In the News...
By Wine Business
It was enough to make a wine lover cry: wine, by the cask-full, covering the concrete floor at Sebastian Astaburuaga's vineyard in the heart of Chile's Lontue Valley.
Astaburuaga says it was up to his knees - 300,000 liters of newly made wine, worth $300,000, all a casualty of the monster earthquake in Chile that struck on Feb. 27.
Across the quake zone, storage tanks toppled over, barrels cracked open and bottles shattered. Industry-wide, the losses totaled $250 million in spilled wine.
Chilean winemakers, who export much of their fruity, inexpensive varieties to the United States, are cleaning up and trying to resume production. ...
By Wine Business
When vintner Randall Grahm chose the softly sloping hillside and time to plant his new pinot noir vines, he weighed all the things farmers usually consider: drainage, soil quality and weather.
Then he considered less orthodox factors: the cosmic and seasonal rhythms at play and how they might be harnessed to help the clippings take root.
Grahm, who owns Bonny Doon winery on the Northern California coast, is one of a growing number of farmers in the United States employing a holistic farming philosophy sometimes called "organic-plus." Biodynamic farming views land as a self-contained living organism, encouraging respect for the soil's integrity and eschewing not just chemicals but anything that comes from outside the farm.
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By Wine Business
The pros and cons of a new state proposal that would allow supermarkets to sell wine were aired during a lively hearing Tuesday in downtown Buffalo.
Speakers gave clashing viewpoints about what effects Gov. David A. Paterson's plan would have on the liquor store industry, wineries and the economy in general.
The City Hall hearing, sponsored by the Common Council's Legislation Committee, began with presentations by three supporters of the plan. ...
By Wine Business
Members of the California wine trade are busy these days reading the grape leaves from this past fall's harvest. That would be the Preliminary Grape Crush Report for 2009 issued by the California Department of Food and Agriculture.
It provides all sorts of impressive statistics: Nearly 3.7 million tons of wine grapes were crushed, up 682,000 tons over the previous year and just 63,000 tons shy of the record high in 2005. Red-wine tonnage jumped 24 percent over 2008, white-wine tonnage 21 percent. The average price per ton was $601.44, down 2 percent from the previous year, though up slightly for red-wine grapes to about $649 per ton, while the cost of white-wine fruit slipped a bit to nearly $538. ...
In the Blogs...
By Wine Peeps
Located along the Central Coast halfway between San Francisco and Los Angeles, Paso Robles is California’s third largest and fastest growing wine region. ...
By Wine Blog, Juicy Tales by Jo Diaz
My wine import client Enoforum Wines flew Gwendolyn Alley (WinePredator) and me to Portugal last fall. Gwendolyn won the trip; I was going to Portugal so I could understand flora, fauna, their culture, and most importantly their wine.
Once landed, I was feeling much like Dorothy and Toto having emerged in the Land of Oz.
My first few days, Enoforum hosted me at the European Wine Bloggers Conference, being held in Lisbon.
From the airport to the hotel, I was struck by how many small cars were on the road. It didn't take me long to assess that Portugal is the Land of Little Cars. ...
By The Good Grape
I examined three recent pieces of research for correlations in between wine consumption by state, overall happiness by state and ranking of "healthiness" by state using the following sources of research:
- Top wine consuming states by volume (Wine Handbook data from 2006)
- Gallup Healthways Well-being Index (Measures the "Happiest" states, Nov. 2009)
- United Health Foundation rank of "Healthiest" states (Nov. 2009)
I hypothesized that there would be a strong correlation in between top wine consuming states and general happiness and health. The reason being, in pop analysis, is that wine promotes an erudite, moderate lifestyle that would (should?) equate to a general state of well-being and healthiness. Or, at least, that’s what you might think. The reality is—not so much.
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By Wine Peeps
When I first saw this book, When the Rivers Ran Red: An Amazing Story of Courage and Triumph in America's Wine Country, on the shelf of my local Barnes and Noble, I knew I had to buy it, not for the great title, but for the last name of the author, Vivienne Sosnowski. When you have a rather uncommon last name as I do, Sosnowy, Sosnowski seemed like she could be a close relative. Unfortunately, after a little research into the family tree, I don't believe Ms. Sosnowski is a relative, but her book intrigued me nonetheless.
I learned that Sosnowski has had a long and distinguished career as a journalist before writing this book. She was named vice president and national editorial director of Clarity Media Group in January 2007. She had become executive editor of The Washington Examiner in 2006, and before that was executive editor of The San Francisco Examiner. Prior to coming to San Francisco in August 2004, she had been editor of The Province in Vancouver, B.C., and before that was executive editor of Toronto’s National Post. According to her publisher, she now splits her time between Healdsburg, California, and Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
This book is the story of California's fledgling wine industry during the ugly days of Prohibition. ...