Dr Vino's wine blog

SIPPED: Mozart and Merlot!
Clark Smith, wine industry revolutionary, insists that they music playing can affect your evaluation of a wine. I demand that the Wine Advocate and Wine Spectator release their playlists along with scores!! [SF Chron]

SIPPED: NASDAQ move over, here comes Sotheby’s!?
The auction house announces a real-time ticker for wine auction prices. But will the data be archived, free and searchable?

SPIT: oak barrels
More California winemakers are using oak alternatives, such as oak staves (planks) and chips. Derrick Schneider goes inside the barrel–er, bag o’ chips. [SF Chron]

SIPPED: Crossover wines
Rob Kasper emailed me about wines that go both ways. That sure got my attention. Then I realized he was talking about food-friendly wines. I make some picks for wines that go will with fish and meat and can keep a table happy. [Baltimore Sun]

SPIT: the three tier system
Tom Wark has started a new blog for the Specialty Wine Retailers Association. He’s no fan of the legally mandated three tier system, which all too frequently limits consumer wine choices, raises prices, and, of course, prevents the specialty retailers from expanding their business. Good message, Tom, but please ditch the black background behind the white text! [Wine without borders]

SPIT: Apfelwein
New EU laws may restrict “wine” to only coming from grapes. Auf wiedersehen, apple wine? “We will not allow our traditional name to be sacrificed to regulatory madness in Brussels,” says the Hesse state governor. [IHT]

A “CBS Evening News with Katie Couric” story is shocked, shocked! to learn that $11 million of “your tax dollars” have been allocated to conduct research on wine grapes including a $2.6 million research facility at Cornell.

But they have it wrong: it’s not shockingly bad news, it’s new news. And it’s good news.

Ever since the repeal of Prohibition, the federal government has been reluctant to fund grape research. In fact, in the 1930s, after Repeal, FDR’s Department of Agriculture proposed a wine research facility to be funded with federal funds and help the industry get back on its feet. However, an influential Dry congressman unilaterally vetoed the project wanting to prevent the evil “fermentation.” Since then the federal government has been reluctant to fund wine grape research.

So this $11 million should be seen as a real breakthrough, evidence that the federal government is actually doing something to support wine. With over 5,000 licensed wineries now in the US according to Wine Business Monthly, wine and related grape growing is a rapidly growing sector of American agriculture. For what it’s worth, the industry is very consolidated with the top 30 wine producers making over 90% of the wine. If this funding is going to support the proverbial 4,970 “little guys,” then that is something that would be hard to oppose. CBS, however, does not discuss who will benefit most from this research funding.

In the name of fair and balanced reporting, CBS News should look at other research facilities, such as the National Research Peanut Laboratory. Or how much in federal funds are used in subsidies to field crops such as wheat and corn in the $280 billion (five year) Farm Bill. Or the federal budget overall, now $3 trillion. A subsidy of $11 million in this age of private equity chieftains even seems small by some individual standards. In the federal budget, it’s smaller than a rounding error.

Related: “Groundbreaking for Cornell University’s western New York grape laboratory: Oct. 29“

SPIT: fake wine
Italian police (these cops?) have made arrests in a case where about $1 million in cheap wine passed off as expensive. The scariest part is one official who says that the lack of border controls in the EU means that ‘It is illegal to transport unlabeled wine across European borders, but… it’s very difficult to enforce the law.” [Decanter]

SIPPED: beer writing
Michael Jackson is dead at 65–no, not THAT Michael Jackson. Instead, the British beer writer. Is he remembered for his tasting notes? Not so much. I liked this praise from a colleague in his NYT obit: “He was simply the best beer writer we’ve ever known. He told wonderful stories about beer, breweries and far away places. He told the story of beer through people, and he was humorous and erudite at the same time.” [NYT]

SPIT: 2007 vintage, Bordeaux version
Bordeaux may allow chaptalisation, or the addition of sugar to the wine to raise the alcohol level. Remember that rain I reported on in June? Seems like there wasn’t enough ripeness in the end. Funny, and we were all just thinking it was warming up–the Bordelais had been adding water in recent vintages to cut high alcohol levels. [Decanter]

SPIT: glass bottles
Fully 95 percent of wine bottles in the EU come from three manufacturers: Saint-Gobain, Owens-Illinois INC and Ireland’s Ardagh Glass. There’s already a shortage and importers and distributors are complaining to the EU, hoping to break the glass oligopoly. Why? Probably because price increases eat into their margins and can’t be passed on to the consumer. Think about the box, people! [AFX News]

SPIT: bulk wine
The EU puts the distillation of bulk wine up for a tender offer. [Reuters]

SIPPED: Indiana reform
Thanks to a federal court decision, things might just get better for Indiana wine consumers. [Indy Star]

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Jack Nicholson, wine critic? [Gawker, via TR]

Up the Nile, with a paddle?
Mark Vadon, CEO of the successful gemstone retailer, BlueNile, joins the board of wine.com. But can he help the retailer, which has undergone many revisions of their business plan over the years? [CNN]

Wine and capitalism
“The laws of capitalism are, he argued, ‘not adapted to wine because behind wine there is history and tradition,’ and because vines take years to develop, have a life span of decades and do not provide the quick returns required by the market.” Roger Torreilles, president of the wine producer Cave des Vignerons in Baixas, near Perpignan, quoted in the NYT.

Harvest heats up
In Italy, harvests have begun. Global warming anyone? On NPR, some St. Emilion growers say they don’t mind.

Drunken chicken?
Yes, this NYT recipe is drunken, but Shaoxing wine is not grape wine.

Uprooted
The Financial Times has extended coverage today of the controversial plans that Mariann Fischer-Boel, EU Agriculture Commissioner, has for the reforming the wine sector. The policy still must approved by the member states but if enacted as early as next year, it would lead to the uprooting of 500,000 acres of low-end vines as one measure to reduce the structural wine surplus. The whole policy would, in the words of the Commissioner, put European wines “back…on top of the world” (um, has she note been to Burgundy, Champagne, Bordeaux, or Piedmont to name a few regions that would be on the top of anyone’s list?) France, Italy, Spain and Portugal may oppose the plans. [Financial Times 1 and 2; Bloomberg]

Protected
On the northern shores of Lake Geneva some vines won’t be threatened by either development or the new EU plans, and that’s not just because Switzerland is not a member of the EU: the Lavaux wine region has just been designated proclaimed part of our world heritage by UNESCO. [Swissinfo]

Contextualized
Eric Asimov discovers the perfect food-wine pairing: a juice glass of aglianico with a pizza margherita at Una Pizza Nepoletana in the East Village. Three cheers for evaluating wine in context! [The Pour]

Gargled
Feel a strep throat coming on? Got some wine handy. Gargle. That could be the advice of some Italian researchers who say that wine “could be used to cure a sore throat.” [Telegraph.co.uk]

From reader comments:
JW sez re: Chamarre: “Where will it be in 12 months time – my view is that it will be the victim of the 3 R’s of marketing – redesign, relaunch and resign!”
Jay Miller sez: “Forgetting “emotion” for the moment, if Bob (or any other critic) rates a wine 95 (or 100) one day, will it get the same, or nearly the same score a week or a month later(under blind tasting conditions).”

Related: “To reform or not to reform…“

The question of which wine to serve the Queen is not one that arises in Washington very often. But last night it did at the state dinner for 130 honored guests. The Teetotaler-in-Chief went with an all-domestic–nay, Napatastic!–youthful, line-up (though somehow a “Champagne” dressing appeared on the salad).

Straight from the White House, last night’s menu:

Spring Pea Soup with Fernleaf Lavender
Chive Pizzelle with American Caviar

Newton Chardonnay “Unfiltered” 2004 (find this wine)

Dover Sole Almondine
Roasted Artichokes, Pequillo Peppers and Olives

Saddle of Spring Lamb
Chanterelle Sauce
Fricassee of Baby Vegetables

Peter Michael “Les Pavots” 2003 (find this wine)

Arugula, Savannah Mustard and Mint Romaine
Champagne Dressing and Trio of Farmhouse Cheeses

“Rose Blossoms”

Schramsberg Brut Rosé 2004 (find this wine)

This just in from Bordeaux: a political institution is found to be full of politics!

In a surprising turn of events, a local court has suspended the St. Emilion grand cru classification, dating from 1954. Four producers who were bounced from the list of 61 producers at last year’s update have brought suit and the court has ruled in their favor. The supposedly independent committee chosen to reclassify the list every ten years was found not to be impartial. Nor did they do much legwork, visiting only seven of the 95 properties they were reviewing.

An interesting aspect is that the four spurned producers who brought the suit are not considered the top in the region anyway. In fact, Nicolas Thienpont, whose Château Pavie-Macquin was promoted to first growth, told WineEnthusiast.com that the four disqualified properties “produce rubbish.” Many of the Parker favorites from the region, such as Valandraud and Quinault, were not included in the reclassification last year. But when I asked Jean-Luc Thunevin of Valandraud about it last fall, he was disappointed but in the end shrugged it off. His wine sells at $250 a bottle after all. The wines of some of the four DQ’d producers sell for much less, if they could even find an importer interested in marketing their wines.

And what the heck, the garagistes don’t get mad, they get even. Thunevin, Raynaud of Quinault, and others decided to make their own group anyway, the Cercle Rive Droite. More to follow on this development. And hopefully we will learn more about the inner workings of the Grand Cru system as the court continues these proceedings.

Additional coverage: Telegraph.co.uk, Decanter

A politician from Ontario is taking a bold stand: he wants wine to have the honor of being sold at 7-eleven.

Kim Craitor, a Liberal member of the Ontario provincial parliament who represents Niagara Falls, introduced a private member’s bill to free wine sales from the iron grip of the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO).

Blending wine and provincial patriotism, Craitor doesn’t want just any wine sold in the 3,000 convenience stores in the province, only wine from Ontario. The CBC reports:

“The proposed legislation applies only to wine containing 100 per cent Ontario grapes, which means “it’s not blended, it’s not mixed with foreign grapes,” he says.”

The legislation has little chance of becoming law since it does not have the support of the provincial government. Maybe Craitor could persuade them to vote for it with the promise of more than just wines from Ontario.

CBC, Fort Frances Times