Dr Vino's wine blog

On May 3, the British blog bordeaux-undiscovered.co.uk published an entry stating that Brad Pitt was to star in the movie version of The Billionaire’s Vinegar. On May 4, thedrinksbusiness.com picked up the story, citing no sources, adding that David Koepp is directing and the movie is set to be released this fall. On May 8, Decanter.com, rehashed the same details, citing no source. From there, it was off to the races, retweeted and picked up by wine sites from Canada to India as well as Brad Pitt fan sites and even Robert Parker.

Sorry to burst everyone’s bubble but Brad Pitt is not going to star in the movie. And the movie is nowhere close to coming out this year.

I called David Bloomfield of Escape Artists Entertainment at his office in LA. Bloomfield is the executive producer of the film. I asked if the Brad Pitt item was true.

“It’s literally someone in the blogosphere picking up something that was published two years ago,” he said referring to the nytimes.com page that was the source of the original blog post.

And David Koepp as director? Nope. Bloomfield said, that there’s “No director. No talent. No new news.”

He added that the project is still officially in development and that it is “not dead.” But there’s nothing to report. “I hope there will be soon.”

“Dad’s reading a comic book!”

My kids thought it hilarious to see me reading Drops of God, the Japanese manga sensation that swept through Asia. Its alluring powers were even on display on the beach where my younger son wanted to me to read it to him though eventually he wandered off and resumed building sand castles. But if you are old enough to enjoy wine, the innovative, enthralling, soap opera for wine geeks will lure you in no matter if you’ve just cracked your first moscato or if you were weaned on Meursault. And it is perfect beach reading (as I can testify having selflessly read it in situ on your behalf).

The story’s protagonist, the young Shizuku Kanzaki, embarks on a quest laid out in his father’s will: to correctly identify twelve “apostles,” or heavenly wines that are the “drops of God” in title. Shizuku turned his back wine while his father was alive, rebuffing the beverage that made his father into a legend of the wine world as a critic as well as a fortune (he bought a lot en primeur and consulted to wineries, neither of which damaged his reputation as a critic, apparently). But his father always offered him things to smell and taste, which honed his sensory perception for his quest. Or contest, more aptly: Shizuku is pitted against Issei Tomine, just the sort of young, suave, arrogant, know-it-all who makes the perfect rival for Shizuku’s more passionate approach as he evolves swiftly from wine newbie to master. At stake, is the entire collection that the elder Kanzaki amassed over a lifetime, as well as the family’s grand house.

Along the way, wines are praised rapturously, both in two-page illustrated spreads as well as with lavish descriptions. Consider this one for the first of the “twelve apostles:”

I wander deep within a forest thick with pristine primeval growths,
As the humid scent of life wafts from the moss-covered trees,
I walk toward the heart of the forest in search of solace.
The bounteous blessing of nature suits a virgin forest unsullied by human hands
Ah, behold, a pair of violet butterflies, tangling in flight!
Perhaps this little spring is your Holy Land.

The two contestants parse the words and embark on a method of arriving at an answer to the riddle. Shizuku’s approach is more fun as he discusses it with friends, finagles ways to taste rarified wines, closing in on the region and village to ultimately make his pick. Along the way, he helps a woman with amnesia recover her past through a glass of wine, gets a tutorial from an eccentric wine expert who literally stores rarefied Burgundy in a hole in the ground, and squares off with a business rival in a blind tasting.

It’s easy to see how the books drove wine sales across Asia more than any wine critic who merely assigns anodyne point scores to wines. Drops of God succeeds at the highest level: not only does it inform and engage the reader through the narrative and illustrations, it makes you yearn to start your own quest, to research regions and producers while pulling some corks on fine bottles to share with friends.

Drops of God, Volumes 1 – 4, now available on Amazon in English. (aff link)

Robert Parker and Antonio Galloni are organizing a lunch of 1982 Bordeaux from Parker’s cellar. Yes, the same passive cellar where he brought Charlie Rose and the 60 Minutes cameras in 2001.

For $12,000, attendees will be treated to a lunch at Restaurant Daniel and about 25 wines that Parker says he bought on release. Fully $6,000 per head will go to a charity, which is laudable. The other $6,000 per head, net of the restaurant’s, charges, will go to the self-proclaimed hedonist of wine and life. Since he told Charlie Rose he had 12,000 bottles in the cellar, it remains to be seen if this event will be the first of many. Full details on ’82 Bordeaux after the jump.

In other Wine Advocate news, Parker published a Napa Cabernet 2002 retrospective that included 17 wines that received 100 points. Read more…

Don Cornwell, an attorney and wine collector, posted an admonition earlier this year not to bid on wines he considered fake wines form Rudy Kurniawan. That spawned an enormous and on-going comment thread over on wineberskers about wine counterfeiting. The thread has heated up in the last week or so Don is back with some new details.

A key part of Kurniawan’s undoing may have been bidding on a ’47 Ponsot Clos St. Denis that he thought was from Domaine Ponsot but was actually from the unrelated Christine Ponsot. Cornwell posts the actual listing in the 2004 Acker, Merrall Catalogue, showing it simply as “Ponsot,” adding, “it makes you wonder if [auctioneer] John Kapon ever really looked at the bottle in question.” Cornwell points out that Kurniawan engaged in a bidding war with another collector, who also may have thought it was a Domaine Ponsot bottling.

Then Cornwell publishes excerpts from sealed depositions, now public, from Bill Koch’s suit against Eric Greenberg. It’s confusing but Greenberg got into wine in a big way, quickly amassing a wine collection of over 60,000 bottles. And then just a few years later, for “health-related reasons,” he whittled the cellar down to a mere 20,000 – 30,000 bottles. In his acquisition spree, he apparently picked up some dodgy bottles from Hardy Rodenstock (see extensive backgrounder). And Koch bought some of those at auction, which was the basis for his suing Greenberg (Koch had previously won a default judgment against Rodenstock; the suit against Greenberg is still pending).

A couple of remarks stand out from the sealed court proceedings: one witness testified that “[Greenberg] said if he had counterfeit wine, he could always sell it through Acker Merrall because John Kapon would take anything.” Also, there was a death threat!

There, now you have your dose of wine counterfeiting news for the week. And more fodder for your screenplay.

Moscato–or mosc-HOT-oh–is barely wine. In fact, the one above has a nutritional analysis as foods do–the first time I’ve seen that on wine. According to a representative at the importer, Boisset America, because this wine is less than 7% alcohol, it falls under FDA regulation rather than the TTB and thus had to place the “nutrition facts” on the back label.

This type of labeling may become the norm for all wines. What do you think? Have your say in the latest poll. And thanks to the young man about town, @corkhoarder, for supplying the picture.

[poll id=”23″]

Related: Counting wine’s calories
Bonny Doon’s labels bare all

Simon Staples, aka @BigSiTheWineGuy who is sales director and Bordeaux buyer for Berry, Bros & Rudd, tweeted this photo. Notice anything amiss? Here were his comments:

Romanee Conti and Lafite together? In a “Vin Rouge Sec”? From the Languedoc? Here it is!…..Gotta be a 100 pointer!!

He added in response to a commenter that he was sent the bottle from China, adding “Could be a bit of a fakeO methinks. Very inventive!”

Screaming Eagle, the Napa winery known for its cabernet sauvignon that fetches high prices, has released six hundred bottles of sauvignon blanc. Offered to “active members” on its mailing list for $250 a bottle, the offer came with the condition that they not resell it. In 2006, Stan Kroenke, owner of Arsenal and the Denver Nuggets and spouse of Ann Walton Kroenke, purchased Screaming Eagle and replanted some of the vineyards, including some sauvignon blanc.

Six of the bottles have found their way to auction, where the lot closed with a winning bid of $13,000. To whomever paid over $2,500 a bottle (including the 19.5% buyer’s premium), I say…well, YOU finish the sentence in the comments!

MULLED: if you don’t have #RudyFatigue, there are lots of counterfeiting/Rudy Kurniawan details in a first-hand account from a NY collector. [oldvinenotes]

SPIT: the end
Laurent Ponsot tells the NYT that “The [counterfeiting] story is not at the end. This is just a beginning.”

COOKED: any wine in a UPS truck in NY today–or an unrefrigerated delivery truck bringing wine to a store or restaurant. Cooked wine > corked wine > counterfeit wine?

APPLAUDED: Laurent Ponsot is combatting not only fraud, but also heat in shipping! Awesome. See above image curtesy of @corkhoarder.

OFFERED: Condolences
A hailstorm that was so bad that it wiped out not only all of this year’s crop, but also a third of next year’s? It sounds like a headline from The Onion, but it was really from Decanter.com about the Aube region in Champagne.

DISCUSSED: Crushpad, the custom crush facility that started at a warehouse in downtown San Francisco, appears to facing a financial cliff. Lew Perdue had a back-and-forth with their CEO. [wineindustryinsight]

SIPPED: two hybrid wineries are opening in southeast Portland, one with an “enopub.” [Oregonlive]

GULPED: vin de soif. They love it in Toronto! Thanks/merci, Beppi! [globeandmail.com]