Wine Marketing...which way is up?

In june of 2005, the CRAV ( the Regional Committee on Viticultural Action) took their fight to the streets in the South of France. The problem? An oversupply of grapes and wine. Was their a method in their madness? Not really, a year and a half later the problem still exists. But now there is a glimmer of hope. After 10 years of meetings by various commissions a proposal has been brought forward that would unite all of Languedoc's AOC's as well as the neighbouring Rousillon region. Now that is smart marketing. Placing a whole region under one banner and promoting it as such. However this raises some concern by some of the smaller up and coming wine areas. The plan is for the new AOC Languedoc to be in place in 2008. That is the plan... I don't see it happening all that soon. French governing bodies tend to drag their feet a bit.

A continent away, in the Central Valley of California, a different approach is now in effect.

The town of Tracy in San Joaquin County has now been put on the AVA map. Not happy about being lumped together under the California label, a determined Jeff Brown spend 6 years and $60,000 to convince the ATF ( Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms ) to allow the creation of the newest AVA in California. So which is the right way to go? Produce the best wine possible and you will create a market and loyal following. Congratulations to Tracy Hills and Good Luck to Languedoc!!

Wine Beef Burgers......and other fantasies!

Not satisfied with the flavor of your beef?
Well then, why not specify your steaks have to come from wine fed beef? It is reported that the cattle seemed to like the addition of wine to their feed and that they gained weight. This mind you, was based merely on the observation that they were eating more. Well of course! Wine is an appetite stimulant and can aid in the resorption of ingested food and increase the caloric intake.
No wonder they put on weight.
Maybe we are not doing them a favor and perhaps this is an animal welfare issue.
So what is next?
A demand for Pinot Plum or Merlot Mango flavored yoghurts? The headlines will read "Happy dairy cows eager to share their milk". Or how about Chardonnay scrambled eggs? Then of course we will probably be able to look forward to Pinot Gris pork products. Perhaps this over-indulgence is getting out of hand.
The picture of the vineyard with the bird netting was taken at the Blue Grouse Vineyards on Vancouver Island. Obviously it is to keep the birds out and that is a good thing. But the second picture shows a starving child with no protection from any birds, especially vulturous ones. Should make you think. At this time of the year I always get a little sad when I think of all my blessings and the countless people, especially children, who are not nearly as fortunate as I am. So when I read about this over-the-top procedure just to get your beef steaks kicked up a notch, I have to shake my head and wonder. So this holiday season, be kind and be generous to those less fortunate around you. Take care of those you love, including your pets and yes do take time to enjoy the fruit of the vine! As well, this is the Remembrance day week-end. Let us take a moment to remember all those hero soldiers who gave up their lives, so that we might continue to live in the freedom we treasure so much.

Hickory Dickory Dock......

The mouse ran up the clock.The clock struck one,The mouse ran down!Hickory Dickory Dock.
And what did the mouse do when he got down?
He ate some cheese and had a glass of wine. And here is to a happy and long life, eating what you want and making sure you get your daily dose of resveratrol. Click on the pic and join me once again to toast to our good health!
Then of course there is another recent discovery about resveratrol. And that is.... and that is...... hmm I forgot. Oh yes go to the end of this article and follow the link to the report on Alzheimer's disesase. Perhaps one word of caution. With all the data coming in on the benefits of resveratrol there is bound to be a rush on to produce a tablet or liquid claiming to be"your best source and highest level of resveratrol". Give us this day our daily bread ... and our daily glass of wine of course and that will be my source of resveratrol for now. I give thanks to all those wonderful winemakers out there who are keeping me happy and healthy.
Cheers!

Toasting your health again!!

As if we needed another reason to drink a glass of wine, researchers have found yet another beneficial effect of consuming red wine.
Resveratrol, a polyhenol with powerful anti-oxidant effects is once again in the limelight. Resveratrol levels are highest in red wines and of the red grape varieties, Pinot Noir has markedly higher concentrations than other varietals. The movie "Sideways" kicked up Pinot Noir sales a notch or two. Now we have a good healthy reason to increase our Pinot consumption.
If you click on the picture and enlarge the image, I swear that you will see smily faces on the grapes. These Pinot grapes, grown at the Blue Grouse Vineyards on Vancouver Island were already over 26 Brix and a week away from harvest. Should produce a healthy tonic.
The latest research now indicates red wine reduces risks of colon cancer. The list is growing and I am happy to have another reason to continue my adventure with the fruit of the vine.
It is interesting to note that with the many healthful benefits derived from wine that governments on both sides of the Atlantic, insist on adding mandatory health warnings on labels.
Another slam against wine, but not too hard. Bureaucrats are always mindful of all that wonderful tax money flowing into government coffers. I say reduce taxes on wine and thereby making wine more affordable for the average consumer. This will improve the nation's health, thus reducing costly medical care and the need for all those tax dollars.
I think Thomas Jefferson said it best when he was quoted as follows: "I think it is a great error to consider a heavy tax on wines as a tax on luxury. On the contrary, it is a tax on the health of our citizens. " Are there any forward thinking politicians like that around today? Of course not, its not "politically correct". Enjoy your glass of red wine in good health.

Who's on First.......

Definitely not China. The Chinese are using recently discovered archaeological findings to claim they were the first country to produce wines. This claim was based upon finding a 9000 year old wine made from rice, honey and fruit.
Now I don't know anything about archaeology but I do know that rice makes sake and honey makes meade.
Looking at various sources including Wikepedia, wine is the " alcoholic fermented juice of fresh grapes used as a beverage" Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary Or the Biology-Online definition of wine, again grapes and fruit are mentioned but not rice or honey. So who was first?
There is evidence that the first wines were made in Georgia. Other claims indicate Iran was the origin of wine.
If a tree falls in the forrest, does anybody hear? Or for that matter does anybody care?
I am making another claim. The ancient Roman earthen vessel pictured here (and feel free to click on the picture to see the finer details) was uncovered in a vineyard in the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia. This proves that before the Romans planted vineyards in France and the rest of the Roman Empire, they took a detour and made wine in Canada. Well OK, I was just having some fun with my camera in my backyard. Just goes to show you, you can't believe everything you read and here is an example.


In this news release "Israel's Galilee offers world's first pomegranate wine". So in 2003 they made their first Pomegranate wine.
Funny thing is that last year, I tasted the 2001 Pomegranate Wine made by Paradis an Armenian winery. When you visit this site click on products, then click fine wine & spirits and scroll down to the bottom (or click on the picture on the left) and you will find the description of this wonderful and lush dessert wine. Paradis has been making it since the year 2000.
Amazing, claims and counter claims. I am now going to enjoy a glass or two of a 2003 Cusumano Nero D'Avola from Sicily. What a great wine! They have been making wine on this island for a long time and are not too concerned with who made the first wine, just how to enjoy it on a daily basis. Ciao!!

Its a Corker....!

Just when screwcaps' march across the wine world seemed unstoppable ( stopperable..get it?) cork is fighting back. Before I get into that, glass stoppers seem to be on an invasion all of their own into the closure battle and doing well. But cork enthusiasts received a little boost when the Australian Wine Research Institute released test results confirming the Australian membrane cork"ProCork" is the best performing wine bottle closure.The study revealed that the lack of permeability of screwcap closures makes wine susceptible to a chemical reaction known as reduction. During intervals of 12, 18, 24, 30 and 36 months, ProCork outperformed other closures, in its ability to retain and enhance the quality of wine.

The ProCork technology involves the application of thin membranes to each end of the cork. ProCork is making inroads into the European market where it has been used for over a year.

But wait a minute, is it the best cork closure? Not according to the makers of the "Diam" closure. Diamant was developedby Oeneo, a French closure company and the French Atomic Energy Commission. High powered stuff there.
So just when I was getting used to the snappy crack when opening a bottle with a screwcap, cork is bouncing back. No real surprise there.
Interesting to note that Oeno is covering all basis and that their line up of closures includes
srewcaps.

So for now, I won't put my favourite corkscrew away just yet. How long before we will have the next best closure making its debut? I think while I am pondering that, I will have a glass of wine, red wine of course. It feels like fall and there is a chill in the air.

Bottle Shock...!

Are you ready for the next evolution in wine bottles? Way back when....... wine was bottled in leather or pottery. Although" bottled " would not have been the term of the day.I could handle pottery, but leather? Come to think of it, I drank a few bottles at college football games out of my Spanish leather Bota bag. But of course the modern version has a plastic lining. It must have been a stunning advancement to serve wine from the first glass bottles. That would have been an easy sell when they were introduced around 1600 AD.

Now we are into the next generation of bottling wine. Plastic that is. The problem with PET( polyethylene terephthalate) as with all plastic, is to keep oxygen out of the bottle. And we all know what O2 does to your wine. Constar, a US company, has developed a product that can be added to PET to effectively bind oxygen and thus solving that problem. Light in weight and virtually indestructible, plastic bottles do have some advantages. I was just getting used to screwcaps but my wine in plastic? Wolf Blass with their yellow label, pictured here, apparently has no problem. But hold on, if weight reduction to lower shipping costs and save energy is the issue then how about this approach? Lightweight bottles, weighing in at 300g instead of the 500g for a standard wine bottle is now used in Britain. "Constellation Brands will assess the feasibility of bottling more wine in the UK using lightweight bottles" Wouldn't you know it? Assess the feasibilty? Constellation is the number one producer and marketer of wine in the world and cutting costs is part of their succes. So you wonder if the environmental issue is just a good way to increase profits. Just how much of this cost saving will be passed on to us, the consumer? I'll just keep pulling corks out of one of my cellared, bottled in real glass, wine for now.

The Future is Almost Here...!

So my little Robot friend, tell me what grapes are those on my backyard vines?

In my previous post on Wine Critics etc., I was under the impression that we would be looking for these little creatures to show up in 4 to 5 years.It now seems that wine robots will become a reality much sooner than first anticipated.Endo and his research team are looking for someone to bring them to market now. Sounds good to me, but I still want to wait for the little hand held edition I pictured in my previous blog. I can't quite see myself carrying a little robot to my tastings. So in the meantime can anyone identify the grapes in my backyard vineyard? Well guess what? I am having a blast with my new camera and those are table grapes I bought at the supermarket and then hung on my vines.Anything to show off my pictures. Initial reports show we are in for another good harvest around the globe. So no shortage of good wines coming up. Happy drinking and in the meantime Mr. Endo may I suggest you get in touch with Rockstar Marketing.

To Your Health....!!!

It is white wine's turn in the limelight for healthful benefits.
Be sure to click on the image and enlarge it to see how white wine can reflect the fragrance of flowers, the freshness of a bright spring morning and the intensity of a glorious summer day.
"Wine is the most healthful and hygienic of beverages" Louis Pasteur (1822-1895), French scientist

"I think a tax on wine, is a tax on the health of our citizens" Thomas Jefferson

Only when the television news magazine "60 Minutes" reported in November, 1991, the phenomenon that has come to be known as the French Paradox, did popular thinking of wine as medicine rather than toxin begin to return. Typically, the diet of people in Southern France includes a very high proportion of cheese, butter, eggs, organ meats, and other fatty and cholesterol-laden foods. This diet would seem to promote heart disease, but the rate there was discovered to be much lower than in America; herein lies the paradox. But red wines suddenly were the latest way to a healthy life style. A significant amount of research since then has shown the benefit of consuming red wine in particular.
It was the advent of modern medicine, especially the discovery of penicillin and subsequent other antibiotics that put wine on the back shelves as a medical treatment. Hippocrates , the "Father of Medicine" around 400 B.C. in his Corpus Hippocraticum, showed how wine played a significant role in these treatises of antique medicine. The largest pharmacological work of antiquity was written by a Greek army surgeon,Pedanius Dioscorides, in the service of the Roman emperor Nero. De Materia Medica consisted of five volumes and was written in the first century A.D. Both of these extensive works remained authorative for western medicine for almost a thousand years.
Now the latest research tells us that lovers of white wine no longer have to worry about not getting the healthful benefits that their red wine drinking friends have been enjoying.
All I can say to that is "A votre sante", "Salud", "Prosit", "Noroc", "Campai" and "Noroc"or in any other language I raise my glass and here is to your good health.

A WORLD WITHOUT WINE CRITICS....and WRITERS!!

At last, be your own critic and be right every time. Forget the point systems. Wine lovers everywhere will be able to do on the spot computerized tastings and find the wines they like without actually consuming them. Sounds like some fictional, futuristic dreaming? Its closer than you think. I am in possesion of a personal prototype. The picture you see of the handheld computerized tasting tongue has only been altered slightly to protect the .....well the wild imagination of some dreamers like myself.

Have we not all wondered how come we can't detect that hint of bacon wrapped baked pear on the nose? Or tasted that kiwi tinged streak of lime marinated mango? Please, will someone tell me how you do that?

"Human sensory tests are regularly employed in the food and beverages industries, but results are based on subjective judgements and variations between panels can be up to 50 per cent in terms of flavour units. Therefore, the development of 'objective' tools to detect taste is very much needed," said the researchers in a joint UK-Us venture. Wow, 50% folks, that is enough to make you wonder whether what you read or hear about a wine is really what you'll experience when you attempt to taste the wine yourself. This scientific approach is based on surface acoustic wave (SAW) sensors.Imagine dipping your little probe into a glass of wine with a predetermined taste profile set to your own preferences.
Meanwhile another group of scientists have figure out how we perceive all that crisp sour ( acid in wine of course)
Japanese researchers not to be outdone, have produced a robot that will tell you what grapes are in your wine. Aha!! I thought I could detect Viognier in that Shiraz.
Now if the ladies and gentlemen of the scientific community could all get together, pool their knowledge and come up with my futuristic handheld computerized tongue, I can go to the next big tasting of 100+ wines, set my parameters and I'll be able to pick my winners in no time at all. Then of course I can get to some serious tasting. One day soon I will wake up from my dream and read in my favourite wine column ( my own perhaps), that the future is here. The fully loaded models will of course allow you to listen to your music, take pictures and will have a cell phone component. But wait....not to open another can of worms, but the Aussies think they have the answer and have come up with another sniffer. So now you will have a choice, your PPPP (Personally Programmed Proboscis Probe) or your PPPW (Personal Pack of Pet Worms)
In the meantime lest we forget, the best wine is still the wine that you like.