BKWine Blog

Kosher Wines Gaining Ground?

>> Wednesday, November 02, 2005

European Jewish Press reports that kosher wines are gaining in popularity in France. The cite for example that La Revue des Vins de France has commissioned an article on it for a spring edition. In any case it is clear that it is no longer something that is made only by some specialist producers. We have seen kosher wine at, for example, Chateau Beauregard (Pomerol) and Chateau Liversan (Haut-Médoc). It is controlled in detail and well isolated from the rest of the production and only “authorised” (or whatever the appropriate term might be) staff can handle the wine.

450 new million euro in EU farm subsidies for the wine sector in 2006 and plans for “fundamental reforms”

The EU plans to allocate 450 million in wine farm subsidies, primarily to France, Italy, and Spain, in 2006 (approximately the same as in 2005). The main aim of the support is (in principle…) to help growers change over production to better grape varieties, better land etc. A spokesperson for the commission has said, though, that next year there will also be some “fundamental reforms” of the system, for example by no longer linking the subsidies to the production volume. All according to BeverageDaily.com

France increases the budget for wine promotion in the UK with 40%

Sopexa together with the French Ministry of Agriculture will jointly increase the marketing budget for the UK with 40% in 2006. With this increase they hope to change the trend of losing market share on one of the largest export markets. Read more on Foodanddrinkeurope.com

French wine maker in conflict with Absolut Vodka

A wine producer in Roussillon, in southern France, produces a wine called Tinto Absoluto. The producer of Absolut Vodka, the state owned Swedish company V&S Vin & Sprit protests that it is an infringement on their trade mark. Maybe you can draw some parallels with Champagne where the champagne producers have been very vigilant in protecting the “name” (but not trade mark) Champagne, preventing, for example, perfumes and shampoo to use it. Visit the Tinto Absoluto web site and read more on Decanter.

Sommelier Champions

Danish victory in the Nordic Sommelier Championship
Dennis Rasmussen from the restaurant Le Sommelier in Copenhagen won the trophy as best Nordic Sommelier on Iceland recently. In second place: Björnstierne Antonson, and third: Sören Polonius (both Swedish). www.lesommelier.dk

Yann Satin wins the Belgian Sommelier Championship
Last Sunday the finals in the Belgian Sommelier Championship was held in Brussels. The happy winner was Yann Satin who works at the restaurant “Le Sanglier des Ardennes” in Durbuy. Congratulations! Second place went to Peter Verheyde and third place to Maxime Demuynck from the restaurant “L’Air du Temps” in Noville sur Mehaigne.

WSET moves to new premises

The Wine & Spirits Education Trust (WSET) has just moved to new premises (39-45 Bermondsey Street, just across the river from the Tower of London). The WSET is maybe the world’s biggest (and certainly one of the most respected) educational organisations in wine and spirits. During the academic year 2004/5 they had some 15000 “candidates” in 28 countries. The new facilities will also house several other organisations relating to wine and spirits. The opening was headed by one of the most illustrious ex-students of the WSET: Jancis Robinson. (Photos: WSET) http://www.wset.co.uk

Decanter launches a Chinese wine magazine

Decanter, the leading UK wine magazine, will launch a Chinese language edition of the magazine. It will to begin with be sold in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia, and at a later stage in mainland China. http://www.decanter.com/news/69331.html

Why don’t they make more ”vin de cepage” in France? Or put the grape variety on the label?

You often hear the critique “Why don’t the French make more wines with the grape variety on the label? It would be so much more easy to understand!”. Well, maybe for some: A survey has shown that only 42% of the French claims to have heard of the concept “vin de cepage” (wine sold under the grape variety name) and only 15% could give a correct example of such a vine. The most common grape varieties cited were: Merlot (named by 3.6% of the respondents), Cabernet (2.8%), Chardonnay (2.1%) and Gamay (1.9%). All according to La Journée Vinicole.

Do you want to buy a vineyard?

When recently in Burgundy we discussed vineyard land prices. We thought that it might be interesting for you who are dreaming of buying a few vines to know the approximate price levels. But don’t take it too serious. It is not a statistically grounded survey... - You can get a hectare of AC Bourgogne at entry level (the simplest terroir) for around 80,000€. The prices then go up to 3,000,000€ per hectare for the top quality plots on Grand Cru. But that, of course, does not include the very elite of vineyards like Romanée Conti and the likes, that simply do not have prices. So, you could get a hectare of Corton Grand Cru (not bad!) for around 1,000,000€. In other words, 100€ per vine! (And you will get less than half a bottle of wine from that vine…) Maybe we should look at another region?

--> Discover exciting Burgundy producers. Go on a Wine Tour with BKWine. More info here! <--

Bernard Magrez opens wine shops in Bordeaux and Paris

Bernard Magrez is not a wine collector. He is a chateau collector. He is probably the person who owns the greatest number of wine chateaux in Bordeaux. He plans to open two wine shops, one in Paris and one in Bordeaux to sell the wines from his 30 wine estates and the more than 90 branded wines his empire makes. The shops will also offer tastings and courses. We do not know if they will also sell other wines than his own. All reported in Decanter: Writes Decanter

Experts’ report recommends the abolition of the monopoly

“[the monopoly] is a vestige from the 1920s. […] a privatisation would not only benefit the consumers but it would also allow the government to increase its revenues from this sector. […]No reason exists to preserve this paternalistic attitude on the part of public authorities who seek to dictate lifestyles and to tell consumers which beverages they have the right to drink.”

These are the conclusions of a report written by a Canadian think tank called the Montreal Economic Institute. The full report is available here from MEI. It contains some interesting comparisons with the province Alberta, that previously also had a monopoly but which was abolished in 1994.

Some examples:

Better availability: The number of stores has risen since the privatisation in Alberta from 310 monopoly stores to 1087 stores today. That gives 42 stores per 100,000 inhabitants compared to the monopoly province Québec where they have 13 stores per 100,000 people. This leads to time savings and more convenience for the consumers.
More jobs: During the first three years after privatisation in Alberta the number of jobs in the sector rose from 950 to 2904, i.e. almost 2000 new jobs.
“The range of available products will be smaller”: In privatised Alberta there are 11,575 products available compared to the monopoly market in Québec with 7,148 products. The comparison is even more dramatic if you look at the evolution of the number of products in Alberta since privatisation. In 1993 the Alberta monopoly offered 1,957 products and now, in the private stores, there are around 12,000. The same evolution in Québec would give the Québecoise a choice from almost 44,000 products…
“Privatisation would lead to many more alcohol problems”: In Alberta the alcohol consumption is on approximately the same level as it was when the system was change. They had a slight increase in the year following privatisation but that was followed by a decrease in the following years. In monopoly controlled Québec the consumption has gone up by 15% over the same period.

What do you think? Comment on this in the blog.

Quotes - Michel Laroche, one of France’s most successful wine makers

Michel Laroche, one of France’s most successful wine makers, on Vitisphere.com:

“If I today am attracted by the New World countries in wine it is because they offer you a liberty in how to make wine that does not exist in France. No limits in yields, no pre-defined grape varieties… each and all has the freedom to make wine as he decides best, with the consequence that he then takes the commercial responsibility to himself sell his wines. In France, our collective model with appellations is too heavy. It is necessary to revise the system.”

Link Tips - Some wine sites that you might enjoy visiting

Burgundy: The Burgundy Report is a site created by a Burgundy fanatic. Lots of interesting information: http://www.burgundy-report.com/
Grape-Nutz, a site wit lots of wine information and tasting notes written by Eric Anderson: http://www.grape-nutz.com
The Auction at Hospice de Beaune: We have previously mentioned that Christies will take over the auction. Here's a bit more of the story behind it.

Recommendations - Wine Bars and Restaurants - Barrique Wine Bar

Recommendations
Wine Bars and Restaurants
Gothenburg:

Barrique Wine Bar
If you happen to be travelling to Gothenburg in Sweden there is a new wine bar (opened in September 2005). It is run by Rolf Olofsson and Thomas Norman (who also runs the top quality restaurant Hamngatan 12). Unfortunately we have not yet been there but a new wine bar is always worth telling you about. They will have periodic “themes” and are starting out with Burgundy and a selection of interesting wine producers from Bourgogne.

Click here for address.

Read more recommendations on restaurants and winebars on my Restaurant and Wine Bar page.

Scandinavian Wine Fair – 11 February 2006

And we don’t mean a wine fair IN Scandinavia but one with wine BY Scandinavians who make wine in wine districts all around the world. BKWine organised the Scandinavian Wine Fair in Paris 2004 (click here) and now we’re back with the 2006 edition – on Saturday 11 February. We will have more info (both for visitors and exhibitors) early autumn but mark the date in your calendar already! And – we are very grateful for any tips from you on Scandinavians that you might know of who are in any way involved in producing wine (or fine spirits, like Cognac). Send us an email if you know of any!

Christie’s to take over the auction at Hospice de Beaune

The November auction at the Hospice de Beaune is somewhat of a guide for the market evolution for Burgundy wines. It is a very traditional affair mainly open to the trade, but also to some extent the public. According to information in the press the English auction house Christie’s will take over the responsibility for the auctions. Another change is that they will start auctioning wines in bottles. Traditionally it has only been wines in barrel that was offered, which of course is a bit inconvenient for private buyers. This year the auction will take place on November 18-20
www.decanter.com,
www.journee-vinicole.com

Schramsberg, a Californian pioneer celebrates 40 years

BKWine’s reporter-at-large participated in the festivities on August 27 when Jamie Davies celebrated Schramsberg’s 40th anniversary. Schramsberg was founded by the Davies couple when they moved from Los Angeles to Napa in 1965. It has become well know for solely focussing on quality sparkling Napa. Read more here (a short exercise in French…):

Schramsberg-Napa

Bag-in-Box wines show poor quality according to study: only 5% is OK

The Swedish monopoly retailer has conducted a study on how the quality evolves over time for wines in bag-in-box. Only 5% of the wines tested were judge to be of sufficient quality. The tests were done by checking how the quality changed in unopened BiBs bought in the monopoly stores. Barbro Ström, purchasing manager, said “One possible cause […] can be the packaging”. The Systembolaget will now try and make the producers mark the BiBs with a “best-before” date. As reported in World of Wine Fax News.

Wines En Primeur less in demand (in Sweden)

People are buying less wines en primeur in Sweden. Well, actually, they will be buying none at all since Systembolaget, the Swedish retail monopoly, has decided not to offer wines en primeur any longer. The reason being the weak demand for it.

Patagonian wines from Argentina

Argentina is mainly know for the Mendoza wines but since the beginning of the decade massive investments (partially state subsidised) have been done in Patagonia, a bit south of Mendoza. The landscape is flat and desolate; it is a desert that has been made arable thanks to irrigation with water from the Andes. Already after just a few years some of the wines are pretty good. BKWine was there in August and visited some of the producers: Bodegas Arquen, Shroeder / Saurus, NQN (Neuquen – which is the name of the city), Anelo / Finca Roja, and (the very appropriately named) Fin del Mundo. Never before have we seen so may shining new wineries in one place with so much money invested in developing vineyards. Read about the visit here (a short exercise in Spanish):
www.lmneuquen.com.ar (Photo: La Manana Neuquen) . It shows me, Mark Golodetz from the Wine Enthusiast/USA, Eduardo Viotti, Market Press/Brazil, and the BKWine photographer)

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