October 9 2007
The Wine Spectator announced the winner of their video contest today.
WS Editor Eric Arnold (and newly minted wine author of the book “First Big Crush”) reports:
Peter Hunken and Amy Christine work in the wine industry in their real lives, but their short video, called A Toast to the Little Guys, was selected by WineSpectator.com viewers as the best entry in the site’s first video contest.
The winning video received the highest rating from our viewers (3.78 average out of a possible 5 stars) among the five finalists. It shows the tough work, frequent joys and occasional silly mistakes that shape the experience of producing a small wine label. Hunken, national sales manager for Stolpman Vineyards in Santa Barbara, and Christine, who sells wine for Veritas, an importer in Los Angeles (along with working as a sommelier one night a week), have been making their Hocus Pocus Syrah together since 2005.
Co-founder of the small brand Hocus Pocus, Amy Christine says:
“Our first vintage, it was like having our first child. That’s why we took so much video,” said Christine. “I wanted to make [the video] educational ... [but] one of my friends, who helped me watch the footage and edit it, he wanted to put the story together more in a sweet, reality-show style. So we did the little confessionals. I had a totally different idea, but my friend had a much better idea.”
Check out the winner and the other finalists here. It’s good stuff.
Watching the video reminded me about the power of video. Documentaries at their finest influence and provoke feeling and, perhaps, no other consumable good has as much rich depth to mine than wine and wineries. I hope it won’t be too long before we see wineries employing more video on their web site to communicate their story, help us get to know the people behind the scenes and evoke feeling.
I’ve posted this link in the past, but if you want to see a wine film that expertly mixes the power of image, narrative and music, then check out wine industry auteur B. Napa and his short called “Crush.”
For the decidedly less emotional and more practical use of video, check out this file that shows a party trick for expertly removing a cork from inside a wine bottle.
For a review of the Hocus Pocus wine, see this link to Dr. Debs and her blog, Good Wine Under $20
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October 8 2007
It’s an increasingly frequent occasion that wine is used as an anecdote or crutch in new release business books. In fact, it seems to be an indication of the ongoing infiltration of wine as a part of our American lifestyle. Unfortunately, in contrast, as presented in a new book, Microtrends by Mark J. Penn, it discusses wine consumption declines as a part of the French lifestyle and it lays the blame, in part, on the U.S.’s exported cultural affinity for being “on-the-go.”
It’s an interesting paradox.
“Microtrends” is a recently published book that highlights some 70 + small trends that have the opportunity to become larger societal changes. The author, Penn, is credited with coining the term “soccer mom” during Bill Clinton’s 1996 presidential campaign, a phrase so ubiquitous now that it lends credibility to his social insights around things like childhood vegetarianism and our increasing reliance on medical self-diagnosis.
In one such “micro-trend” called “French Teetolers,” Penn, very interestingly notes the decline in French wine consumption --a fact that most are well in tune with --, but the interesting factoid that he adds to it is something I haven’t seen before: a notion that actually lays the blame at the feet of the U.S. and our exported culture, amongst several factors.
Penn notes as background:
Over the course of the past forty years, no country on earth has cut its alcohol consumption more than France. While consumption of beer and spirits has stayed basically steady in France, the per capita consumption of alcohol from wine fell from 20 liters in 1962 to about 8 in 2001. In glasses of wine, that translates into about 235 per person per year, down from about 425.
Here’s the interesting part, as Penn notes:
One reason for the dwindling wine consumption is the acceleration of the French meal. In 1978, the average French meal lasted 82 minutes. Today, the average French meal has been slashed down to 38 minutes—and it’s more likely than a meal anywhere else in Europe to include McDonald’s burgers and fries. Wine is a victim of the disappearance of the leisurely meal. It is not the target of the change, but the decline in wine consumption is a by-product of the mergence of the faster, on-the-go lifestyle.
That takes a second to get your head around.
So, let’s see, total American wine consumption is anticipated to become #1 in the world by 2010 (and still a longs ways off from the French on a per capita basis) and a part of our movement towards this is the increasing Europeanization of our food and drink culture—a respect for the meal, foods that are sourced locally, wine that is “of place,” a recognition that American lifestyles are too “fast;” a need to slow down and enjoy food, life and each other. And, in this increase in our wine consumption tied to lifestyle reasons, the French are actually accelerating the pace of their life at the detriment of drinking wine.
So, what we’re taking from them in our cultural expansion, they are taking from us in reverse—our benefit and to their detriment. Interesting.
Do the French need another reason to hold us ‘Ugly Americans’ in contempt? I don’t think so, but just the same I’m going to buy a bottle of French wine, cook a leisurely dinner with my wife, enjoy her company, and toast life in the temporary slow lane. Somehow I imagine my French doppelganger is currently working late and hitting the drive-thru.
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October 4 2007
As my mailbox continues to fill up with magazine covers with a green bent, including my wine magazines, and I get press releases from wineries with one eco story after another, I guess I’ve started drinking the populace-oriented kool-aid about doing a little bit more than just recycling.
I mean, after all, I can’t just stand back as our earth gets warmer and watch passively with the possibility that Napa might become too warm to grow Cabernet.
Doesn’t most altruism start with a dose of self-interest?
Perhaps my work starts with a little prostelyzing …
Yeah, I know …
My wife and I went to an informal birthday gathering last night for a friend—a pottery friend — the guest of honor—and other people that constitute a band of folks that take pottery at the local art center, including my wife. It is a pretty loose bunch of people with all kinds of viewpoints, most settling along the lines that represent the small contingent of blue people in a red state.
Several bottles into the evening for the group, I flippantly asked the hostess if she recycled while holding an empty wine bottle, while casting my effervescent wine-fueled gaze at several other bottles. It was a light moment. She said she didn’t recycle. I added, with a joking nudge, “You’re not a conservative that thinks global warming is fictitious are you?”
Then, as I was mentally re-calculating the relative intelligence of my jousting with this certain Mensa member that went to Cornell and is an engineer, she launched into the following that is loosely paraphrased:
“It actually costs more in energy and emissions to re-use glass then it takes to make glass in the first place.”
Okay. I stood corrected.
She continued, again loosely paraphrased, “If you’re really interested in the environment you should be against all development that involves cement production and the use of concrete.”
I reached for a fresh glass … and a fresh bottle.
I think I might have learned something.
Did you know that, concrete is second only to water as the most consumed substance in the world? Every year, almost one ton of concrete is produced for every human on the planet.
Cement is the principal ingredient in concrete. Producing one ton of cement results in the emission of approximately one ton of CO2, created by fuel combustion and the calcination of raw materials. Cement manufacturing is a source of greenhouse gas emissions, accounting for approximately 7% to 8% of CO2 globally. (See this .ppt for more information)
Yikes.
All those CO2 emissions are the primary culprits in ozone depletion which contributes to greater atmospheric temperatures. Greater atmospheric temperatures is, of course, global warming.
Cement and concrete is bad, bad, bad.
So, there you have it. They key to cocktail conversation? Provoke somebody. The key, apparently, to ensuring that your Cabernet continues to enjoy a sense of place for the next several decades in the same place that it currently spends its fruit-bearing days? Stop concrete production. Oh, and by the way, the calcination process that occurs in cement production is comprised mostly of mineral aggregate—stones, gravel, and sand … or, in other words, the stuff that makes our wine taste “of place.”
Recycling is good, but scorning concrete is apparently better. Ah, the things I learn when wine is the social lubricant.
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October 3 2007
Sound the bell and set the Tivo. The “Top Chef” finale is on tonight (check your local listings). Without question one of my guilty pleasures, season 3 comes to a close with a new winner being named from a final three.
By far the most entertaining of the three seasons and refreshingly free of the sophomoric drama from season 2, I love Top Chef for the same reason I enjoy fine dining—it’s the restaurant/kitchen as theatre.
One of the shticks the show uses to wring some drama out of the start of every episode is an individual test called a “quick fire” challenge. In short, it’s essentially a timed, stress test cooking battle that is usually 20 minutes or less and requires some sort of extra creativity or handicap in execution.
An example of a “quick fire” is having to cook a trout dish for noted chef Eric Ripert in the outdoors with a hot plate perched precariously on a wooden stump. Or, create an amuse-bouche from a selection out of a vending machine—sometimes they are absurdist, but mostly they are pretty entertaining and one of my favorite parts of the show.
If you want to get a better idea of a quick fire, or make a nomination to turn these Bravo “quick fires” into a show of its own, I then respectfully submit to you Ben from Benito’s Wine Reviews.
Apparently on assignment for work for an extended period of time, he has done two absolutely brilliantly entertaining posts on hotel cookery—essentially a quickfire challenge whereby he creates a fabulous meal in the confines of his hotel room using a coffee pot and a microwave.
His first attempt he creates a very authentic nicoise salad and in his second attempt he put together a Mediterranean tasting plate with couscous, chorizo, dolmas and some tzatziki and warmed pitas.
This is good blogging fun over at Benito’s, complete with a wine pairing. Kudos to him on his hotel “quick fires.”
If you’re interested in reading up on Top Chef before the finale, check out any of the following links:
Bravo TV Blogs, including Anthony Bourdain
Television without Pity episode recaps
Elsewhere, the issue of immigration reform is something I’m not completely comfortable commenting on—mostly because it’s a multi-faceted issue, with no easy answers, and there is likely a significant amount of nuance that I’m not in tune with. It’s a lightening rod issue and I’m not going to go near it with an opinion, though I will note that I am generally right of bleeding heart and left of being a moderate. However, make no mistake, this affects the wine industry significantly.
Wine Spectator had a good article late in August that summarizes the issue and says in part:
The new immigration policy, announced by Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff, involves a more vigilant watch of the Social Security numbers and other information provided by workers to their employers. Where there are discrepancies or invalid information, employers must fire the workers or face fines of as much as $10,000.
Due to the very nature of this issue, precise figures are unavailable, but no one disputes that illegal aliens make up a significant portion of the 50,000 employees required to produce California wine. “Because of where we are, [bordering Mexico], and the number of people we use in California, I’d say a figure of 70 percent [illegal workers] might be on target,” said Karen Ross, president of the California Association of Winegrape Growers, a Sacramento-based advocacy organization.
And it’s consumers who’ll likely be picking up the tab. “Over time, wine prices follow costs,” said Daniel Duckhorn, CEO and chairman of Napa-based Duckhorn Wine Co. Labor accounts for a major portion of the operating costs of wine production, he explained, adding, “It’s a given that if costs increase, wine prices will go up.”
Despite being namby pamby about having an opinion, what I will note is two things:
1) If recent reports on the industry are correct and imports are eating directly into California wine sales, and labor is becoming tighter potentially causing prices to go up, and California is currently only marginally competitive against imports from a QPR perspective, is there something pretty dramatic happening before our eyes? In five years will we be in full-on domestic wine crisis mode?
2) Announced on October 1st and effective October 1, 2008 a new U.S. citizenship test will be announced that moves away from a focus on facts like “How many stripes are on the American flag?” to more conceptual questions like, “Why does the flag have 13 stripes?” (From Newsweek)
The impetus for the change is a move away from a naturalization process by rote memorization of fact to more of a process that instills patriotism in American history. They call it “Americanization.”
I dunno, but this test sounds exclusionary to me—Mexicans come to America with no language skills or, at best, English as a second language, leave their families behind, work their tales off in the vineyards and elsewhere in a quasi-secret society, frequently doing jobs that nobody else wants in order to wire money home and now to become a legal citizen they’re going to have to go through testing that will make them learn concepts about US history that most Americans learned in 7th grade and promptly forgot in 8th grade.
That all said, I think the larger issue and one that will have to be addressed eventually is the fact that imports are going to eat the domestic markets lunch in wine sales over the near term. It’s a lot easier to head this off at the pass instead of addressing it after the fact when CA producers are lamenting high costs, lagging sales and a worldwide image problem for the US wine industry.
In our quest for effective “Americanization” we might actually be foreshadowing a cutting off at the knees of one of our best p.r. stories internationally—the wine industry.
To see sample questions from the current test, see this link
For more background on the new test, see this link
For a lengthy press release on the challenges in the California Wine Market, see this link
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October 2 2007
The European-ization of America through the marketing filter of P.T. Barnum-like promotion continues unabated with Food Trails now getting their moment in the sun, trailing the ubiquitous Wine Trail, but never quite merging.
Culinary destinations abound in Europe, but are just starting to penetrate our consciousness in the states.
It seems like Oregon is kind of leading this travel marketing around food movement—complete with a couple of downloadable little ditties like “Foodies, Rejoice.” And “99 Bottles of Pinot Noir” (Hint: when you listen to the songs, keep an ear open for the mixed in fuzz from playing a record—nice touch)
Portfolio magazine, a new, glossy magazine (kind of like Vanity Fair for the Fortune magazine set) had an interesting article last month on food destinations in the U.S. invoking the good name of Napa Valley as a reference point.
Time was when Napa Valley was just Napa Valley—a sleepy, mostly agricultural corner of Northern California that looked a little like Tuscany and felt a lot like a backwater.
Then came Napa Valley wines, which turned the region’s name into a brand. These days, every place wants to be the Napa Valley of something. Colorado claims to be the Napa Valley of the Beer World; Kona, Hawaii wants to be the Napa Valley of Coffee; and America’s Hereford beef farmers assert that the entire Midwest is the Napa Valley of Beef.
With all the claims to fame, where is a hungry traveler to turn? We’ve picked five lesser-known North American locales that have organized themselves into foodie-friendly destinations and offer good eating. While they may be familiar to some, none attract Napa Valley-like hordes.
The article goes on to highlight the North Carolina Barbecue Trail, the Okanagan Wine Trail, the Oregon Ale Trail, the Vermont Cheese Trail and the Fresno County Fruit Trail.
Not to be outdone, I read in my local weekly business newspaper, the Indianapolis Business Journal, that Indiana is trying to get into the game, as well. Apparently, this culinary tourism is hot stuff.
According to the article the International Culinary Tourism Association and the Travel Industry Association teamed up to study how food impacts travel decisions. According to the study, 17 percent of American travelers go out of their way to hit local food and wine hot spots while traveling. And within that 17 percent –about 27 million people- 16 million of them travel purely for the restaurant stops.
The Food Network brass aren’t dummies, how else to explain “Feasting on Asphalt” and “Diner’s Drive-In’s and Dives?”
Mentally, I tie this foodie destination movement in lock-step with the wine trails that are all over the country, even if the two don’t seem to intermingle that well. When the wine and food travel marketers can play nice and do collaborative efforts together, similar to Oregon, then we’ll really be on to something pretty cool.
Then if you take this more European-like reverence for food and drink together with a more laissez-fair attitude similar to what is highlighted in Alder’s post at Vinography, I think our culture will be immensely for the better.
However, Indiana is talking about developing a Tenderloin trail, after our semi-famous (notorious?) pork tenderloin sandwiches and the Hoosier Pie Route—a food trail for pies. Given this information, I have one question: Coupled with Indiana wines noted for being sweet, are we advancing the movement of food and wine pairings or setting it back a couple of decades?
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