Dave McIntyre's WineLine

Wine News: Are We 'Buying Up' Again? Yet?

The California Department of Food and Agriculture’s Market Enforcement Branch saw a spike last year in the number of complaints filed by wine grape growers against buyers who couldn’t fulfill their contracts, the North Bay Business Journal reported this week.  While these cases don’t involve any names you’re likely to recognize, they demonstrate the poor economy’s continuing impact on the U.S. wine industry.

Yet the wine industry continues to try to drum up some good news. (Can we string a few more infinitives in there just for good measure??) Bloomberg reported this week that younger wine drinkers are once again “buying up” by choosing pricier bottles in restaurants. The beneficiaries of this, according to Bloomberg? Constellation Brands and Diageo.

Well, okay. These wine industry behemoths produce enough wines at various price levels that they are probably pretty well insulated against the vicissitudes of recession. Or consonance. If consumers are indeed “buying up” over what they were willing to pay a year or two ago - whether in retail or restaurants - I would like to hear about it. More likely, this is wishful thinking. Consumers may be less reticent about spending money on wine now that the recession is easing, but my bet is that we’ve learned over the last few years that there are plenty of terrific wines available that cost a lot less than what we were used to paying. Maybe prestige of price is less valuable than it was before, while we’ve discovered that quality of taste can be had for less.

Are you spending more - and more comfortably - than you were a year or two ago? In other words, is the wine recession over for you personally? Or have your buying habits - in stores or restaurants - changed permanently because of the recession? Please let me know in the comments.

Bobby Kacher - Dean of the DC Importers

The Washington, D.C., region is a very fun and active market for wine consumers, especially for those of us interested in imported wines. There is a vibrant cadre of wine importers serving this market, enough to keep wine lovers turning bottles to look at the back label to see who is importing which wines.

The dean of these importers is Bobby Kacher, the ever loquacious face, palate and voice behind Robert Kacher Selections. I profile Bobby in my wine column this week in The Washington Post.

Bobby represents about 75 producers, and about 70 of these are French. (He has two producers in Argentina, one in Portugal, and one in South Africa, that I know of.) All are family owned and operated, they emphasize organic viticulture (at least, no pesticides and herbicides), temperature-controlled fermentation to keep the wines fresh, no filtration, etc - many of these seem commonplace now, but Kacher helped promote these practices when he started importing wines in the 1980s.

As you'll see in the sidebar on wine recommendations, I learned a lot about French wine by purchasing Bobby's imports back in the late 1980s. There are many more importers in the DC area that I follow now, and I seem to be learning about more every year as the market thrives and expands. And I've followed Bobby less reliably as I've explored other importers' portfolios. But each time I taste some of his wines, I'm reminded of my wine-loving roots.

And whatever you do, don't miss out on that Saumur ...

What's Ahead in 2011?

What should wine lovers expect in 2011? More debate over direct shipping, and hopefully we'll get that privilege here in Maryland this year. But will be able to order from out-of-state retailers, or just wineries? And will we be allowed to bring our own wines to restaurants in Maryland?

Politics is likely to dominate debate in other states as well, as governors in Virginia and Pennsylvania try to privatize their states' liquor control regimes. Should the government be in charge of selling alcoholic beverages? It's a worthy question with no simple answer.

Local wine will continue to gather buzz as well. The DrinkLocalWine.com conference focused blogger attention on Virginia last year - look for more this year when the Wine Bloggers Conference comes to Charlottesville - the Napa of the East.

Consumers, of course, will continue to seek value. We've learned that we don't have to pay top dollar to get a really good wine - we just may have to search a little harder. $10 is the new $20, etc.

And where will we find bargains this year? My prediction for the hot "new" bargain wine region is none other than France, as wines from the textbook 2009 vintage reach our retail shelves throughout the year. My January Recession Busters list in today's Washington Post already has a few French 09s, and you can expect many more throughout the year!

Happy drinking, everyone!

Wine Follies and Cheap Wine Hall of Fame

Who thinks these things up? Elin McCoy of Bloomberg News reports on an Oregon winery that recruited an elephant to stomp grapes as part of a fund raiser for a wildlife park. Talk about “natural wine”! Winery owner Stephen Reustle of Reustle-Prayer Rock Vineyards was not worried that the pachyderm would crush the grape seeds and exude harsh tannins once he saw the beast’s “soft, fleshy pads,” McCoy reports.

In her roundup of wild and wacky wine stories from 2010, McCoy notes a British Columbia cattle rancher who gives her cows a liter of red wine a day for the last 60 days  before slaughter. At least they die happy, and supposedly more tender and flavorful. The steaks are high on that venture, to say the least.

“It really has this umami thing,” says Janice Rayndahl of Sezmu Meats. Isn’t umami Japanese for “je ne sais quoi”? You know, that flavor you can’t really pinpoint or put a name to?

McCoy also highlights sales of the “Wine Rack” bra, for the woman whose cup runneth over. It conceals an entire bottle of wine to be sipped inconspicuously through a tube. I can see this catching on with guys, too - we no longer need be ashamed of our man-boobs!

Jeff Siegel, my co-conspirator at DrinkLocalWine.com has posted his annual “$10 Wine Hall of Fame” on his Wine Curmudgeon blog. Jeff revels in cheap wine, and has since even before the recession, so he can spot the extreme values. I don’t share his fondness for Barefoot Merlot, which almost made the cut this year, but Jeff has a keen eye for everyday wines - the type of wines most people actually drink.

 

 

 

For the past few years, the cork industry has fought back against screwcaps by playing the global warming card - buying cork-stoppered wines helps preserve the Mediterranean cork forests and their natural wildlife habitats. Now cork producers are playing the sex card, too - their latest ad campaigns (primarily on the Internet and savaged by wine bloggers such as Alder Yarrow at Vinography) show a guy striking out with a hot babe when he pulls a flaccid plastic “cork” from a wine bottle. Another video has a woman scorned as a “brown noser” when she twists open a screwcapped wine at an office party. I guess they think we wine lovers are really shallow.

 This post appeared in similar form on The Washington Post's All We Can Eat blog on Jan. 6.

A New Virginia Winery Takes Top Prize

Last month, the Virginia Governor's Cup for white wines was awarded to Paradise Springs winery of Clifton, in Fairfax County, for its 2009 Chardonnay. This was noteworthy because Paradise Springs is one of Virginia's newest wineries. But it is also worth celebrating because the winery's owners fought stiff opposition from the county government and from neighbors who feared that a winery would just be an events venue for jazz festivals, weddings and drunk fests and such. This award, plus a gold medal in January for their Norton in the Governor's Cup judging for red wines, shows that Paradise Springs is more interested in quality than buzz.

I wrote about the award last Thursday on The Washington Post's All We Can Eat food blog. But while I commend my scintillating writing for your enjoyment, I hope you will notice the comments added by Post readers. The first asks, "Why would I drink local wine when I can drink cheap, delicious, imported wine for half the cost?" Someone then replies, "Because you don't know the difference." (The third comment is simply spam for someone selling bootleg clothing.)

This exchange is illuminating. Local wines - be they from Virginia, Maryland, Texas, Michigan or elsewhere - face the challenge of demonstrating their value. Sure, if I just want to spend $8 or less on a bottle of wine, I will find many from France, Spain, Argentina and Chile that will suit me just fine, thank you very much. A wine that speaks of terroir, especially local terroir, that demonstrates through some subliminal message that it is somehow connected to the place where it was grown, is another story. And yes, such a wine can come from Virginia, or Maryland, Michigan, Ohio, New York, Texas ...

Weather Plays Games with the 2010 Harvest

This year's strange weather is playing some real mind games on vintners as they begin the 2010 harvest. Here in the Eastern U.S., harvest is earlier than ever after an exceptionally hot and dry weather helped ripen grapes - or at least spike sugar levels - faster than anyone could have imagined. Out West, a cooler-than-usual summer has delayed harvest, raising fears that the autumn rains will begin before the grapes are off the vine.

Here is my early harvest update in Wednesday's Washington Post along with my monthly list of Recession Buster recommendations. This month features some boxed wines, perfect for your end-of-summer cookouts.

Now, we have Hurricane Earl, a Category 4 storm, bearing down on the East Coast. If forecasts hold, it should not have a great effect on Virginia or Maryland, but it could deliver a lot of wind and rain to Long Island at an inopportune time. Stay tuned ....

It's Dinner Time: Do You Know Where Your Wine Is From?

The recent scandal over cheap French merlot mislabeled as slightly-less-cheap pinot noir for sale in the United States under Gallo's Red Bicyclette label is a sign that consumers should be wary about what we're drinking - and another reason to trust importers who forge relationships with the growers before bringing the wines to market here in the United States.

Here's more of my take on the Red Bicyclette scandal, in today's Washington Post.

Ooh La La! French Wine Scandal Expands to U.S.

The French wine fraud scandal crossed the Atlantic last week, as federal regulators said they are investigating U.S. importers who sold French “pinot noir” that was actually made from different grapes.

As reported here last week, a French court on Feb. 17 convicted 12 people in the Languedoc region of southern France of passing off merlot and syrah wine as the more expensive pinot noir to the U.S. firm E&J Gallo. Gallo sold the wine as pinot noir under its popular Red Bicyclette label.

 

Gallo bought the wine from the French wine brokerage Sieur d'Arques. Although Gallo was not implicated of any wrongdoing in the French court case, U.S. officials are investigating whether the California wine giant violated any U.S. laws in selling the wine as pinot noir.

 

The Treasury Department's Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) “has begun investigations to determine the appropriate actions to take regarding the American importers of these mislabeled wines,” the agency said on its Web site.

 

When the convictions were announced, Gallo said it would “continue to work with the appropriate U.S. authorities to determine any next steps required for potentially mislabeled Pinot Noir in the marketplace.”

 

Importers must apply to the TTB for approval of wine labels, including the images and information conveyed on them. TTB spokesman Arthur Resnick would not comment directly on the investigation or confirm its targets, citing bureau policy. But he said that even if the U.S. importers were duped by their French suppliers, they may have violated some U.S. laws. “Under our laws, importers are responsible for label approvals [from TTB], so they are responsible for what goes in the bottles,” Resnick said. He then used a classic Washington phrase: “We will be going to these companies and asking what they knew, and when they knew it.”

 

These companies? The French court case centered on wine sold to Gallo, but the other U.S. wine giant, Constellation Brands, acknowledged last week that it had also purchased pinot noir from Sieur d'Arques and another supplier implicated in the French case. Constellation said it had independent experts test the wine before it was shipped from France and they confirmed the wine was indeed pinot noir.

 

However, that does not convince the TTB, as it waits for official translations of documents in the French fraud investigation. Constellation is clearly part of its initial inquiries, and more companies could be involved. “I think there are others, but we won't know for certain until we see the French documentation,” Resnick said.

This report appeared in slightly different form Feb. 26 on The Washington Post's All We Can Eat blog.

Wines from Where?

Wines are now made in all 50 states - but would you know that by looking at a typical wine list or store shelf?

Andrew Stover, the hyper-energetic millenial generation sommelier at two hip Washington D.C. restuarants, is trying to change that perception. Working with a D.C.-area distributor, Stover is bringing high-quality and high-value wines from aorund the US to the DC-area market. These include Arizona Stronghold from Cochise County, Arizona, and Sawtooth Vineyards from the Snake River Valley in Idaho.

Let go your prejudices. I did - I'd never heard of Maynard James Keenan, the rock star behind Arizona Strongholds. I didn't let that stop me from appreciating these delightful wines.

You can read more about it in my wine column in The Washington Post.

Winter Calm in the Vineyard

Another winter storm is preparing to sock the Mid-Atlantic region this weekend, but the vines out at Glen Manor Vineyards near Front Royal, Virginia, don't mind - they'll be snug under the white blanket as long as the temperature doesn't drop too far.

While winter is a quiet time at wineries, our vintner friends have already begun the important work that sets the stage for the next crop. You can read how Jeff White of Glen Manor is enjoying the winter calm in my Washington Post column. You'll also find my monthly "Recession Busters" recommendations of six wines that are as friendly to your wallet as to your palate.