champagne discount generic+trademarks heidi+barrett howell+mountain+cabernet lamborn+vineyards napa propaganda tasting tour wine wine+blog
May 8 2006
I’m pretty sure that nothing raises the ire of wine aficionados more than boxed wine.
I was at Target just last week and made a jaunt through the wine section to see how Andrea Immer was pimpin’ wine this month and I almost bought the Wine Cube. I’ve almost purchased the Wine Cube on at least three other occasions, but, yet, there’s something missing for me that even curiousity can’t overcome. That, and the fact that I have bad memories of Franzia from 10 years ago—the wine that wouldn’t go away, an endless supply of red bile water taking up 25% of the juice and milk area in the refrigerator.
Boxed wine has no cork, no winery backstory, no nuance—just juice in an air-tight bag packed into a box and shipped off to your local store ready to be foisted upon a Soccer Mom doing some shopping.
And, perhaps that’s it. While I don’t subscribe to a lot of wine convention, I would like to consider myself a cut above the box set.
But, maybe I should reconsider.
The New York Post has an article in today’s Online Edition that caught my eye. Notably, because it features a "dtour" "wine in a tube." This isn’t red not news, as it was released with a PR cycle in November of last year, but what I didn’t realize is that Daniel Boulud and his eponymous restuarant in New York were a part of the program.
While Boulud probably has more dollar signs in his eyes then a practical desire to bring wine to a larger audience, you have to believe that a guy that invests so much in quality in his restuarants woud ensure that the integrity of his name—as associated with the wine—ensures a pretty good product. These arguments go a long way toexplain why premium boxed wine sales have grown 70 percent over 2005.But the question remains: Would you order a box of wine at dinner? Theguys behind Dtour are betting your answer is yes. Dtour is now pouredat DB Bistro, where it is decanted and served by the carafe for $17. AGoogle search turned up a number of articles on box wine and some decent andnot so decent reviews. One of the mostbewildering is a review from the San Francisco Chronicle—the below tasting notementions, berries … violets … and a soupcon of rubber.
"There’s enough technology out there now that theboxes are not harming the wine at all," says Kym Apotas, assistant winebuyer at Astor Wines. "It’s best for easy-drinking wines that you won’tstore for a long time."
Excuseme? Soupcon stands for “a very little amount.” A soupcon of rubber. As in:
The 2003 Wine Cube California Cabernet Sauvignon-Shiraz($16) is balanced and consistent, if slightly light-bodied for a blend of thesetwo grapes. It tasted of berries, violets and a soupcon of rubber.
On second thought, Ithink it will be a very long time before I purchase a box wine, Andrea Immer, Daniel Boulud and their wine boxed spawn notwithstanding.
Posted in, Good Grape Daily: Pomace & Lees. Permalink | Comments (0) | Print |
May 7 2006
Every time I think that wine will forever be shackled by the boundaries of its antiquity, I’m given hope by folks that are taking a new look at a different way of doing things.
And, with the news ablaze for the last year on wine shipping laws and the tyranny of the distributors, it’s interesting to see business models take shape.
One of the significant challenges in the industry is the preponderance of wineries that are starting and developing coupled with the consolidation of distributors.
Something has to give, right?
Usually, it’s the small wineries that struggle to find a market for their products—not because their product isn’t good, but because they lack the financial mite to earn sell-thru from distribution.
I’ve recently run across a spat of of business models from companies looking to alleviate the the distance between a consumer looking for boutique wines and the small winery trying to get started and build an audience.
I’ve written about Crushpad Wine before. I really like their business model and find the process fascinating. Overall, I have doubts about their ability to scale the business when most of the wines have a suggested retail value well past the $20 range—which means the quality is definitely going into the bottle (and their list of vineyards backs that up).
But, they aren’t doing any favors to the enthusiast winemakers (their audience, for the most part) that have to find a place to sell the stuff when they have absolutely no reputation to fall back on. I owe this to Crushpad having to develop size to drive costs down, but just the same, with quality in wine at such a great level, it would be nice to see them bring in some quality bulk wine for blending and to help bring costs down, overall.
The market for sub-$15 bottles is XXXXX big, while the market for greater than $20 bottles is only XXX big, as an example.
In my humble opinion, those outside of the wine industry have no idea that wine is sold in bulk like a commodity, and as such, those coming in to Crushpad wanting to create a label are more interested in quality then vineyard designation—even if that means using bulk wine.
But, to their credit, Crushpad has put together a program that takes care of absolutely everything and all a fledgling wine brand has to do is help sell the vino. Their commerce package includes everything from soup to nuts—the wine development, the brand development, the compliance for packaging and the fulfillment. All you have to do, as kind of a winemaker, or at least as the guy writing the checks, is drive demand.
If a winery is not so hot at driving demand, they might want to check out a new web-based offering called Radcru.com
From the Radcru press release:
How RadCru works
Each day, RadCru works with our winery sellers to select one specialwine deal and offer it to RadCru’s members and the general public foran entire 24 hour period. To heighten anticipation, RadCru membersnever know what special wine will be offered until it goes live eachday. Each day’s wine offer is made available to the general public at12:00 am and is sold until 11:59 pm the following night or until thewine offer sells out. Once a wine offer has ended and the buyer haspaid the winery, that day’s winery ships the product to each buyer.Selling on RadCru is easy and profitable.
"RadCru has a strong understanding of the challenges many smallwineries face in showcasing their wines to the general market. Our goalis to provide small wineries with valuable exposure, strong sales andrevenue and a reliable platform to consistently reach out to winelovers through this innovative sales channel," said Jeff Playter,Director of Marketing, RadCru LLC. "RadCru focuses on unleashing justone great wine each day. By keeping it simple and offering hard to findboutique wines at great prices, we believe there is a huge marketopportunity here.”
I’ll leave the snarky comments alone, but I’m sure most PR professionals would encourage the client to find a customer to vouch that, "RadCru has a strong understanding of the challenges many small wineries face ..." INSTEAD OF the Director of Sales ... nonetheless, this is an easy business for Radcru.com, they just have to aggregate customers and the winery does all of the work.
The last model, and, perhaps, the most enduring, is that of the ReThink Wine site from Inertia Beverage. It’s really a no brainer—go to small, boutique wineries and help them get off the ground technologically with the only thing more important then an accounting program—a web site. An any entrepreneur will tell you—it’s better to have a customer then a place for journal entries if you’re just starting out. Once the winery is off the ground with the site, Inertia gives them a couple of avenues for sales—one being slotting in the Inertia Beverage trade site where restaurants can buy direct and the other being commerce enablement whereby they pass through a customer to the winery site for fulfillment of the wine.
Ultimately, the winner in this is the customer—so long as we’re able to keep on top of tall he different places to buy wine. Though, today, it’s easier to buy wine from a local store, I think we probably said the same thing about books 10 years ago. Internet commerce and its permutations are here to stay and, perhaps, its greatest yet-to-be-tapped opportunity to create a sustaining impact might be in the wine business.
On Friday it was "Long Live Mexico." Today, it’s "Long Live Small Wineries"
Posted in. Permalink | Comments (1) | Print |
May 7 2006
I polished off a bottle of the Hop Kiln 2004 "A Thousand Flowers."
Hop Kiln was one of my favorite wineries when I took a whirlwind sprint through Sonoma a couple of years ago.
A recent article on Winecountrythisweek.com had this to say about Hop Kiln:
The landmark Hop Kiln in Russian River Valley has been home togenerations of pioneers, ranchers and winemakers. Today, the100-year-old structure is a favorite winery site – a lively place wherelocal residents and Sonoma County visitors come to drink in thegorgeous views, warm hospitality and delicious wines. An icon of SonomaCounty’s rich, agricultural past and one of the only stone kilns stillstanding, the property is officially listed on national, state andlocal Historic Registers. Dramatic and welcoming, Hop Kiln is amemorable destination.
They’ve completed some renovations since I’ve been there, but then as now, it’s a charming, unpretentious way to soak in a historical site and do a tasting.
The wine blog "Walk the Wine" shares my sentiments on the ‘A Thousand Flowers" when they say,
the folks at Hop Kilnin Sonoma County have found the right formula to tickle my palate. Theymake a blend of chardonnay (38%), gewurztraminer (27%), riesling (22%),and sauvignon blanc (13%) that’s called A Thousand Flowers. And, it sells for only $13 a bottle.
The Thousand Flowers remains a favorite. The 2004 has aromas that arelush with flowers and tropical fruit and apples, so much so that youexpect to encounter sweetness with the first taste. But, instead, thisunique wine achieves a nice balance, like a fine Alsatian. While thechardonnay contributes a nice richness, I think it’s the gewurztraminerand to a lesser extent the riesling that carry the day here.
It’s a very nice wine—a somewhat muted nose when compared to the absolute delicate fruit and flower combination in the glass. It’s allergy season, so it might pop with more bouquet to me later in the summer, but it was very tasty. My bottle was a gracious gift from a friend in California, you may have to hunt for it as I don’t believe its distributed in every state, well, not mine, for sure. So, keep an eye out for it.
Posted in, Good Grape Wine Reviews. Permalink | Comments (1) | Print |
May 7 2006
I have a post on the Wine Sediments portion of the Well Fed Network again this week. Mark Fisher, the editor of the wine portion of the site and also a wine writer and blogger at Uncorked, can take credit for a deliciously appropriate headline for my post: "Hoisting Wine Snobs on their own Petards."
Though, that one isn’t nearly as good as his recent headline that exclaimed: "2005 Bordeaux: A Fine Line between Sober Analysis and Orgasm." Some of the articles on the vintage have bordered on orgasmic, making it not only funny, but also true.
The crux of my post is the ongoing debate between wine with a keen sense of place and wine as recreational beverage enjoyed by many—and an increasing amount of of twenty-somethings with dubious reverence for the vine.
I’m reminded of a holiday party I went to four or five years ago when the hostess (in her mid-twenties) offered me a glass of red wine from a previously opened bottle, served it to me over ice, and offhandedly remarked that they had "sooooo" much wine leftover from Thanksgiving.
True story. Red wine. Opened bottle—three weeks old. Over ice.
I played it off, excused myself to go to the restroom and poured the offending liquid down the drain.
So, make no mistake, the young ‘uns have a lot to learn around the conventions of wine, but I don’t necessarily look askance at folks just earning their stripes. Heck, I’m far from knowing anything about wine, and really, that is its allure. But, I do strongly believe that all people deserve respect in regards to how they enjoy wine. Unless of course you drink White Zinfandel or Arbor Mist, then, well, that’s a greater sin then serving a glass of red over ice.
Posted in, Wine Sediments. Permalink | Comments (0) | Print |
May 5 2006
Longlive Mexican wine!
Tomost Gringos, Cinco de Mayo is a perfectly decent reason to party—enjoy a neonblue margarita at the local Don Pablo’s and whoop it up … and the perfect timeon the calendar nestled between St. Paddy’s day and Memorial Day for a longevening and even longer next morning.
Cinco de Mayo or theFifth of May commemorates the 1862 victory by Mexican forces over Frenchsoldiers. The battle known as The Battle of Puebla took place on May5th. It is a day marked by many Mexicans and those with Mexican ties asan important cultural event.
Margaritasnotwithstanding, any reason to celebrate is a reason to hoist a glass of vinoand wine in Mexico has a long history that is starting to re-emerge.
Or,in the words of the rock band the Fountains of Wayne, I think I’ll have anotherglass of “Mexican Wine.”
Iused to fly for United Airlines
Then I got fired for reading High Times
My license expired in almost no time
Now I’m retired and I think that’s fine
Because the sun still shines in the summer time
I’ll be yours if you’ll be mine
I tried to change, but I changed my mind
Think I’ll have another glass of Mexican wine
Mexicanwine, at least as an industry, is enjoying nice growth, despite the fact thatnative Mexicans are largely categorized as being ambivalent about the drink.
And,also important to note that the majority of Mexican wine is made above the 30thparallel where the growing conditions are more hospitable. This area is in Baja California, and most ofthe wine-growing region is in and around the Ensenada area.
WineX magazine has a piece that you can find here, writer Tina Caputo encapsulatesthe geography nicely when she says,
The heart ofthe Mexican wine country lies near Ensenada on the Baja Peninsula, about 75miles
south of San Diego. Baja is divided into three winegrowing regions: SanAntonio de las Minas, San Vincente Valley and Santo Tomas Valley. San Antoniode las Minas is home to the Valley of Guadalupe, Mexico’s most important wineregion.
Baja’s climate andsoil have been compared to those of Napa and France’s Rhone Valley. The climateis Mediterranean, with rainy winters, followed by dry springs and summers.
Ensenadais a place near and dear to my heart because I got very socially adjusted thereon the way south through Baja California with a San Franciscan bi-sexual guythat also had dual citizen-ship in the States and Israel and was independentlywealthy, under the guise of being an Art dealer and a young Austrian woman thatlooked like Natalie Portman—this all while take a hippy-dippy very memorabletrip on the California icon, the Green Tortoise, years ago.
Thereturn trip through Ensenada on the Tortoise included another alcohol soakedcouple of hours capped off with a visit to their public baths, but Idigress.
Inan article from the San Francisco Chronicle a year ago, writer George Lucas hasa nice first-person narrative of his accidental trip to Mexico winecountry. You can find the completearticle here:
Thevalley is the site of the last of the Spanish missions to be built, Misión deNuestra Señora de Guadalupe del Norte, founded in 1834 by Dominican priests. In1903, 50 Russian immigrants arrived with top-quality grape cuttings fromEurope; some of their vineyards are still around. Bibayoff is the
mostaccessible old Russian winery.
Sittingat an elevation of 1,000 feet just 13 miles from the coast, the valley benefitsfrom an oceanic condition known as "upwelling." Summer daytimetemperatures can reach 100 degrees, but every evening moist marine air comesflooding in to cool things off.
Allmanner of grapes thrive here: big, sun-loving reds, including CabernetSauvignon, Syrah, Nebbiolo, Malbec and Zinfandel, as well as a wide range ofwhites, from Chardonnay and Viognier to Riesling and Sauvignon Blanc. The areaproduces more than 80 varietals and accounts for more than 90 percent ofMexico’s wine production.
Thewinery L.A. Cetto, is Mexico’s largest winery and a quality producer. An Internet search turned up numerousfavorable reviews for their reds, in particular. This kind of typifies it, and the site can be found here.
We cannot speak too highly ofL.A. Cetto wines, as verified by wine writers Joanna Simon, Oz Clarke, PaulLevy and many others. The winery has just celebrated its 75th Anniversary andis now, more than ever, producing wines of top international quality atdifferent price points. Cetto wines have been snatching medals at winechallenges all over the world for the past couple of decades. Most recently the2002 Petite Sirah was highly recommended at the London International WineChallenge 2004. The 1996 Nebbiolo won a silver medal at the LondonInternational Wine Challenge 2003 and the 1999 won a gold medal at Vinitaly2004 competing against some of the top Barolo’s in Italy!
Though my trip through Ensenadayears back hewed more closely to the tequila and cerveza mode of operation,I’ve got a couple of more years of refinement under my belt. And, while I’ll probably have a hard timefinding a bottle of the Mexican good stuff in time for today, I’ll certainly beheading south through Tijauna next time I’m in San Diego. You should consider the same.
HappyCinco de May and Viva Mexico!
Posted in, Good Grape Daily: Pomace & Lees. Permalink | Comments (0) | Print |
Enter your email address for a monthly summary of posts, additional news and information available only to email subscribers. Your email is never rented, nor sold to anybody else!
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.5 License.
Design by The Blog Studio
