Dr Vino's wine blog

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

Aren’t they the little sweet ones? Er, the wines. Barbara and Jenna Bush were spotted sipping dolcetto, the tannic red wine from Northern Italy that literally means “little sweet one,” at Dino in Cleveland Park (Washington DC). The twins may be yin and yang, just like the grape’s description on the wine list:

Delightful: Rich, Straightforward, Friendly, Gulpable
Explosive: Ripe, Juicy, Fresh, Berry Flavors

What’s more interesting than the “star gazing” aspects of the story is the discovery of the restaurant that has an innovative and well-priced wine list, including many wines available three sizes: 3 oz pours, quarter liters as well as regular 750ml bottles. Dean Gold, a former wine and cheese buyer for Whole Foods, opened the restaurant (to somewhat mixed reviews) over the summer and decided to offer wines at $10 above retail. Now for wine geeks (do we count Barbara and Jenna among us now?) that’s worth seeking out!

Technorati tag: wine | Bush twins

In Live and Let Die, James Bond battles Mr. Big’s diabolical plan for world domination: to flood the streets with free heroin and drive out the other dealers. Once users are hooked, the villain can raise the price of smack and control the market.

Slate brilliantly made this analogy to Google’s business model recently. Give them free email, free blogging, in short, free smack for techies, and then they’re hooked on you through sunk costs and lock-in effects.

The reason I bring this up now is because this blog was down for four hours last evening. I run this blog on Blogger.com software, which is owned by Google. And the price of this blog you might wonder? It is free.

But my landlord doesn’t live downstairs and I can’t pound on his door and demand that he turn the blog back on. So I thought I would post a suggestion for people who are thinking about starting a new blog: use Typepad. Yes it costs $10 a month but hey, it’s worth it. Consider these additional features that Typepad has and blogger doesn’t:

1. Recently posted comments displayed on sidebar. Sometimes readers stumble on an older post through a Google search and post a comment but that is lost since it is far down on the blog.

2. Ability to truncate displayed posts. You can get a flavor of a posting from the first paragraph or two and maybe it’s not your cuppa tea (glass of wine?).

3. Categories!! A problem that I had for a long time with the usability of blogs was that they are a chronological spew of information. Typepad offers the ability to categorize postings so if you are only interested in wine recommendations, for example, then view only those. Wine commentary and analysis? Check out a display of those postings.

4. Trackback. Ease of tracking links back to a posting.

5. Technorati. Technorati is a clearinghouse for information in this digital age. It seems that Blogger based blogs have a hard time getting automatically indexed because the feed is outdated.

6. Images are easier and more flexible.

7. Free user tracking.

8. More details about posted comments such as the IP address of the poster and their email address.

And many more I’m sure…This is a hard posting for me to write since not only am I a fan of Google and their legions of clever engineers, there are costs for me moving my blog’s URL. But unlike heroin addicts, I am not dependent on this Mr. Big. If moving the blog means not only keeping the lights on this winter but also getting some of the above accoutrements (consider them blogging equivalents of heat and fresh paint) thrown in as well, then I won’t have any other choice.

PS- While on the subject of technology, I just downloaded the web browser Firefox 1.5 and it is great!

Technorati tags: wine | blogs | blogging | google

Inspired by HRH Jancis who wrote over the weekend about value wines in the UK, I thought I would point out why there will never be a “two buck chuck” (aka Charles Shaw) wine in Britain. Even though many supermarket retailers stock custom labelings for their own brands, taxes in what has historically been a beer drinking country make it hard to find “extreme” values.

Because retail prices include all taxes, it is difficult to find a good wine under £5 (about $10). To wit:

VAT = 17.5%
Plus per bottle flat tax of £1.24
Retailer mark up is 25-30%
Importer mark up is 25-30 % (but retailers can be importers)
Plus transportation costs

So a £4.99 wine thus breaks down something like this:
4.99 retail
4.24 pre VAT
3.00 pre flat bottle tax
2.25 retailer cost
1.60 importer cost
1.40 pre shipping cost
0.99 ex-cellars price, which includes bottling, fixed costs of winery, etc. So that’s about 50 p worth of wine!

Poor things. No wonder the Brits love going to the continent. Buy direct!

(Thanks, Gary!)

Technorati tags: wine | wine prices | United Kingdom

A reader recently posed this question:

At 10:08 PM, Trailady said…
You seem to be an expert on wine, so I must ask…. Was the wine in the wedding miracle of Jesus (in the Bible) fermented wine or unfermented grape juice? This has been a long raging debate in some circles. Just thought I’d ask.

Thanks Trailady but it seems more like a Bible question than a wine question. That being the case, I asked José Gonzalez, a classics scholar formerly at Harvard and now at the University of Oregon who reads the New Testament in its original Greek (and is a wine zealot), for a reply. He said that the question of fermented/non-fermented is one that is only confronted in American religious circles and offered this reply. –Dr. Vino

==================================================

For what it is worth: the Greek word, “oinos”, is used for fermented drinks, generally from the grape, but also from barley, palms, lotus plants, etc. That it can be used to refer to fermented drinks not of the vine follows precisely from its being the common word for “fermented must”.

As to the passage itself: “Everyone serves the good wine first, and when the guests have drunk freely, then that which is worse. You have kept the good wine until now.” You need not be a Greek scholar to realize that “to drink freely” (“methuomai” or “methuskomai”) must mean “to get drunk” or “to drink excessively” (as in fact it does). What other rationale would there be for the host to bring out the “worse” wine later, except to make sure that by then the guests are intoxicated enough not to be able to tell the difference between the good and the bad? Once you grasp the logic of the headwaiter’s comment it necessarily follows that the “good” wine served first (and, consequently, the one Christ created) must be fermented: it would be a miracle indeed to find the guests intoxicated with grape juice!

In vino veritas? Move over!

A funny (copyrighted) cartoon from the New Yorker:

check it out

Technorati tag: wine