED: peace
Serbs and Croats beat their swords in to pruning shears at a winery project in Bosnia. “Working in a vineyard is like therapy, it helps a lot (to forget about the war).” [Reuters]

SIPPED: a big platform
The political and legal issues of direct shipping of wine, specifically HR 1161, got a big airing on today’s op-ed page for the NYT. Hopefully more wine consumers will see the law for what it is thanks to this piece and join the effort to stop HR 1161.

SIPPED: more details
Antonio Galloni‘s recent event, the Festa del Barolo, gave consumers the opportunity to mingle with 15 Barolo producers and taste their wines, old and young, for $900. Mike Steinberger spoke with Galloni at length about the event and how it squares with the Wine Advocate’s ethics policy. (A related discussion popped up on wineberserkers.) Also, if you haven’t discovered Mike’s blog, it’s certainly the best new wine blog of 2011.

SPIT: murder
Vanity Fair has a piece on the attempt to poison and ransom vines at Domaine de la Romanée Conti. Funny, I remember this story from when it happened and it didn’t strike me as worth the Vanity Fair treatment. Apparently Aubert de Villaine didn’t either since he spoke with the author “most reluctantly.”

SIPPED: wine fun fact
Stan Kroenke, owner of Screaming Eagle, owns the Denver Nuggets and 29% of Arsenal, the football club, among other teams. I’m sure they pour Screagle in the locker rooms! [wikipedia]

SIPPED: the life of a wine writer!
Ray Isle, the brightest star of wine TV, writes a terrific “week in the life…” essay for NY mag. Oh, man, do I want to be a wine writer when I grow up!

GUSHED: American pinot
Mike Steinberger rhapsodizes over the pinot noir from Rhys Vineyards, calling them the “best New World pinot” that he’s ever encountered. [Slate]

OPENED: floodgates?
Maryland’s legislature has passed a bill to allow wineries to ship (18 cases a year, max) to Maryland residents. Yay for them! But sad that the legislation did not extend the same right to to out-of-state retailers, which would probably be more useful for more people. [baltimoresun.com] In related news, Rhode Island authorities contemplate tearing down their cork wall. [Boston.com]

NOODLED: green wine
Slate ponders the question: “Is organic wine really better for the environment?”

SIPPED: variety
Aditya Gupta, formerly in my NYU wine class, recently had a wine from Freisa, making it the one hundredth grape variety that he’s tasted. Congratulations, and welcome to the Wine Century Club!