Dr Vino's wine blog

Into the abyss. You might think that’s the metaphorical direction of our country these days, with the economy on the shoals, an earthquake and hurricane rattling the east coast, and the great Steve Jobs retiring. But it’s actually where an Italian sparkling wine maker is storing wine.

The NYT had a good story about Piero Lugano of Bisson who dunking his wine a couple of hundred feet under the Italian sea for a year’s aging called “Abissi.” Here’s his reasoning:

“It’s better than even the best underground cellar, especially for sparkling wine. The temperature is perfect, there’s no light, the water prevents even the slightest bit of air from getting in, and the constant counterpressure keeps the bubbles bubbly. Moreover, the underwater currents act like a crib, gently rocking the bottles and keeping the lees moving through the wine.”

It’s an interesting idea (even Cristal has tried it) that evokes all those amphorae strewn on the floor of the Mediterranean, even if they weren’t put there for that purpose. For wineries that would have to rely on climate-controlled cellars, this storage would be a greener option if they get their power from non-renewable sources.

I can’t help but wonder though…is it a marketing gimmick? It gives the wine a great story and wines with great stories generally fetch higher prices for wines. If you look at a video, the bottles are lowered into the sea in large cages–is it really possible that the ocean swells could rock those? The article doesn’t say which type of closure they used but if it was a crown cap, as is common for bottle fermentations, doesn’t that have an oxygen transmission pretty close to zero anyway? And I’m not sure what to make of the comment about atmospheric pressure on bubbles given that the undersea pressure is probably greater than that in the bottle of spumante. But anyway, it’s a fun story. If you have thoughts about the effectiveness of giving Neptune the keys to the cellar, hit the comments.

Mike Steinberger tweeted that along with the high-profile layoffs announced yesterday at Slate, his wine column also fell victim the budgetary ax. While the decision may seem penny-wise for the bean counters at Washington Post (Slate’s parent), it’s pound-foolish to cut an original column with great substance; what are they going to run now, lower-cost, pageview-baiting slideshows? Ugh. It’s too bad since I have tremendous respect for the publication, both the crackling editorial and the internet-only, free model from their first day of publication.

Mike writes with tremendous verve, brio, wit, knowledge, and a nose for a good story as well as a great wine; this is a major blow for wine writing. Fortunately, his writing will continue on his blog, WineDiarist.com. Check it out, subscribe, do what it takes to keep his writing coming.

Since Mike would probably never do a roundup of his own columns, and you probably don’t have anything better to do on this rainy, August afternoon, here are a select few nuggets from his run there, 2002 – 2011. Read more…

“When I was pregnant, I just craved organs…so the placenta just made sense.”

So a new mother is quoted in a New York magazine article on cooking placenta. No, not polenta–placenta. I’ve never delivered a placenta personally, so maybe that’s why I find it a little difficult to, erm, swallow. But the NYmag story highlights various preparations including raw, popped in the blender with coconut water and banana, stewed with ginger, lemon, and a jalapeño pepper, and even pill form.

So let’s help the new mothers (and new fathers?) out there as only enophiles can with the fruit of their own labor and the fruits of the vine: which wine would you pair with placenta–or is it impossible?!?

Related: “Breast milk cheese: impossible food-wine pairing?“

SIPPED: English
“Drops of God,” a serial comic book from Japan that is purportedly addictive and moves the Asian wine markets, will finally be published in English next month. (Backgrounder)

SIPPED: horreur!
Lafite actually declined eight percent since April. [Liv-Ex]

SIPPED: getting pissy
Gerard Depardieu, vineyard owner, makes air travel fun for everyone. [NYPost]

SPIT: breathalyzer
An iPhone app tells you if you’re buzzed. But you don’t breathe into; rather, it’s a sobriety test of data entry. Would Gerard have passed the test?

SPIT: beer
Wine in Thailand: It’s not just for old, rich folks anymore, apparently. [BK]

SPIT and left for dead: bad web design
A Slate columnist examines the incredible suckiness of restaurant websites. Winery web developers, take a look!

“You, with such a smaller part of me than you realize, we have changed the wine world.”

That’s how Gary Vaynerchuk concluded what he said was his final wine video. (He had previously announced stepping down from his position at Wine Library.) I was once a guest on Wine Library TV, aka the “Thunder Show,” and the show had a fun run for five years. I wish Gary sunny skies in his future endeavors.

But what does Gary’s departure mean for wine video? After five years of gaining lots of traction on WLTV, he has come to define the space, with his gonzo style and spitting into a Jets bucket. Wine and TV are a difficult blend to master. Gary had his own distinctive style. It will be interesting to see what others can do with wine video, from finding a business model that works to the style of entertainment.

Meanwhile, the Jets dump bucket has to go into a wine Hall of Fame.

“Totally Uncorked” [TIME]
“A wine guru for the YouTube era” [Slate]
“The Pour – This Wine Critic Can Drive People to Drink” [NYT]

Chief Bottle Washer: the title is no longer just a punchline. Bruce Stephens is the CEO of Wine Bottle Renew, a California startup that washes and reuses wine bottles profiled in today’s Wall Street Journal.

“You take a bottle and you empty the bottle, and my God, why would that only be a one-time bottle?” Stephens tells the Journal. He points to the lost era of bottle washing in milk bottles, beer bottles and even Coke bottles.

Reusing a bottle is an important way to reduce wine’s carbon footprint. In a paper I co-authored on the subject, we found that the manufacture and delivery of empty bottles to the winery accounted for anywhere from about half to three-quarters (depending on bottle weight) of the carbon dioxide emissions of a wine locally produced and consumed, taking into account all of production and delivery phases, including the vineyard and winery operations. Recycling is good since in introduces a closed loop. But reusing is better since the energy demands are so much less than recycling.

While the amount of bottles that Wine Bottle Renew can clean in a day still is a drop in the bucket of California’s wine production, it’s good to see that industry heavyweights Kendall Jackson and Sutter Home have invested in the company, which may indicate eventual broader usage.

Obviously, there isn’t a standard shaped wine bottle today as there was for milk or Coke back in the day. But what do you think: if it encouraged reuse, would you favor wine bottle standardization? I would, especially if the bottles were lighter (14- to 19-ounces). Sparkling wine producers could be the first adopters since there is little variation among their bottles, the heaviest in the wine trade.

“For New Wine, Vintage Bottles” [WSJ]

Ah, Iowa. Every four years, politicians stampede your county fairs, kissing babies, shaking hands and eating fried foods. This year provides the spectacle of a raft of socially conservative Republican contenders chowing down on foot-long corn dogs. Doesn’t the Bible say something about that? Anyway, let’s help them as only enophiles can: which wine would you pair with corn dog on a stick…or is it impossible?!?

And for those who were wondering about pairing wine and the Bible, check out our archive post on Jesus, oinos, and the marriage at Cana.

Images of Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry are reduced-sized crops by Toby Harnden and Iowa Politics. See Kos for complete library of corn dog and pols pics.

After a panel at the recent Society of Wine Educators Conference, someone from the audience asked me if she should start a blog, specifically whether social media had eroded blogs to the point of being useless. Given the fast pace of change in the interwebs, are blogs redundant in an age of status updates?

Blogging isn’t dead. Far from it, in fact. It’s easy to see the appeal since it is free, instantaneous, open to all and has a global reach. The trouble is that it takes time and doesn’t generate much (if any) money. As much as I like Twitter, the comment threads generated beneath blog posts are easier to follow than the fast-moving, often disparate responses on Twitter. Facebook has a similar comment structure to blogs but it is more functionally limited than blogging, since there aren’t a lot of long Facebook status updates. Facebook and tweets are good components to blogs, even if quick reactions to blog posts do tend to come in more via Facebook and Twitter and have eroded somewhat comments on blogs. But on the whole, it’s about a conversation and Facebook and Twitter have made people more willing to engage in the conversation. This is the way more of us talk about wine today and in the future: discussion has become much more lateral, rather than the top-down, scores-handed-down-like-manna-from-Heaven model that prevailed for at least a couple of decades.

The lack of revenues remains the biggest stumbling block for blogging. But good blogging has been shown to enhance reputations and, unlike Facebook or Twitter, the blogger can own the platform. So my advice to the woman from the audience remains: if you blog, blog for love, not money, to keep it fun and free of conflicts of interest. There’s always space for someone who has an original angle, a distinctive voice, who is willing to join the larger conversation of wine online, on Facebook and especially Twitter.

What advice would you give someone wanting to start a wine blog today?