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Latest Wine News and Updates
While wine production is one of the oldest industries in the world, the amount of new, innovative products and scientific breakthroughs in the wine world is nothing short of breathtaking. Let’s take a look at some of the latest news from the field.
Everyone agrees that fake wine is a big problem for the wine industry. There are many tools employed by winemakers to protect the identity of their wines, but the quest for the perfect solution is still ongoing. After 15 years of intensive research, the French INAO (The National Institute of origin and quality), together with the College of Veterinary Medicine at Auburn University in the US announced the successful results of the initial trials of dogs being able to sniff fake wines. As part of the Canine Performance Sciences program, dogs had been trained to identify wines that don’t match the original wine. The training is a very involved process requiring the dog to spend about 2 years at the winery memorizing the original flavor profile of the wines. Once trained, the dogs can easily distinguish the original bottles from the fakes, the same as working dogs who identify illegal substances at customs in airports. The training process is intense and costs about $50K per dog, so this solution is not for every winery. Nevertheless, according to INAO, it will take about 7 years to satisfy all the requests for the dogs received to date.
There are plenty of wine lovers who crave massive, tannin-loaded wines. Such wines are often quite expensive as they require a long aging time in the oak barrels which are costly. What if the oak flavor can be concentrated in the grape itself while it is growing? Impossible, you say? Scientists from UC Davis in California think otherwise. Instead of using the traditional rootstock, UC Davis scientists managed to graft Cabernet Sauvignon vines onto the french Limousin oak rootstock, and after about 7 years of experimentation it seems that resulting wines demonstrate much higher tannin concentration than the wines obtained from the same clone of Cabernet Sauvignon but not grafted on the oak rootstock. Obtaining the same level of tannins would require about 6 months of age for the wines in the control group. Once the research is complete, it will result in significant savings for the wine producers which [hopefully] will be passed on to wine lovers. We should expect to find the first wines based on the results of this research by approximately 2028.
Many wine lovers live with a simple motto – coffee in the morning, wine in the evening. The next news I would like to share with you will, in a way, be related to both beverages. How so? Everyone knows Nespresso, a French company that mastered the simplicity of the perfect cup of espresso at any time with the help of a tiny coffee capsule. Working on a special (very sizeable) grant from French LVMH conglomerate, Nespresso just announced a brand-new machine called – maybe you guessed it – Winepresso. Nespresso scientists found a way to convert the content of the wine bottle to the dry form which is encapsulated in the tiny wine capsule, literally identical to the coffee one. Now, with a push of a button, a perfect glass of your favorite beverage is in your hand at any moment. Based on the opinion of the expert panel, the Winepresso-produced wine is practically identical to the original wine, which is a pretty amazing achievement in itself. The initial set of capsules available upon commercial availability of Winepresso will include two Bordeaux reds, one red from Burgundy, and 3 whites from Loire. It is also known that Nespresso is actively involved in conversations with a few of the famous wineries in Napa Valley. The capsules will be sold in the 5-packs (to be identical to the standard 5 glasses in the bottle of wine). Winepresso machines are expected to appear at select retailers such as Williams-Sonoma and Bloomingdales in time for Christmas shopping. The prices for the capsules and the machines had not been disclosed yet. If successful, you can only imagine how successful this product will be from point of view of sustainability and reduction of the carbon footprint.
Open any news source today, and you are guaranteed to read about ChatGPT, artificial intelligence (AI) software. ChatGPT writes poems, articles, and marketing materials, conducts market research and lots more. It appears that the wine world is starting also to embrace ChatGPT in a variety of ways, many of them quite unexpected. Champagne Piper Heidsieck just announced that they will start a new line of non-vintage Champagne, called Piper Heidsiek AI, where ChatGPT will play the role of the Chef de Cave, responsible for blending the final wines. After the initial offering, both Blanc de Blancs and Blanc de Noirs will be produced. While it is an interesting announcement in itself, I’m concerned with the impact of the ChatGPT on all areas of human lives, now including even wine production. Well, we will see how this story will unfold.
That’s all the latest news I have for you, my friends. Until the next time – cheers!
All You Ever Wanted To Know About Wine Education
Wine is an agricultural product.
Wine is clearly a unique agricultural product.
When you buy an apple, pear, cucumber, or eggplant, you really need to know nothing to make your selection – as long as it looks good and fresh, that’s all you need to know.
When you sell an apple, pear, cucumber, or eggplant, you don’t need to impress anyone with information – as long as whatever you sell looks good and fresh, that’s all which is needed.
When you are consuming an apple, pear, cucumber, or eggplant, you still need to know nothing to really enjoy it, as long as it tastes good and fresh.
But when it comes to wine, knowledge is power, whether you are buying, selling, or consuming – where this wine is from, how was it made, for how long it can age, what is the best food to pair it with, what is the best way to serve it, and so on. On one side, you really don’t need to know anything about the wine to be able to enjoy it, but the uniqueness of wine is in the fact that the more you know about the wine, the more you might be able to enjoy it.
When it comes to wine education, there are lots and lots of resources – books, podcasts, websites, blogs. And then there is formal wine education.
What prompted this post was an excellent article on the Rack and Return website which provides an in-depth overview of all available formal wine education options. Here is what it covers:
- WSET – Wine and Spirit Education Trust
- WSG – Wine Scholar Guild
- CMS – Court of Master Sommeliers
- IMW – The Institute of Masters of Wine
- SWE – Society of Wine Educators
- ISG – International Sommelier Guild
- Regional Wine Study Centers
- Universities and Colleges
Without further ado, here is the link for you to the original article:
https://rackandreturn.com/the-definitive-guide-to-wine-education/
Enjoy!
Wednesday’s Meritage #158
Meritage Time!
I’m back with the Meritage post, but without any promises to keep them going. 2022 will be a year of opportunism – if it happens – great, if it doesn’t – c’est la vie.
Most of the news in this Meritage issue will be self-centered – it will be all local, very local news about happenings in this blog. But first, let me start with the
Grape Holidays
Very important subject – we always need a reason to open a bottle, so grape days – or grape holidays, whatever you prefer – greatly help with that. WSET compiled a list of grape holidays for 2022 – this is an excellent reference for us all. At some point I will add such a list to the top menu, so you will never miss an important day. It seems that January is actually a dry month, and the very first grape holiday of 2022 will be International Furmint Day on February 1st. This will be challenging to celebrate, as Furmint is a star grape of Hungary and Hungarian wines are hard to find unless you are willing to celebrate with Tokaji. But if you think that Furmint might be difficult to celebrate, wait until October 14th to celebrate Prokupac Day, October 26th for the International Mavrud Day, and to top them all off, until the first of December to celebrate Maratheftiko Day – use google, I’m not here to make your life easy.
Vintage Charts
Vintage charts offer a great reference, giving you an idea for how long to keep a bottle or when you should consider drinking your special bottle. I have a Vintage Charts page on this site which I recently updated to make sure all the links are current and working. You can find the Vintage Chart collection here.
Stories of Passion and Pinot
If you ever looked at the top menu of this site, you possibly noticed a recently added menu item, Interviews. Under that menu, you will find a collection of winemaker interviews from around the world. One of the regions clearly stands out in the number of interviews – the Oregon section contains interviews with 13 winemakers. After spending a week in Oregon last summer and meeting with many winemakers face to face, I created a series of updates which are all published now. Here is the top link to the whole Stories of Passion and Pinot series – check out the post to read the original interviews and updates.
Top Wines
Before 2021 ended, just on time, I published my two-part list of top wines of 2021 – you can find all the lists via the Top Wine Ratings menu, or you can click here.
Year in Review
I also wrote somewhat of a reflection post, looking back at the happenings of 2021 – the good, the bad, and the ugly of that year. In that post I also made a detailed analysis of my Top Wines list, so you should look at the Top Wines list first before reading the year in review post.
Happening Now
I’m currently in a middle of an interesting experiment. This post, once published, will become the eighteenth consecutive post on this blog. So for the past 18 days, I published a post every day (well, the night would be more appropriate). Those are not “one picture, two words” posts. Those posts have 900 words on average (well, this one will be shorter), so they are posts with the substance (or at least I hope they are). To be entirely honest, it is not just an exercise in let’s-see-how-long-can-I-last – I have a huge backlog of posts that were supposed to be written last year and even the year before, so at the moment I’m simply forcing myself to complete the post before going to sleep, and though the body says “c’mon, let’s just go to sleep”, the brain says “you are not going anywhere until the publish button is pressed”. Sadly, this will not last much longer – we are going to visit friends in Florida (that’s good, not sad), and my work laptop, which I usually carry with me and use for all the writing on the road etc., didn’t survive the latest encounter with Microsoft update (using PG-13 language, I really despise Microsoft with a passion), and now I don’t have a computer to do the writing on the road. Oh well…
That’s all I have for you today. The glass is empty, but the refill is on the way. Cheers!
Wednesday’s Meritage #156
Meritage time!
Once again I’m starting with Open That Bottle Night. February 27th, rain, snow, or shine, will be the time to open that special bottle. If you are not familiar with Open That Bottle Night, please check the previous issue of Meritage or this post. I plan to have a virtual OTBN with friends – anyone who is interested in joining, please send me a message (email, Twitter, Insta – all work), and I will let you know how to connect. Now, I need to make up my own mind and decide what I’m going to open – easier said than done, believe me.
Next, in a bit of a “local news”, I would like to promote the series of posts which I had been running for a long time on this blog – the wine quizzes. These wine quizzes used to be a weekly endeavor until they became just a few a year and then stopped completely. I restarted the series about half a year ago, with the hope of posting a new quiz once every two weeks. I had a number of the wine quiz themes over the years, with one of my favorites asking the readers to identify the wine producer by the image of the top of the bottle – foil, cork, or wax – here is an example of such a quiz. But now I have a new twist on that theme, asking the readers to identify the producers by the fragment of the image of the label, which should be easier than doing it using the bottle tops. Here is an example of such a new quiz. So all I want to do is to encourage all of you who are reading this right now to give it a try – you have nothing to lose!
And now, for the real, global wine news, how about some global wines, or maybe rather “Wines of the World”? It appears that Penfolds, one of the most iconic Australian wine producers (Grange, anyone?), just unveiled the line of California wines. The wines are made from the grapes coming from the vineyards in Napa, Sonoma, and Paso Robles. Continuing Penfolds naming tradition, the wines are identified by the bin numbers, starting from Bin 600 Cabernet-Shiraz, priced at $50, and going to the flagship Quantum Bin 98 Cabernet Sauvignon at $700 per bottle. The top two wines, Quantum Bin 98 and Bin 149 have some of the Australian wine as part of the blend, hence the “Wine of the World” moniker. For more details, you can read the whole story in the Wine Spectator here.
That’s all I have for you today. The glass is empty, but the refill is on the way. Cheers!
Wednesday’s Meritage #155
Meritage time!
I know it is somewhat early, but let’s start with one of my most favorite wine events of the year – OTBN. We are in February already, and that means that OTBN – Open That Bottle Night – is around the corner. OTBN is an event which is more than 20 years old, invented by Dorothy Gaiter and John Brecher, wine writers behind the “Tastings” column in Wall Street Journal, to help wine lovers to part with those special, cherished, treasured bottles which all of us try to hold on to for as long as possible – and thus often missing an opportunity to drink the wine at its prime. OTBN is celebrated on the last Saturday in February – February 27 this year.
For many years now OTBN had been an important event in my book, as I’m unquestionably one of those hoarders who can never decide on the right time to open the special bottle. Celebrating OTBN paved the way to experience some truly special bottles such as the 1982 Olga Raffault Chinon or 1999 Soldera Brunello. This year, however, will be very different, as it is hard to get together in person. So I would like to suggest that whoever wants to join the virtual OTBN celebration on February 27, please send me a note (you can use the Contact Me form, email, or DM on Twitter) so I will be able to get you a meeting invite closer to the date. And you can already start thinking about that special bottle you will pull from your cellar to celebrate OTBN 2021.
OTBN only happens once a year, but then if you need help deciding what to open, you can turn your attention to the “grape holidays”, as I like to call them – a celebration of individual grapes that are taking place throughout the year. To help you keep track and make sure none of the grapes will be upset with you, here you can find a full list of the dates and grapes to celebrate. Actually, I already missed the Furmint day on February 1st, so yeah, time to focus…
A few more interesting tidbits. James Suckling published the list of all 100 and 99 points wines from 2020. There are 133 wines on the list, 52 of them are 100 points, and 81 are rated at 99. In order to see all the tasting notes you need to be a subscriber, but the list itself is available for free.
On an unrelated note, Wine Spectator produced a video introducing the Spanish wine region of Cariñena, the second oldest winemaking region in Spain and “the region to watch”. The video is short but contains a good amount of information about the history of the region, grapes, winemaking, and more.
That’s all I have for you today. The glass is empty, but the refill is on the way. Cheers!
Wednesday’s Meritage #154
Meritage time!
Today’s issue might be a bit geeky, but let’s roll with the punches, shall we?
First, an interesting ruling from the TTB in regards to the allowed bottle sizes. Until now, the only approved (standard) wine bottle size was 750 ml. Yes, you could go to half (375 ml), or a quarter (187 ml), or up to a liter (1000 ml), and also 500 ml were permitted, but that was about it – for the “standard” bottles, of course, because there are many large formats, such as 1.5L, 2.25L, 3L and so on, which we are not discussing here. Now, to accommodate a fast-growing category of wine in the can, new sizes were introduced – 355ml, 250ml, and 200ml. However, the ruling allows new wine packaging sizes without restricting them to bottles or cans. So now it would be possible to see a 355 ml bottle of wine. While it is only 20 ml less than a standard 375 ml, it is still an option to give you a smaller bottle and keep the price. The level, of course, is not the same as for the typical orange juice cartons, which went from 64 oz to 52 oz while keeping the same price, but still, there is an option for an implicit price increase and some of those “half-bottles” can go into the hundreds of dollars…
Next, I found a few interesting articles in the Wine Spectator. The first one is the story of the Witch’s Wine, which I don’t want to regurgitate just to give an opportunity to read it in its entirety. Then there are a couple of good news in regards to the health benefits of wine.
First, it appears that the consumption of wine and cheese can prevent the onset of Alzheimer’s. The study seems to be reasonably founded: “Analyzing data from the UK Biobank, a biomedical research database, the study followed more than 1,700 participants, ages 46 to 77, over the course of 10 years.” This sounds to me like a good number of subjects and the duration of the study, so I’m sure no wine lover will be upset at the prospect to consume wine with cheese on more occasions. The second study once again looks at the anti-aging effects of resveratrol, an anti-oxidant usually found in red wine. While establishing the long-term benefits of consuming a glass of red wine every day, the study also suggests that consumption of higher amounts of wine doesn’t increase the health benefits of resveratrol, but quite on the contrary can lead to negative consequences.
And the last one for today is all about wine games. Wine Enthusiast summarized 6 games available to wine lovers with different levels of skills and expertise. I only played one of those, Wine Wars, and it was somewhat interesting, depending on the level of the audience. SOMM Blinders sounds really interesting, and I would love to play a Wine-opoly, however, I’m sure I would never win as I can’t take the risk, and thus my son always beats me in Monopoly. Oh well, we need to be able at least to see each other to play any of these, so I’m definitely looking forward to that happy moment…
That’s all I have for you today. The glass is empty, but the refill is on the way. Cheers!
Wednesday’s Meritage #153
Meritage time!
This is the last Meritage issue of 2020, so let’s get to it.
I would like to start with the virtual wine event which I plan to attend next year – Oregon Wine Symposium. The event will take place over four days, February 16-19, 2021, in a browser next to you. The event will offer excellent educational and networking opportunities, and if you register before January 15th, you can save 25% off the registration cost. The event is definitely geared towards wine professionals, but I’m sure some of the sessions would well worth any wine lover’s attention.
Next, I would like to once again get back to the subject of the Top 100 Wines lists. James Suckling just made all of the Top 100 Wines reports available for free on JamesSuckling.com. You can use this link to access a large collection of Top 100 reports – Top 100 Wines of the Year, Top 100 wines of Argentina, Austria, Australia, France, Italy, Chile, Spain, Germany, and the United States. A very impressive collection with some eclectic choices, like Alsace wines in the #1 and #2 positions of the French Top 100, or Rieslings taking the first 4 positions in the list of Top Austrian wines. Have fun analyzing those – I’m sure you will make some interesting discoveries.
Not to be outdone, I published the Top 20 of 2020 list of the top wines of 2020. This year’s list takes a step aside from the traditional “top dozen” format and is heavily skewed towards red wines with only 3 white wines, 1 Rosé, and none of the sparkling wines included. Definitely a reflection of 2020 drinking habits.
Here an interesting article from Wine Spectator, talking about Heitz Cellars’ owner and CEO’s quest to preserve some of the historic Napa Valley vineyards. The duo just acquired Stony Hill Vineyard, one of the first wineries built in Napa Valley after the repeal of Prohibition. You can read the full story here.
And the last one for today, really an unexpected one for me. According to this article in Wine Spectator, “a recent study conducted at Iowa State University has found that consuming more wine and cheese over time could help bolster cognitive health as we age.” – isn’t this statement the best music for the winelover’s ears? None of us, wine lovers, needs to be asked twice to double down on wine and cheese consumption, especially if this can help to prevent the onset of Alzheimer’s disease. Is that the best news to finish the year, or what?
That’s all I have for you today. Until we meet next year, the glass is empty, but the refill is on the way. Cheers!
The New Sotheby’s Wine Encyclopedia – A Must Have For A Winelover
Do you like wine books?
Better question: do you read wine books?
Wine book is the next best “wine thing” after the wine itself – assuming you drink wine for pleasure, and not for the effects of alcohol. Reading the wine book gives you the pleasure of learning about your favorite subject, it is available to you any time you want it, and you don’t have to limit your consumption. There is also an ultimate pleasure of nesting in the favorite chair with a book in your hands, and turning off all the annoyances of the world at least for some time.
Only who reads the books today, right?
We live in the times when Google knows all the answers, or at least it pretends that it does, so we can search, find, read, and instantly forget whatever information we obtained. Depending on your luck, that information might be totally wrong or irrelevant, but that can be a subject for the whole other conversation. But when we reach out to Google, we think that we are saving time and doing ourselves a favor by simplifying our lives – all of it instead of opening the book and actually reading to learn and understand. But oh, who has time to read. Hey, google…
Today I want to bring your attention to the book which you don’t have to read. Yep, you heard me right. You don’t really have to read it. But you must have it. Makes no sense? Oh yes, it does.
You want to have “The New Sotheby’s Wine Encyclopedia” by Tom Stevenson edited by Orsi Szentkiralyi because this is not some general book, this is an encyclopedia. An encyclopedia is a tool. You use it when you need an answer to a question. You use it when you want to deepen your knowledge of a particular subject, be it history of winemaking, wines of Fitou AOC, differences between Cordon de Royat and Geneva Double Curtain vine training systems, or what to do if your wine smells like burnt rubber.
This is not a pocket-size book, but this is what makes it great. 800 beautifully illustrated pages (the book is published by the National Geographic, so great imagery is rather expected). This is a sixth edition of the book, containing more than 400 photographs, 120 National Geographic maps, and there is hardly a wine subject or a wine region that escapes the attention of the author.
It was interesting for me to see is a difference in the coverage of the different wine regions – to illustrate what I mean, see the picture below:
If you will look at clips from left to right, the first and the biggest set of pages is covering France, the next small section is dedicated to Italy, the next, even tinier, is Spain, and the last a bigger one is wines of the United States. But really, no wine region is left uncovered, even including such exotic winemaking destinations as China, India, and Japan.
My favorite part might be the last section of the book, called Micropedia. This section is a collection of wine terms and abbreviations. Yes, you can find many of these terms with the help of Google, but it might not be that easy. For example, the very first term explained in the Micropedia is ABC. If you search for “wine ABC” online, the first page which will come up will most likely be dedicated to the ABC wine store (it was for me, at least) – while the ABC used in the wine speak typically means Anything But Chardonnay or Anything But Cabernet. So if you want to know what ABC stands for, or agrafe, rondelle, or uvaggio for that matter, The New Sotheby’s Wine Encyclopedia will save you lots of time and effort (don’t take my word for it, go search for those terms).
Whether you want to learn about appellation you never heard of, the history of winemaking, or see the map of wine regions in Slovenia, this is the book which you will find the most helpful, no matter what your question is. You can find this book on Amazon and Barnes & Noble, and you can thank me later for the advice. I’m off to read about Madeira. Cheers!
The New Sotheby’s Wine Encyclopedia was provided to me as a sample, free of charge. Opinions are my own.
Wednesday’s Meritage #150
Meritage Time!
In the last issue of Meritage (#149) we talked about Italian police uncovering the crime ring focused on the production of the fake Sassicaia. While essential in its own right, this should be designated as a child’s play comparing with what’s coming. This week the wine press was overflowing with the news that the most famous wine fraudster of modern time, Rudy Kurniawan, is about to be released from jail. This article on wine-searcher is full of predictions for Kurniwan spreading his wings after deportation and doing again what he does best – making fake wine. I guess we will see, but the lovers of the first-growth and DRC should probably take notice.
Tre Bicchieri Gambero Rosso tasting in New York is one of my favorite wine events to attend – this year, it was the last grand wine tasting I managed to attend before covid took the world under its blanket. I don’t think we will have an opportunity to taste the Tre Bicchieri 2021 winners next year, but at least we can read about them in the Tre Bicchieri magazine. I can give you a few of the interesting stats – for example, 46,000 wines were tasted, 467 wines were awarded Tre Bicchieri, and 1,800 wines received Due Bicchieri Rossi award. You can also read about 12 special awards such as Bubbles Of The Year which went to 2011 OP Pinot Nero Dosaggio Zero Farfalla Cave Privée Ballabio, or Meditation Wine Of The Year which went to 1976 Vernaccia Di Oristano Antico Gregori – Contini. Don’t know about you, but I would loooooove to taste Meditation wine of the year…
When it comes to wine, is 20 years a long period of time or not? Of course, it depends. In today’s world, everything is changing fast, and while particular wine in the bottle might only barely start its aging after 20 years, the same 20 years bring a lot of change to the world of wine and wine culture at large. This article by Richard Hemming MW published at JancisRobinson.com looks into some of the changes in wine production, wine consumption, and more.
You know what time of the year this is, right? Yes, the holidays are coming! While the holidays are great, they also bring with them uneasy questions – presents. Presents are difficult and finding some suggestions always helps. If you have a wine lover in your life (and you probably do if you are reading this), here is one list I can recommend to flip through – you might find some good ideas there.
Last but not least – another grape holiday is almost upon us. On Monday, November 9th, we will be celebrating Tempranillo! Tempranillo is one of my absolute favorites, whether in its Rioja, Ribera del Duero, or Toro rendition – but Tempranillo today is one of the most planted and most popular grapes in the world, so you can look for it well beyond Spain. California, Washington, Oregon, Texas, Australia all produce delicious Tempranillo wines. Get your favorite bottle ready and make sure to share your Tempranillo experiences with the world on November 9th.
That’s all I have for you today. The glass is empty, but the refill is on the way. Cheers!
Wine in Numbers
Who likes the numbers? I know that I do. Measuring is important as if you are not measuring, you are getting lost. And getting lost is no fun…
Numbers in wine are always interesting – how many cases were made, bottles sold – not that it is always important to know (unless this is your business), but it is still an interesting exercise.
Today, let’s talk about wine production and import. The folks at the House of Townend in the UK collected and analyzed open source wine production data from 2018, and even converted that data into the graphical form – yep, it is wine infographics we are talking about!
First, here is the world-view of wine production:
You can see that in 2018, Italy was the world leading wine producer with 54.8 million hectoliters (1 hectoliter is equal to 100 liters), following by France (49.1 million), Spain (44.4M), USA (23.9M) and so on.
However, if you will look at the wine production per capita, the picture is changing quite a bit – Spain is becoming an unquestionable leader with 95 liters per capita, followed by Italy and France. Okay, this is not that much different – together, these three European countries produce 51% of the wine in the world. However, the USA moves down from the 4th place to the 12th, and Portugal moves from the 12th place in the total wine production to the 5th when the calculation is done per capita.
Let’s now see who drinks the wine:
Germany is the world leader in the wine imports, with 14.5 million hectoliters of wine imported in 2018, followed by UK (13.2M), and the United States (11.5M). After spinning the data in a different way – per capita – the situation becomes dramatically different – Belgium is becoming the number one wine importer with 26.31 liters per person, followed by the Netherlands (24.4 liters). The US moves down to the 7th place with 3.08 liters per person, and Japan makes a surprise appearance in the 9th spot with 2.05 liters per person.
There you have it, my friends – a few numbers to ponder at. Best with a glass of wine in hand. Cheers!
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