Dr Vino's wine blog

Which corks will pop at the lunch immediately after President Obama’s second inauguration on January 21? With Charles Schumer as the chairman of the Joint Congressional Committee planning the inauguration festivities, wine enthusiasts could anticipate that New York wines would make a showing. Indeed, two appear on the menu: the 2009 dry riesling from Tierce in the Finger Lakes will accompany the lobster and Bedell Cellars’ 2009 merlot pairs with the bison. While I haven’t tried these wines, it’s refreshing to have estate wines from New York at the event instead of California wines dominating.

However, there’s some outrage that Korbel is being poured and in the fanfare announcing it where it was touted incorrectly as “Champagne.” While that is a valid point, let’s not lose the real focus here: they’re pouring Korbel at the inauguration! If a sailor offered such plonk to Neptune, the sailor would be practically baiting ramming whales, storms, broken masts and scurvy. The wine is not representative of the exciting things happening in California wine today. Granted, there are surprisingly few quality sparkling wine producers. But finding a good one shouldn’t be too hard for a committee whose members just averted the fiscal cliff. Now, if only they could bring us back from the edge of this vinous precipice.

Health officials in Scotland have come up with a new weapon in their campaign against excessive drinking: an app that makes you look fat. And old.

The app, called The Drinking Mirror, shows a projection of what the user may look like if they keep drinking at current (elevated) levels. The results are not pretty. But, seriously, who would use such an app other than people who had been drinking?!

Oddly, the app targets mostly women even though they have a lower incidence of excessive drinking. And the app translates alcohol units only as wine, not other alcoholic drinks. WWTJT? What would Thomas Jefferson think? He preached the virtues of wine as a drink of moderation compared to, say, whiskey. Of note: scotch doesn’t figure in the campaign from Scotland. Read more…

Over the past month, a refugee tried to sell assets in his home country, bought a tiny house in a neighboring country, and took a passport from a third. It was none other than bon vivant Gerard Depardieu, who fled France, listed his $65 million Paris apartment, bought a house in Belgium a stone’s throw from the French border, and then received a Russian passport two days ago from Putin (wonder what they uncorked? Putin is a teetotaler.). Depardieu is fleeing a possible 75% tax on incomes above 1 million euros in France (though the proposal got struck down by the high court and its fate is unknown).

There is a slight wine angle to all this. Depardieu has said he could drink five bottles of wine a day, so wherever he goes, there may be a bump in the consumption figures. Seriously, will this naturalized citizen be a wine ambassador to Russia (even culturally, assuming he’s not around too much)? Depardieu owns Chateau Tigné in Anjou and is involved in several other wine projects with Bernard Magrez and Michel Rolland. Incidentally, in a lengthy interview with Decanter in 2009, he professed to being an Italophile, saying “I love Italian culture.” But, seemingly, not their tax rate either.

What do you think of his actions: treasonable or reasonable?

It’s January. There’s snow on the ground and the temperature dipped into the high teens last night. What’s a wine enthusiast to do? Why, try to freeze some wine, of course.

I wasn’t intent on making a wine Slurpee. In fact, my motivations were more in the name of science. Or pseudo-science. But what I wanted to know is whether wine would freeze if left out in a variety of circumstances that simulate delivery or shipping conditions in January for much of the country. Read more…

Philip Howard, a professor at Michigan State specializing in food systems, has led a team to assemble a superb infographic that depicts just how big is Big Wine–and how few companies control choices at supermarkets.

He’s put the graphics on his web site. Now you can find out just which brands Gallo and Constellation own! (Not to pick nits, but it’s not clear why Pam Bay and W.J. Deutsch get separate boxes than two of the brands they import, Cavit and Yellow Tail, respectively.)

The US wine industry has been quite concentrated in much of the post-Prohibition era, especially compared to France or Italy, which are dotted with small vignerons. This corporate concentration is most on display at the drug stores (!) and grocery stores that the Michigan team visited (those store buyers buy from distributors–a graphic of wine distributor consolidation would be really fascinating and probably more enlightening about wine consumer choices.) Fortunately, even if Big Wine is pretty big, there is a tasty countermovement underway in California (and elsewhere) as new, small labels are popping up–one of my exciting trends to watch for 2013. The hardest part is finding the wines, which is where specialty wine shops are invaluable.

Click through and zoom to learn which wine brands Altria, the cigarette maker, owns. Also check out Howard’s graphics on beer and coffee industries!

Robert Parker once derided bloggers as “blobbers.” Another time, he couldn’t bring himself to mention Jim Budd by name (referring to him only as “this blogger“). Now, he has once again taken to his bulletin board to blast bloggers, saying “the bar is so damn low.” Read more…

It’s January, so it’s time to put down the crystal glasses and take out the crystal ball. I have a piece on wine-searcher.com about the top trends for 2013. Click through to find out my thoughts on critics, millennials and craft beer. Which stories/issues are you watching this year?

Also, an oldie but a goodie: in 2008, the New Yorker ran a piece on hangovers, their causes and possible cures. There are lots of good lines in the piece, but one takeaway for wine geeks is the suggestion that overindulging in red wine gives more of a hangover than white because of the greater presence of congeners. How does that square with your experience?

Martine Saunier started a wine import business in 1979 because she “couldn’t find anything exceptional to drink.” As of last week, she sold that company. Unlike another major transaction this month in the wine world, the buyers are identified and there’s a very professional press release.

Saunier, 78, built the business based in Novato, CA to include such venerable estates as Henri Jayer, Chateau Rayas, and Domaine Leroy. She has been hailed as a “rock star of the wine world” and an “importer extraordinaire.” She and many of her producers will be featured in a documentary entitled “A Year in Burgundy,” due out next year on DVD.

The buyers are Gregory Castells and Kate Laughlin. Castells had a career in wine service in restaurants, including as Head Sommelier at the French Laundry but has most recently been at Soutirage, a Napa-based wine retailer while Laughlin was in advertising and operations, most recently at Soutirage. As I said, the press release is very thorough (apparently, she started out in public relations). The company, also a distributor, will continue to be called Martine’s Wines.