11/13/2005 - 11/19/2005

Wine News

Wine adds novelty to traditional meal
HOLIDAY BUBBLY: Sparkling wine goes well with Thanksgiving dinner, and what better to enjoy with that roast turkey than a rosé champagne? But there are ways to add novelty and variety with wine.

Trace metals alter wine colour, scientis...
A team of Spanish scientists has discovered how trace metals in grapes and fermenting wine affects the colour of the final product. Using Tempranillo samples grown by the vinicultural department at the University of Navarra in northern Spain, researchers have discovered that minute changes in the amount of iron, zinc, copper and manganese present dramatically alters the colour of wine.

Try and be the Mercs of wine says expert
New Zealand winemakers need to focus on producing premium wines - "Mercedes and BMWs, not Toyotas", says a visiting international wine expert. Arend Heijbroek, based in the Netherlands as a global industry specialist in wine and spirits for Rabobank, said yesterday this country had an enviable position in the "super-premium wine" category in Britain, where consumers were willing to pay 82 per cent more than the average price for wine.

Wine image tarnished
SURPLUS-DRIVEN discounting had eroded the image of Australian wine internationally, the managing director of Foster's Wine estates, Jamie O'Dell, said yesterday. Calling for the industry to develop a more premium image worldwide, Mr O'Dell, questioned whether Australian wine had been "too cheap and cheerful and most of all too plentiful for its own good".

'Robo-Einstein' on show in Korea
Radio ID tags on every product and person, letting you check whether the wine you're thinking of buying will go with that steak or if your children have arrived safely at school. Other innovations planned for rollout in coming years are radio ID tags on all products, so people with properly equipped phones can wave them in front of a bottle of wine and get information on whether that year was a good vintage.

Wine label art comes of age
Strolling down the Safeway wine aisle is a lot like touring an art gallery -- there are bold abstracts, classic still lifes, pastoral landscapes. Some wine labels are more than packaging -- they're works of art, conveying the vision, story and character of a winery in 3 square inches.

India exports wine
But the wine market is growing at 25-30 percent a year, nearly three times as fast as beer, whisky or rum, which together make up 45 percent of the total. "Consumer attitudes toward wine have really changed," said Rajeev Samant, who runs Sula Vineyards in Nashik, 120 miles (190 km) north of Mumbai, formerly Bombay.

A New Wine Club Offers Light and Sweet Wines Only
 So Vinesse, a leading direct-to-consumer wine group has come up with a nice, sweet idea -- a special wine club called "Light and Sweet" that offers wines that are -- well -- lighter and sweeter than most. The "Light and Sweet Club" offers 2 bottles of wine every other month at an average price of $12 a bottle plus shipping and handling.

CBS News
 The slogan "It's Beaujolais Nouveau time" will replace the time-honored cry of "Le Beaujolais Nouveau est arrive!" ("Beaujolais Nouveau has arrived!") when revelers ring in the French wine at midnight Thursday with a bacchanalian feast stretching from Sydney, Australia, to San Francisco. The new slogan is part of a $1.17 million campaign by winegrowers to attract a hipper young clientele for their product amid slumping wine sales in France.

Wine in the gas tank?
PARIS (Reuters) - French motorists could soon be tanking up on biofuel from grapes as the country's wine industry seeks new outlets to combat declining sales, overproduction and intense competition from abroad. France is the world's largest winemaker, producing 1.531 billion gallons in 2004, according to Onivins, the country's state-run wine body.

US: New French wine launched in US
The report contains several new features for 2005: full details of the Flavoured Alcoholic Beverages (FAB's) and Fortified Wine categories, fastest growing brands, spirits split by flavour, spirits split by colour, and the top five leading distributors by each sector.

French wines slogan targets young palates, English tongues
The slogan ''It's Beaujolais Nouveau time'' was to replace the time-honored ''Le Beaujolais Nouveau est arrive!'' (''Beaujolais Nouveau has arrived!'') as revelers rang in the French wine at midnight Thursday with a feast stretching from Sydney, Australia, to San Francisco.

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Perfect excuses to wine and dine
And who could resist one defining itself as the "Wine, Chocolate and Cheese Diet"? I checked out some of the suggested menus on the "Wine, Chocolate and Cheese" diet plan and came up with this personal selection.

It's wine for those who care more about the label
The labels on these bottles are different, but the wine inside comes from the same place: Millbook Vineyards. Operators of this winery perched on a loamy slope in New York's Hudson Valley are pitching customized labels - we make the wine, you make the label - as a way to boost business.

Optimism inspires wine bar
In the next few weeks, former high-tech marketeer Melissa Gisler and Jerad Ruhl, who was the wine director/sommelier of Rose Pistola, will launch an interesting-sounding Italian wine bar and small-plates venue called Ottimista Enoteca-Cafe. Ottimista means optimist in Italian; enoteca means wine bar.

Martinborough wineries Gold success at wine show
New Zealand's most prestigious wine competition, the Air New Zealand Wine Awards has awarded Martinborough wineries Gold, Silver and Bronze medals. Capricorn Wine Estates received a Gold for their Strugglers Flat Pinot Noir 2004.

Sports figures propose toast to wine-making
Former race driver Mario Andretti finds time to slow down with wine. Murphy replaced the scrub brush with an acre of chardonnay grapes 650 vines because it was the wine Fleming and her husband most enjoyed drinking.

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Master of meursault turns efforts to affordable wines
France It wouldnt be much of a stretch to call this small village toward the southern end of Burgundys Cote dOr the center of the white-wine universe. Wine enthusiasts lucky enough to have tasted a meursault-charmes or meursault-genevrieres with 10 to 15 years of bottle age understand that finer chardonnay does not exist.

Wine deal made with sour grapes
European winemakers are at odds with trade compromises being made with the United States over wine-making practices. Some European Union lawmakers are fuming over a new U.S. wine trade agreement, saying they're being force-fed such new world innovations as subbing wood chips for barrel aging or even, quelle horreur, adding water.

Interstate Wine Bottleneck
If you're a wine-loving tourist to Seattle, you might find your way to The Tasting Room. Modeled after European wine caves, the musky warehouse full of wine barrels near Pike Place Market on Post Alley is a showroom for seven of Washington's boutique vintners.

A stellar weekend wine tour
Stop daydreaming about the great wine regions of the world and start celebrating the grapes that are growing in your own backyard. In one weekend -- with visits to five of the region's best wineries -- it's possible to sample differing philosophies and styles, with an appreciation for where the Texas wine industry has been and where it's headed.

Carrefour Vineyards releases first white wine
New varietal -- Greg and Marilyn Nitz, the Reno couple who own Carrefour Vineyards in Napa Valley, released their first-ever white wine this year, the 2004 sauvignon blanc. The wine, which is made from 100 percent estate grown sauvignon blanc grapes, received 90 points out of 100 from the Wine Spectator.

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