Dr Vino's wine blog

French wine marketers have been rightfully pilloried for not knowing up from down in terms of marketing low- to mid-range wines. And now for something completely different: Wine for women. Roll the tape:

“We offer different wines to drink for a variety of occasions, whether it is a girls’ night out, individual tasting pleasure, a romantic dinner, after love making, or a business success.” [WineSight brochure via Decanter]

“After love making”? Zey are so French! Does a man need a separate bottle for such an occasion, a big zin?

And isn’t this deja-vu? Oh yes, Beringer rolled out “White Lie” a few years ago, which, mercifully, cannot be found now. And a magazine called Wine Adventure, marketed as “the first ever wine magazine for women,” barely lasted a year after its 2005 roll-out.

No matter. British retailer Marks & Spencer seem to think marketing to women will aid the sales of a pink port for “ladies.” Have your say about gendered wine products in the latest poll!

poll now closed

Related: “Mourvedre: the next big red?“

Carlsberg, the Danish brewer, has announced the release of a $400 beer called “Vintage No. 1.” According to Bloomberg, the beer, which costs 357 times more than the regular Carlsberg lager, “has been developed to challenge luxury wines in the gourmet restaurant market and capitalize on rising individual wealth.”

But don’t they know that bling is only allowed in wine country! (OK, maybe cognac too.) How dare them try to pry our white-gold encrusted jerobaums out of our wine stained fingers! Bling beer, you’re on notice!

Related:
– “Research subjects think more expensive means better wine!”
– “Are restaurants pushing wine for profit?”
– More on notice

Talk about low yield per acre! Hit the comments with your thoughts on where this striking mystery vineyard is. First one to get it right wins our respect and admiration–and a link back to your site if you have one.

UPDATE 1/28: Congrats, Andrea! Unfortunately I included a link to the image initially, which may have given some people an advantage. But thanks to those who commented!

Indeed, it is the very impressive growing climate of Lanzarote in the Canary Islands, specifically the valley of La Geria. Only 100 miles or so from Africa, the vines are planted in black, volcanic soil in slight recesses to capture the scant water and protect against the winds, as the semi-circular stone walls also do. Extreme wine making! Has anyone ever tasted the wines? Or visited? See more shots of the vineyards.

Have you ever tried a rare romorantin? The grape is a little off the beaten path. But that’s good.

From Cour-Cheverny in the Loire, the Francois Cazin, Le Petit Chambord 2005 is an attractive wine–excellent balance between acid, minerality, and subtle tropical fruits. Sort of splits the difference between chenin blanc and sauvignon blanc. It’s limited availability, as you might imagine since romorantin is hardly made by the tanker, but I found this bottle for $15 (find this wine).

Then I paired it with a piece of “cave aged gruyere” from Trader Joe’s. It was one of those wine-food pairings where you take a good wine and a good food and make a great pairing. A Ratatouille moment, if you will.

One question for you: is cave aged gruyere from Trader Joe’s really aged in a cave? (or just come guy’s basement?) What are the norms of production on that? The greatest cave aged cheese, Roquefort, doesn’t even bother mentioning that it was aged in a cave. So I’m suspicious…I want pictures of spelunking regulators! And while we’re talking terms, what’s up with “vendages manuelles” (hand harvests)?

“World Markets Plunge on Fears of U.S. Slowdown” was the headline from the NYT site yesterday. Lovely! Time to buy gold, everybody! (Oh wait, it’s already at new highs.)

The good thing about wine is that you always need it. As Napoleon is reputed to have said about champagne, “in victory you deserve it; in defeat you need it.”

So how will a declining economy and stock market affect your wine purchases? Have your say in the latest poll! Feel free to hit the comments if you have more to say than the choices shown here.

On a related note, how are those importers feeling about raising prices thanks to the falling dollar? Ouch. Stuck between a rock and a hard place.

UPDATE: a Reuters story on the weak economy and the fine wine market quotes several prognosticators–including Dr. Vino!

poll now closed

Conventional wisdom: artichokes and wine are an impossible food-wine pairing!

Tim Hanni sez: add salt and lemon juice to the water while cooking them to mitigate a strong sweet taste or a strong bitter taste that people get while tasting wine (or water!) with them.

What say you? Hit the comments with your thoughts, on this, our most impossible-ist pairing ever!!

For details on Tim Hanni, check out the WSJ story on him from Saturday’s paper.

Image

Reader Steve De Long sent in this photo from his travels. Where was he?

I’ll check back on Tuesday morning. Of those who guessed correctly, I’ll throw your names in a hat to be eligible to win one of Steve’s excellent little Wine Tasting Notebooks! I have two to give away!

I’m going to be heading to an undisclosed location and locking myself in a man-sized safe for a bit. But don’t worry. Dick Cheney won’t be there.

It’s actually exciting news–I’m under contract to write a wine book for Simon & Schuster. I’m thrilled that they made me an offer and am especially thrilled that they have put it on the astonishingly fast track: The book is scheduled for release this fall. It’s going very well and it is shaping up to be a horrendously fun and informative practical guide. If you’re reading this, chances are that you’ll like the book because I got the contract for the book based on this blog.

The only problem is that I haven’t finished writing it yet. So that’s why it’s worth talking about now. In order to make the final push, I’m going to have to pull back on the blogging for a bit. I’ll still be posting here but the posts will be fun, interactive ones where you do a lot of the heavy lifting. Stick around! And send in your photos for our guessing and captioning!

Things should return to normal tempo in about a month.