Dr Vino's wine blog

Are you interested in becoming a sales rep for a wine distributor with the area industry’s “highest salaries”? Or becoming a senior buyer at a chain of 78 wine stores grossing $1 billion? How about a senior PR position at a wine importer? Would you like to be a sommelier at a leading restaurant in New York City?

All these positions–and more!– currently available and posted over at the new wine industry jobs board that I am launching today. Consumers, turn your passion for wine into a profession, either full-time or part time. Trade readers who want to trade up or trade across, check out what is available.

And employers, shine a light on your search by listing your open positions. For a limited time, take $99 off a classic listing (yes, that makes it FREE) or a premium listing by entering “pinot” at checkout. Premium listings remain at the top of the page, get listed in the daily email, and on the sidebar of the blog. Leverage our audience by providing the best possible visibility to your search for finding the strongest candidate.

So what are you waiting for, click over and take a look at jobs.drvino.com!

Orange wines are sweeping the nation! Well, something like that. These white wines emerge from their fermentation on the grape skins with a rich, sometimes orange, hue. Since orange is the color of the season, it’s particularly apt to discuss, if not try, orange wines now. And that’s what Dave Erickson, a site reader in North Carolina who blogs at the Wine Mule, has been doing and he sent in this question about them:

We had a tasting of orange wines the other night, and the question came up: How do sommeliers deal with these wines, when they all seem to need anywhere from 4 to 24 hours to become presentable? Do they tell diners to call in advance? Do they use aerators?

I forwarded it to Levi Dalton, a trend-setting sommelier and has been shining an orange light in the wine world for at least a couple of years now. What follows is his detailed reply:

Back in 2009, when I held the first of a series of Orange wine dinners at Convivio restaurant in Manhattan, Read more…

SPIT: carbon footprint
Forget the mode of transport or the weight of the glass bottles; my co-author neglected this in our calculation of wine’s carbon footprint: grape drying by helicopter in Napa! [NPR]

SIPPED: watching grapes grow
Viticulture & Enology is one of the sexiest majors at Cornell. Well, with the helicopter blow driers, why not? (Oh and what type of positioning is happening in their vineyard?!) [CornellSun.com]

SIPPED: buying binge
Chinese investors are no longer satisfied with mere wine: now they are buying wineries in Australia and Bordeaux. [Bloomberg, BBC]

SIPPED: wine in food
Short ribs feature at Men’s Health — with a delicious braising wine (and drinking) from Dr. Vino. But will it give you six-pack abs?

SIPPED: more wines at better prices?
The Pennsylvania governor released a report on privatizing the state’s liquor stores. [businessweek]

When I bumped into Pax Mahle earlier this year at his Sonoma wine making facility, I told him I wanted to see his eggs. Fortunately, he didn’t drop his drawers. Instead, he took me to his fermentation room where he had a massive pair of cement egg-shaped fermenters!

Pax used to make full-throttle wines, syrahs and pinots mostly, that scored big Parker points. Then, in what might be another stop in our “Road to Damascus” series (see Wells Guthrie), he grew tired of the style at around the time he had a falling out with his financial backer, bringing an end to the Pax label. His new label, Wind Gap, offers lower-octane wines thanks in part to cool vineyard sites as well as the changing tastes of the wine maker. “My tastes tend to prefer a lighter style,” he told me, adding that his favorite wine of his on that warm June day was is his Trousseau Gris. Unfortunately, I didn’t have an appointment with him and he was heading out so I didn’t have a chance to taste his wines. Just to see the eggs.

Of note, he said that he has won back the Pax name and will be releasing about 700 cases of wine under the Pax label. Wind Gap makes about 3,000 cases of wine a year.

Anyway, after a trip to the Republic of Georgia, Alice Feiring wonks out and informs us that to be über wine geeky, we should call amphora by the Georgian name of qvevri!

Another Pax egg shot (mine) and video (found on youtube) after the jump. Read more…

It’s not every day that we get to talk about tax reforms on this site. Especially foreign tax reforms! But a recent change in the tax on capital gains from real property in France may cause several vineyards to sell before February 1 of next year.

French tax code previously had a zero percent tax on property held more than 15 years. No capital gains tax–and this is a land where the candidate from the parti socialiste has a 60-40 lead over the incumbent president? John Boehner must me gnashing his teeth.

The reform, introduced by PM Francois Fillon and ratified last month, would maintain the zero capital gains on property but push the holding period back to thirty years. (To ease the transition somewhat, in the intervening years, sellers will be able to step up their cost basis by the official rate of inflation.) Foreign owners may pay different rates. Here’s how one site calculates the change in tax bills:

A French property bought by a UK resident for €500,000 in 1996 and sold 15 years later for €1m, for example, would not pay any French Capital Gains Tax on the €500,000 profit made.

If the same property, in the same circumstances, was sold after 1 February 2012, only 20% of the profit (€100,000) would be free from taxation. The remaining €400,000 would be subject to 19% tax, resulting in a €76,000 tax bill.

While we’re not so interested in the holiday house market on this site, the net result is that some property holders who have held for about 15 years but not yet thirty may attempt to dump properties before the law goes into effect. That could mean some vineyards will change hands. Developing…

Site reader Damien sent in this photo from his travels suggesting that we could play our favorite game, “where in the wine world are we?”

So, take a gander at the photo to the right and hit the comments with your thoughts as to where the reader was. The first to guess right, wins a gold star, California Grand Cru edition! Caution, objects more difficult than they might appear!

Sometimes you can seek solace in wine. Our town was shaken by an unthinkable tragedy this week. Right now, all I want from wine is to act as a bit of a balm.

So here are a few wines that I brought some joy to my NYU class this week. We opened with the Roederer brut premier Champagne, and that was enjoyed by everyone but the few bubbles haters in the room. The Francois Pinon, cuvée tradition, Vouvray 2009 was almost unanimously liked, and rightly so. The vintage was on the warm side and the wine has an enticing balance between acidity and some residual sweetness. I poured a Clos de la Roilette, cuvée tardive, Fleurie 2010 from magnum. Everyone was wowed by the large format–and cru Beajolais is a large format that isn’t priced into the stratosphere. They really liked the wine too. And a final wine that met a very warm reception was the Domaine Montpertuis, vignoble de la Ramiere, Cotes du Rhone, 2009. The estate is an old-school Chateauneuf producer and this is their mostly-grenache CdR blend that clocks in at a mere 13.5% alcohol. At about $15, the class really liked it as a relative value too. (find these wines)

Which wines are you looking forward to this weekend? Or what have you had recently that provided you some joy or solace?

What do Motörhead, AC/DC, Whitesnake, the Rolling Stones, and Dave Matthews have in common? Well, besides never being in the same playlist on one person’s iTunes library, these musicians have all released their own wine labels recently. Sadly, none of them could probably identify the vineyards used for making said wines. (Perhaps Matthews could; he is apparently a vintner in Virginia but this wine is something different from California.)

I understand why these wines come about: someone approaches the celebrities as yet another way to cash in on their fame. But what I don’t understand is who buys them. You like Motörhead? Fine, crank Ace of Spades up to 11. But leave the wine selection to someone else.

I’m holding out for the Keith Jarrett wine, an improvisational blend that has a 20-minute finish. Or the Bob Marley wine. (Oops, I guess pot wine is already available, apparently.)