Quotulatiousness

May 6, 2015

China’s burgeoning wine industry

Filed under: Business, China, Wine — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

At The Diplomat, Jack Detsch looks at the rapidly increasing Chinese wine sector:

China has surpassed France, the world’s foremost producer and exporter of wine, in total acreage, but don’t expect to bring a Ningxia over to a dinner party any time soon.

“I think they largely have the wrong grapes planted,” Geoff Kruth, Chief Operation Officer of the Guild of Sommeliers, a Sonoma-based non-profit, says. “They’re trying to model Bordeaux and plant cabernet – things that may not even really grow well there.”

Production is still on the rise, with China pushing through the ranks from the world’s eighth largest producer of wine in 2013 to the sixth biggest in 2016, due to growing acreage and soaring domestic demand. Wine consumption in China has increased by nearly 45 percent in the past 15 years, and vine planting jumped by 5 percent in 2014 alone, up to a total of 1.97 million acres, according to the International Organization of Vine and Wine. Chinese consumers have an especially discerning palate for red wine. In 2013, China became the world’s largest market for reds, a lucky color in folklore, downing 1.86 billion bottles, moving past France in that category. Per capita consumption is also on the rise.

But many Chinese vineyards aren’t producing wines yet, and much of the acreage dedicated to growing grapes is still used for appetizers and brandy, not wine. The majority of wine producers in Eastern and Western China, where companies in Xinjiang, Ningxia, and Gonsu have had success, produce bulk wine. At times, they’ve been competitive on a global level: in 2011, Jia Bei Lan, a winery in Ningxia, took home a coveted international gold medal for its 2009 Bordeaux blend.

April 30, 2015

Organic wines as mere marketing buzz and gimickry

Filed under: Business, Health, Science, Wine — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

At VinePair, Kathleen Willcox explains why the “organic” label on your wine may be little more than a marketing ploy:

A lot of the buzz and imagery about organics appears to be just that – empty sound bites and gimmicks created by folks eager to cash in on the increasingly lucrative organic market. Where does that leave us? Not in an easy place.

Falling for marketers’ ploys is practically a full-time occupation in America (I’m not the only one who’s bought multiple cartons of fat-free ice cream hoping, this time, to finally find “creamy fat-free vanilla bliss” right?). Consumers’ perception of what organic agriculture is vs. the reality, and the halo of virtue with which it is bequeathed (and conventional agriculture’s implicit pair of devil’s horns) is, arguably, one of the biggest boondoggles in our culture today. More than half of Americans (55%) go organic because they believe it’s healthier. Meanwhile, there is really no evidence to back that assumption up. And even organic farmers use pesticides (sorry random lady at the bar). They just happen to be “natural.”

It’s never been a better time for organic marketers and companies. The market for organic food and beverages worldwide was estimated to be $80.4 billion in 2013 and is set to reach $161.5 billion in 2018, a compound annual growth rate of 15% per year. North America has the biggest market share, and will be responsible for roughly $66.2 billion by 2018.

But in the rush to get organic products out the door (and fulfill the public’s desire for healthier, more environmentally responsible products), some producers are often doing little more than following the letter of the USDA law to earn the “organic” label, consequences to the environment and our overall health be damned. In fact, from what producers and studies revealed, it may actually be worse for the environment and your body to buy organic wine from a large manufacturer instead of buying wine produced from grapes on a smaller vineyard sprayed judiciously with synthetic pesticides by a hands-on farmer.

April 25, 2015

Finnish divers binge on 200-year-old wine and beer

Filed under: Europe, History, Wine — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Perhaps “binge” isn’t quite the right word to use…

Finnish divers recently discovered several crates of champagne and beer from a sunken ship that had been at the bottom of the Baltic Sea for nearly two centuries. The experts carefully identified, researched, and analyzed the alcohol…then they drank it.

The divers discovered the wreck just south of Aaland, a Finland-controlled archipelago of some 6,500 small islands in the Baltic Sea. Inside the sunken schooner, they found 168 bottles of champagne and an undisclosed amount of bottles of beer. The ship itself likely dates back to the second quarter of the 19th century, making its cargo almost certainly the oldest alcoholic drinks in existence. By comparison, the oldest wines in private hands are only thought to date back to the very end of the 1800s.

This entire story is a good reminder of a basic scientific truth — when in doubt, start drinking the 200-year-old booze. The divers first discovered the champagne was drinkable when changing pressures caused the cork to pop off one of the bottles, and a diver decided to take a swig. He expected to taste seawater that had seeped into the bottle over the last 200 years — which raises very legitimate questions about just why he decided to take a sip in the first place — but was shocked to discover the wine still tasted fine.

H/T to Never Yet Melted, for linking to a story from 2010.

April 11, 2015

Encounter a wine snob? Fight back!

Filed under: Humour, Wine — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 10:09

An older article at Wine Folly gives you some useful tactics should you ever be trapped by one of the worst kind of party bores, the wine snob:

A know-it-all wine snob can ruin a wine experience by forcing the “right” agenda down your throat, along with the “right” wine. Wine is one of those things about which some people obsess the arcane minutia. Snobbery is when that obsession bleeds into casual social circumstance. We’ve all been to a party where a wine snob is talking down their nose at the complimentary 2-Buck Chuck. Their condescending words spewing forth from their mouth like vomit, pushing amiable party-goers into reluctant participants in a one-sided debate.

Here are some tricks to shut that jerk up, open the floor to everyone’s tasting experiences, and most importantly: not be a wine snob yourself.

keep your patch of prairie snob free.

keep your patch of prairie snob free.

Rule #4 Fight Fire with Fire

If you are left with no more outs, it’s time to silence the beast. Remember how I said don’t be a jerk? Well, sometimes a little sarcastic snobbery is in order.
Dealing With a Snob: You call that a platitude?!?!?

If put on the spot, keep repeating “Interesting…very interesting” after every sip. Nod your head knowingly.

Say, “OH WOW” at awkward times to intentionally interrupt them.

Hold your glass up to the light and admire the wine. If someone asks you what you see simply respond, “it’s just very surprising.”

Wait for them to describe the wine, then smile and while shaking your head encouragingly say “Yeah, you’re close, keep trying.”

One-upmanship

AKA, like when Crocodile Dundee says: “You call that a knife? This is a knife”

Oh, so they like a wine from 2006 (enter vintage)?
Response: I don’t drink wine that young.

They favor Italian (or region)?
Response: What a shame, given the situation over there (BE VAGUE!) … Defer if confronted, it’s really not classy discussing such dated news after all …

Oh, they think this wine has an interesting nose on it?
Response: It must be hard to tell drinking out of that glass.

Did they just spew a pretentious wine description at you?
Response: *wince* Really? Huh. Do you smoke?

(UNSUBSTANTIATED ACCUSATIONS ARE UNASSAILABLE!)

April 6, 2015

When the Precautionary Principle meets wine corks

Filed under: Europe, Health, Wine — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

In Reason, Baylen Linnekin talks about wine corks and over-cautious would-be regulators:

We flew into Lisbon and drove across the Spanish border to San Vicente de Alcantara, near Caceres, where DIAM makes many of its corks. Once there, our daylong activities included a detailed tour of the DIAM factory and a visit to the nearby cork forest where DIAM obtains cork, which is made from the bark of the eponymous tree.

As I learned on the DIAM tour, the company’s agglomerated corks are made from natural cork that’s first pulverized. The impurities are then removed. Finally, the pure cork that remains is glued back together into the familiar wine cork shape.

Agglomerated corks have two key benefits over competing corks. First, they cost less than natural corks. Second, they eliminate the problem of cork “taint,” a musty taste caused by the presence of a substance found in cork, TCA, that often ruins wines before they’re ever opened.

Sounds great. Still, concern was raised by a wine writer last month, who suggested, quite wrongly in my opinion, that agglomerated corks may be illegal.

How’s that?

The writer, Lewis Purdue of Wine Industry Insight, suggested that the binding agent used by agglomerated cork makers could be leeching into wine. That agent, TDI, is listed as a potential carcinogen. If it were to migrate from cork to wine, that would be bad.

But testing by DIAM and others has shown no detectable level of TDI in wine, meaning there’s no evidence the substance migrates from cork to wine. DIAM also says, firmly, that no such migration occurs.

“Of course we guarantee there’s no TDI migration,” said François Margot, a sales manager with DIAM, told Wine Business writer Cyril Penn.

In that case, there’s no problem, says the FDA. As the FDA explains, agency rules generally permit food packaging to come into contact with food so long as it’s not “reasonably expected to result in substances becoming components of” food.

Why any fuss over agglomerated corks? It stems not from any FDA interest but, rather, from a push by competitors of agglomerated cork makers.

I dislike the kind of composite corks produced by companies like DIAM, but they’re still better than the plastic or other non-cork wine bottle closures a lot of American wineries are using these days.

March 20, 2015

A new 12-step program … to turn yourself into a wine snob

Filed under: Humour, Wine — Tags: — Nicholas @ 02:00

Carolyn Evans-Hammond on the fastest way to become the person everyone else in the restaurant (or at the party) just despises:

  1. When tasting a wine over $50, always use the phrase, “excellent value.”
  2. Make sexual allusions to describe wine, especially when talking to a member of the opposite gender. Tight, muscular, voluptuous, hard, long. You get the idea. Best done while making soft moans before and after the sentiment.
  3. When at a restaurant, grill the wine waiter about the wines. Ask how a certain bottle is “showing”, whether it’s fruit forward or restrained, and whether the Champagne on the list has undergone malolactic fermentation.
  4. Bring a bottle of wine to a party already decanted, and tell the host you’d like it poured at a precise temperature.

March 19, 2015

Getting to know the “the cocaine of Chardonnay”

Filed under: Europe, France, Wine — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 02:00

At Wine Folly, Morgan Harris talks about the original home of Chardonnay:

For winemakers, white Burgundy may just be the Helen of Troy of Chardonnay because nearly everyone who’s ever made Chardonnay has looked towards white Burgundy as the golden standard. All in all, white Burgundy is just Chardonnay, but the region is also the origin place of the variety, which is by the way, the world’s most planted white grape. In Burgundy, the combination of climate, land and tradition produce a wine that is coveted by many and never precisely replicated anywhere else.

Once you’re hooked on white Burgundy, there’s no going back. White Burgundy is the crack cocaine of Chardonnay. Sommeliers and retailers who sell white Burgundy sound like drug dealers: “Just try some, you’ll love it…”

Now that you’ve had a proper introduction, let’s get started exploring the region and the wine. While people have dedicated their lives to understanding the region, anyone can be learn how buy and appreciate white Burgundy.

Broadly, white Burgundy can be found in four production areas within Burgundy. Each area has a different terroirs and characteristics and thus, different flavor profiles:

  1. Bourgogne Blanc ($$$): unoaked simple wines with mineral and apple notes
  2. Chablis ($$$$): unoaked wines that are zippy and lean with lime-like mineral flavors
  3. Mâconnais ($$$): usually unoaked wines with melon and starfruit notes
  4. Côte de Beaune ($$$$$): typically oak-aged wines with rich fleshy melon and starfruit flavors and undertones of truffle and hazelnut

($) $5–10; ($$) $10–15; ($$$) $15–20; ($$$$) $20–30; ($$$$$) $30+;

NOTE: There are a few wines from outlier regions within Burgundy not included in this guide.

Click to see full-sized map

Click to see full-sized map

I’m a fan of oaked chardonnay … I don’t particularly like unoaked chardonnay, but add that hit of oak and it’s a wonderful experience. The best white Burgundy I’ve ever had was a Chassagne-Montrachet, but I rarely risk buying French wines these days due to the sometimes chancy relationship between the price at the LCBO and the actual quality of the wine.

February 28, 2015

A quick guide to Spanish red wines

Filed under: Europe, Wine — Tags: — Nicholas @ 02:00

I don’t drink a lot of Spanish wine, and part of that is that most of the Spanish wines I see in the LCBO remind me too much of their early 1980s counterparts that seemed to embody so many faults (especially cork taint) that few were worth the money. This was probably not true at the upper end of the price scale, but I never had the kind of wine-buying budget to allow me to try the “good stuff” anyway. A recent post by Madeline Puckette at Wine Folly may tempt me to experiment a bit more with Iberian red wines:

Spanish red wine

Spanish red wines offer offer exceptional value and a bold entry into the red wines of Europe. Here are 7 major Spanish red wines to get a basic understanding of what the country has to offer. You can find great sub-$15 fruity crowd pleasers but there are also bold high tannin red wines that easily match the top collector’s wines of the world.

Wine was introduced to Spain by the Phoenicians in 800 BC. Because of this, the wines of the Iberian peninsula are not the same French varieties we grow in the US. The wines are striking and unique, they also match perfectly with rich foods including thick cut cheddar burgers, empanadas, bbq skewers and pork roast.

February 2, 2015

Your favourite wine might just reveal more about you than you think

Filed under: Humour, Wine — Tags: — Nicholas @ 03:00

Why pay for therapy sessions, when Wine Folly can tell you all about your inner self just by finding out what kind of wine you prefer:

what-your-wine-says-about-you

If you love Pinot Noir…
pinot-noir-bottle
You’re the person who loves the idea of the beach but hates sand in between your toes. Pinot Noir is the ideal wine because it’s not too fruity, not too herbaceous, not too tannic and not too bold. Your go-to color to wear is gray. You have a silver car.

January 26, 2015

Balancing the art and the science in winemaking

Filed under: Australia, Science, Wine — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

In Cosmos, Andrew Masterson investigates what is still an art and what has been codified as science:

“With commercial yeast you get certainty – you can sleep at night,” says Bicknell. “But how do you make wine more interesting? You exploit the metabolic processes of different yeast species.”

Bicknell’s faith in wild yeasts adds stress at fermentation time, but the pay-off is multi-award-winning wines regularly acknowledged as some of the best in Australia. “The wines do taste different, even if there’s no way you can show that statistically,” Bicknell says. “The only way to really know is to taste.”

Exploiting the diverse and fluctuating populations of wild yeasts found on the plants, fruit and in the air of vineyards is “the new black” (not to mention red and white) in oenology. The practice is becoming more commonplace among artisan winemakers. Even some of the giant commercial wine corporations are investing in the method.

Wild fermentation, says Bicknell, represents the intersection of science, craft and philosophy. But it could also form the basis of a profound shift in the narrative of wine. The more we study winemaking’s microbes, the more it appears they might explain one of the wine industry’s most beloved, but vaguest, terms: terroir.

“Terroir is a wonderful marketing term,” says David Mills, a microbiologist at UC Davis, who studies microbes in wine. “But it’s not a science.”

The French word terroir is difficult to translate. The closest translation is “soil”, but that is just one of its components. Terroir connotes the unique sense of place – the soils, the topography and the microclimate. It’s what makes the wines of Bordeaux or Australia’s Coonawarra so distinctive, and so inimitable.

Sommeliers like Ren Lim, former captain of the Oxford University Blind Tasting Society (and a PhD biophysics student) will tell you merely from swirling a mouthful of Cabernet Sauvignon which Australian winery produced it.

“The ones from Margaret River often give off a more pronounced green pepper note, a note found commonly in Cabernets grown in regions which experience pronounced maritime influences. Coonawarra Cabernets are somewhat different and unique in their own way. They are often minty and have a eucalyptus or menthol note in addition to the usual ripe blackcurrant notes. The green pepper note is often suppressed under the menthol notes. Nonetheless, the Cabernet structure remains in both these wines.”

It’s a feat that Mills does not question. “I don’t doubt regionality exists, but what causes it is a whole other set of issues.”

January 24, 2015

Pairing appropriate cheeses with wines

Filed under: Food, Wine — Nicholas @ 11:24

Wine and cheese are a natural pairing, but finding the right match to optimize the experience may not be as obvious. On Google+, B-Winegrower offers some recommendations:

CheeseWinePairing1Image from B-Winegrower on Google+

January 23, 2015

Gifts for the wine fan in your life

Filed under: Wine — Nicholas @ 02:00

I have a variety of wine glasses for various kinds of wine, but most of these are esoteric, even by my standards:

Wine glasses

Pretty mundane? How about these:

Wine glasses 2

And then, off to crazy town:

Wine glasses 3

January 22, 2015

Rumours of privatization in Ontario’s liquor control monopoly?

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Cancon, Government, Law, Wine — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:57

In the latest issue of Michael Pinkus Wine Review, Michael talks about the hints and portents (dealing with the Ontario government requires a certain amount of Kremlinological observation skills) that a tiny measure of privatization may be coming:

There’s a rumour in the wind that a certain amount of privatization is coming to Ontario (wouldn’t that be nice), but I wouldn’t get my hopes up about it just yet – no time line has been given and I am sure that ‘more study’ is necessary … and of course, if track record is any indication, this government will find some way to either screw it up or make it such a complicated piece of legislation that it’ll take years to get through all the red tape behind it. I once heard Jerry Agar, of NewsTalk 1010 fame, say (and I’m paraphrasing here) ‘if you want something screwed up get government involved’; he’s a proponent of the private sector because they can do it more efficiently than government if only ‘the man’ would just get outta the way … I would have to agree with him here. So far the government has made a mess of our liquor system that even repressed, despotic and 3rd world countries have better access to alcohol then we do.

Sadly, I believe it might be too little too late for some of Ontario wineries who have suffered this long, but might not be around to see the light at the end of the tunnel (if and/or when it comes). Yes, this might be the end of the line for a number of our precious wineries and we only have ourselves to blame for their demise. They have been as vocal as any sector, crying for help, not necessarily a hand out (which the grape growers seem to get) as much as a hand up – basically they’ve been pleading with each government: “please give us access to (our own) market (at the very least) and we’ll show you what we can do”, all to no avail.

Why the pessimistic attitude? Let’s look at the facts. It takes some rather deep pockets to own a winery in Ontario, that or a good credit rating, because money is the number one thing required to open the doors. But making it is more of an uphill battles then in any other business I this province. Post-1993, when the majority of the wineries around today opened their doors, your cellar door is the only place you can sell your wine – sure you could tap into the LCBO and the restaurant market, but that’s it. And although recent federal regulations have been lifted regarding the selling and especially shipping of wine across the country, many provinces have yet to enact their own legislation governing the practice, hence leaving the entire topic, not to mention hundreds of wineries, in limbo, unable to tap the rest of the country as a market for fear of breaking the law. With so few avenues to sell home-grown wine the government has basically handcuffed the industry – let alone the number of asinine rules that govern the industry from within (more on that next time) – it has all been put in place it would seem, so that wineries are destined to fail; that they remain open is a testament to their resolve and passion.

November 28, 2014

Niagara’s wineries … too many too soon?

Filed under: Cancon, Wine — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 00:03

Michael Pinkus shares a cringeworthy report from a foreign wine writer on a recent winery tour in the Niagara region:

After giving it some thought it came to me as a sports reference: have we hit that expansion team overload amongst the wineries of Niagara? What I mean by that is a watering down of the talent available. For example: when a league (NHL, NFL, CFL, etc.) expands to include more franchises the biggest worry is that there will not be enough high-caliber talent in the pool to feed that new franchise and keep it competitive. Now apply the same theory to the wineries: with more and more wineries opening every year is the talent pool of engaged and conscientious prospective “manpower” really there to staff them? Is that the problem? Or should we just blame training and be done with it?

A wine writer from another country (who will remain nameless) wrote to me about a visit he recently made to a winery in Niagara (which will also remain nameless). Here were some of his comments about the tour he took:

“Worst tour: Inexperienced tour guide who didn’t understand what she’d been taught and gave a series of garbled ideas … e.g. windmill in vineyard uses propane to heat the vines, grafting is done because it’s too cold here to grow on own roots, [also] told us we wouldn’t enjoy the wines in the tasting and that their barrel fermented and aged Chardonnay was best in a spritzer.”

I’m not saying all wineries are bad, but there are some that leave, for lack of a better expression, a bad taste in the mouth — even when their food (or, for that matter, wine) is delicious. One of the wineries we visited in Niagara-on-the-Lake provided us such a lousy experience that they almost did not make our top five … but their food was just so memorably delicious, it was the thing that saved them — now imagine if they did not have that food, it would have been memorable for all the wrong reasons.

Whether it’s the lollygagging behind the counter, chatting with co-workers to the point where you indicate where to go with your chin (“it’s over there”), ignoring a guest until they approach you, or just being grumpy and surly, it all takes its toll on the winery’s reputation. A bad experience sticks in your mind more and longer than a good one. I especially remember a tasting at a famous Niagara-on-the-Lake winery about 10 years ago where, after buying two cases of wine between the three people I was with, the staff member who served us chased us out into the parking lot for the $5.50 tasting fee … I have never, ever forgotten that one.

I wonder if that last winery was the same one I’ve been avoiding for the last ten years … the experience wasn’t exactly the same, but it soured me on ever having anything to do with them again. Bad customer service in the wine trade has a much greater long-term than it does in, say, the fast food business.

September 10, 2014

QotD: Smoking and drinking

Filed under: Health, Quotations, Wine — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 00:01

Apart from all the other arguments, you’re a fool to smoke if you like the taste of drink. It isn’t the cigarette you smoke with your glass of wine or whisky that damages the taste of it it’s all the ones you smoked yesterday and the day before and last week. Your senses are chronically anaesthetized. Really, smokers could afford to consider what they’re certainly missing as well as what they’re in danger of getting.

After much pondering I think I understand a basic reason why a glass of something reviving is so welcome in the early evening. Partly, of course, it’s just that, to revive, to relax, but its also a convenient way of becoming a slightly different person from your daytime self, less methodical, less calculating — however you put it, somebody different, and the prospect of that has helped to make the day tolerable. And, conversely, it’s not having that prospect that makes the day look grim to the poor old ex-boozer, more than missing the alcohol as such.

Changing for dinner used to be another way of switching roles. Coming home from work has a touch of the same effect. Writers haven’t got that advantage — when they finish work they’re at home already. So perhaps they need that glass of gin extra badly. Any excuse is better than none.

Kingsley Amis, Everyday Drinking: The Distilled Kingsley Amis, 2008.

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