BKWine Blog: 2009

Vinisud 2010, 22-24 February

>> Thursday, December 31, 2009

Vinisud is one of the big wine shows. It is primarily focused on the professional visitor / wine buyer. It is a very interesting wine show, not least because there are plenty of small producers, much more than e.g. at a grand show like Vinexpo. One of the reasons is that it is relatively cheap to have a stand so smaller producer can afford it. They also focus on the wine regions around the Mediterranean, where there are many small / mid-size and interesting producers today. The Languedoc-Roussillon has the largest number of exhibitors, not surprising since it takes place in that region. But also for example the Rhône Valley as well as some other countries around the Mediterranean are well represented. This year there will even be an exhibitor from Greece. In spite of “the crisis” the numbers point towards at least as many exhibitors as last time. It’s certainly an interesting show for those who are looking to establish new contacts with producers. Well worth visiting if you’re interested in this type of wines. And who’s not? BKWine will certainly be there! Facts: 22-24 February 2010 in Montpellier. More info: www.vinisud.com

Study wine in British Columbia

The University of British Columbia in western Canada runs a series of wine courses as part of their continuing studies program. In February they have a special interest course on the wines from Okanagan, in March there’s a course on food and wine pairing, and in April they have a more intensive course that is part of the WSET study program. More info on: web.ubc.ca

Sex sells cheese

>> Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Maybe they simply thought it was worth a try. For the fifth consecutive year the Association Fromage et Terroir publishes a calendar with cheesy photos. Each year they have featured lightly clad ladies, but this year the go one step further to ‘unveil’ the attraction of cheese. The From’Girls calendar includes twelve juicy cheeses, as well as girls. Does it sell more cheese? Perhaps. And then of course, if you can sell coffee (Lavazza) or tyres and rubber products (no, not that kind; Pirelli), why not wine and cheese? After all, wine and cheese seems more appropriate than rubber cables. www.fromages-de-terroirs.com

New issue of Fine Wine e-zine out

The e-zine Fine Wine is now out with the fourth issue for 2009. You can download it for free on their web site: www.finewine.nu. This issue contains articles on sherry, wine from Alentejo in Portugal, cork and many other things.

Sex sells wine

>> Tuesday, December 29, 2009

No doubt it can contribute to the sales. The producer is called Domaine de l’Abbaye de Saint Hilaire. The monastic style seems to have been lost a long time ago, judging from their communications. A semi-nude young girl in a gigantic wine glass at a launch party, videos with barely covered ladies who let the wine flow suggestively over the mouth and throat and down over the body… Need we say more? (And it does not quite have the kitsch quality of the From’Girls.) They even have paparazzi style photo galleries from the launch parties. One wonders how the wines taste.

Wine Tech Galleries

We have, as an experiment, made a few ”Wine Tech Galleries”. The idea is that each gallery, or slide show, will illustrate a more or less technical aspect of winemaking and that we with the photos have a better possibility to explain what it is and how it works. We launched it partially as “additional material” to our new book A Wine Is Born http://ettvinblirtill.wordpress.com/english/, and partially with the hope that it might be of some interest to wine enthusiasts who want to learn more about wine. The first three themes that we have covered are:

- Mechanical harvest
- Pumping over (remontage)
- Sorting of grapes or bunches

At the moment we publish the galleries / slide show on our wine photo blog http://wine-pictures.blogspot.com. When the new design of our web site is done they may get a more permanent home there. What else do you think we should cover in the Wine Tech Galleries?

Alsace Grand Cru facts

- 51 ’lieu dits’ (place names) are included in the Grand Cru denomination, covering 1,750 hectares

- 914 ha of GC is in production (compared to a total of 11,459 ha for Alsace and 3,162 ha for crémant)

- Grand Cru represents 4% of the production (45,000 hl of GC)

- Four grape varieties are permitted: riesling, muscat, gewurztraminer, and pinot gris (except for GC Zotzenbert and for blends from GC Altenberg de Bergheim where one can also use sylvaner)

- The wines must (in principle) be made from a single grape variety, except for GC Altenberg de Bergheim and GC Kaefferkopf where grape blends are permitted. However, in 2005 it become permitted not to specify the grape variety on the label which opened the door to
Currently France is undergoing a major overhaul of the regulations, for example changing AOC to AOP. This will lead to a complete review of these and other rules, but for another few years they are still valid.

BKWine TV: [E] Quinta do Crasto #2 with Manuel Lobo, winemaker

>> Monday, December 28, 2009

PART 2 of Quinta do Crasto interviews with Manuel Lobo de Vasconcellos, winemaker and oenologist at Crasto. Quinta do Crasto is in the Douro Valley in northern Portugal, the region best known for port wine, the Portuguese fortified wine. But it is also a wine country that makes excellent table wines.

So, how do they do the winemaking at Quinta do Crasto? They follow a very practical philosophy of making wines: Very high quality grapes from the vineyards to make high quality wines. They make both a fortified port wine and a range of table wines, red and white. At Quinta do Crasto they also believe in using local traditional Portuguese grape varieties.

For the vinification and the work in the winery they dont follow any specific recipe for how to do thing, they see how each vintage is and adapt to the climate and the grapes. The winemaking is about common sense, as Manuel says. Above all they like to respect the fruit in the wine.

They use both very modern winemaking technology and also very old: both temperature controlled stainless steel tanks and old concrete lagares. Manuel explains in detail how they work with treading the grapes in the lagares: either mechanical treading or manual treading by men walking on the grapes and crushing them with their feet. The first treading is always done by men, by real feet.

Crasto also makes a wine called Xisto Roquette e Cazes, made in collaboration with Jean-Michel Cazes. Manuel explains what is different in the winemaking between what they do traditionally in the Douro and what is the tradition in in Bordeaux (where Cazes comes from, Chateau Lynch Bages and other), and how this collaboration means that they both learn from each other.

This interview was made at the European Wine Bloggers Conference #EWBC 2009 in Lisbon: http://winebloggersconference.org/europe/

More on Quinta do Crasto: http://www.quintadocrasto.pt/uk/intro.htm

Music: Kaleidoscope, Sol e dad, Http://www.jamendo.com

By BKWine, http://www.bkwine.com. Interviewer: Per Karlsson, BKWine. © Copyright BKWine, Per Karlsson.

See all our wine videos on our BKWine TV channel: http://www.youtube.com/bkwine

Côte de Bourg facts

- Some 500 grape growers: 259 independent producers, 171 cooperatuers
- 3900 ha vineyards with red grapes, 25 ha (!) with white grapes
- Red grape varieties: merlot 65%, cabernet sauvignon 20%, malbec 10%, cabernet franc 5%
- White grape varieties: sauvignon 46%, colombard 23%, sémillon 23%, muscadelle 8%
- Only 15% of sales go on export, mainly to Belgium (33%), UK (10%), Netherlands (10%), Germany, Japan and Canada (all 9%)
- Soil: limestone with iron, sand/clay, and limestone/clay
- Wines: mainly red of a typical Bordelais character, priced at 5-15 euro
- Web site: www.cotes-de-bourg.com
-Web shop selling (virtually) all the appellation’s wines: www.achat-vins-bordeaux.com

Côte de Bourg remains in sole isolation?

Côte de Bourg will not be part of the newly created Côtes de Bordeaux appellation. It can be difficult to understand why one would choose not to be part of the collaboration (originally they were going to be). “Bordeaux” is a very strong in internationally well known brand with a strong quality image. Bourg, on the contrary, is small, unknown sub-district, so why not try and dove-tail on a strong brand and joint resources? Difficult to know. We can only speculate. Superficially, it certainly seems to be the wrong way to go. If you want to develop sales on an international market it should be better to build on “Bordeaux” rather than “Bourg”. There are far too many small and obscure appellations in France that are convinced that they must put forward their own name and their own particularities, rather than collaborate with others around a more marketable name (to take a few examples: la Livinière, Fenouillèdes, Pacherenc du Vic Bilh etc. Do you know them?). Some may of course succeed but many risk remaining in the unknown no man’s land. And what about Côte de Bourg? Maybe it has more to do with people and personalities than with marketing strategies. Perhaps Côte de Bourg will be one of those that succeed. Côte de Bourg is evidently an appellation with lots of dynamism and lots of initiative – they make things happen. The organise things. They make noise. For example, the international malbec meeting a few weeks ago. So one sees and hears about them quite often. But we can’t say we see or hear much about the other Côtes… Maybe that’s the answer to the question.

The Côtes in Bordeaux now officially married

>> Wednesday, December 23, 2009

There have been five “côtes”-appellations in Bordeaux: Premières Côtes de Blaye, Côtes de Francs, Côtes de Castillon, Premières Côtes de Bordeaux and Côte de Bourg. INAO has just approved officially the merger of four of those into a new appellation that is called, simply, Côtes de Bordeaux. The fifth Côte, that has chosen not to be part of the new AOC is Côte de Bourg – they will remain as an independent AOC. The other four will from the 2009 vintage use the new name AOC Côtes de Bordeaux. They can either use only that name or they can add a “first name” to be more specific: Blaye, Francs, Castillon, or Cadillac (this is a new denomination). It will then look like e.g. “Castillon Côtes de Bordeaux”.

Côtes de Bordeaux facts:
- The new appellation Côtes de Bordeaux includes 14,000 hectares, which is about one sixth of Bordeaux
- It produces some 700,000 hl wine
- It is sold as either Côtes de Bordeaux or with one of four communal names added in front: Blaye, Castillon, Francs or Cadillac
- New web site: www.bordeaux-cotes.com

Wine-filled chocolate, wine-flavoured salt…

Christmas time is often when we indulge (more than usual) in sweets and other goodies. Is chocolate filled with wine the perfect Christmas present for the wine lover? 80% merlot, 20% cabernet sauvignon, 72 % cocoa, and 1.2% alcohol (that makes for 173.2% in total!). Indeed, it sounds very interesting but unfortunately we have not yet tasted it. Or what about sea salt flavoured with the lees from wine barrels (again cabernet and merlot)? We don’t know how lees taste or why you would flavour salt with it but it does sound interesting so why not try it! (And it’s a clever way of using a waste product to something useful!) Both chocolate and salt come from Chateau La Gatte in Bordeaux: www.winechocolate.net

”Bu sur le web” – a (-n amusing) wine talker on the web

It does require a bit of French, but ”Bu sur le web”, a series of short wine videos, is worth discovering. We are certainly not big enthusiasts of the type of wine videos where you have a wine “guru” who tastes a wine (or several) and tells you what it tastes like. (You might have noticed from our own videos – we prefer letting the winemakers talk.) But Aurélia, who makes “Bu sur le web” is something we like. Short clips, good speed and punch, a incredibly wonderful accent (she’s Canadian – are we a bit too chauvinist here?), sometimes even too fast (“avec quoi on mange ce vin?”…). A female (thank god) Gary Waynerchuk? In any case, she’s definitely more entertaining. A minute and a half is about as much as you can take with that level of energy! Definitely worth a taste: Bu sur le web. http://busurleweb.com/

Call for papers for wine economists

>> Tuesday, December 22, 2009

The American Association of Wine Economists has launched a call for papers for their yearly conference in 2010. So if you have some good idea on a micro or macro economic subject on wine you can send them a proposal. More info www.wine-economics.org

Do you get better scores in the wine magazines if you advertise?

Johan Reuter, a member of the Association of American Wine Economists, wondered if advertisers in the wine magazines get a “kinder” treatment than those who don’t advertise. Or in other words: do advertisers get better scores? So he decided to investigate. The result is a paper published by the AAWE called "Does Advertising Bias Product Reviews? An Analysis of Wine Ratings" (the full report can also be downloaded). The conclusion is essentially that no, advertising does not bias the review. It is also interesting to read the response from Wine Spectator to the paper. So everything is fine. On the other hand, the problem might be different: Perhaps advertisers get reviewed and those who don’t advertise have a more difficult time to get reviewed. One wine producer we talked to said that when they stopped advertising the suddenly no longer appeared in the reviews. Perhaps a subject for a second paper?

BKWine TV: [E] Quinta do Crasto #1 with Tomas Roquette

>> Monday, December 21, 2009

PART 1 of Quinta do Crasto interviews. We begin with Tomas Roquette one of the owners. Tomas is the fourth generation at Quinta do Crasto. Crasto produces port wine since more than one hundred years and since 1994 also table wine with the same grape varieties as for port - more than a hundred different grape varieties.

Why did Quinta do Crasto start production table wines? Tomas explains the reasons. They wanted to show the world what is the potential of Douro, so they started to make table wines.

What is the type or the style of wines that they make at Quinta do Crasto. - wines that make people happy when they drink their wines.

About serving temperature: it is important not to serve the wines too warm. Chambré is not a good idea, especially if you are talking about wines with higher alcohol contents. They wines should be served at 16 to 18 degrees Celsius.

So what wines do they make at Quinta do Crasto? A port wine of course, but several table wines: Flor de Crasto, Crasto DOC (red and white), Reserva, Touriga Nacional (sometimes), Tinta Roriz, Vinha Maria Teresa, Vinha da Ponte, Xisto (Roquette & Cazes). And in 2010 there will be a new top wine coming on the market from the Douro Superior

This interview was made at the European Wine Bloggers Conference #EWBC 2009 in Lisbon: http://winebloggersconference.org/europe/

More on Quinta do Crasto: http://www.quintadocrasto.pt/uk/intro.htm

Music: Kaleidoscope, Sol e dad, Http://www.jamendo.com

By BKWine, http://www.bkwine.com. Interviewer: Per Karlsson, BKWine

See all our wine videos on our BKWine TV channel: http://www.youtube.com/bkwine

How to make gravlax

This is one of the very luxurious Scandinavian delicacies...

Did you say luxurious? 1) It's really easy to do, 2) salmon is not strikingly expensive...

And it's very good!

Some call it gravlax salmon, which is a bit silly, since lax means salmon. It's simply a marinated salmon ("grava" is a traditional way of marinating in Scandinavia). And it really should be "gravad lax" (at least in Swedish).

Here's a somewhat simplified way of doing it:

Buy a side of salmon: a fillet without bone, but WITH THE SKIN still on it. You may need to feel it up (?) to make sure there are none of those hidden bones left. Use a pair of pliers from the tool box or use the real thing, the "laxpincett"

Cut the side in two (across) so that you have two pieces of equal length. Or even better, if you want to make bigger quantities: buy two sides / fillets, i.e. a whole fish. Making a large quantity is a good idea since you can keep it in the freezer for quite some time.

Put one of the pieces, skin side down, in a baking dish of some kind. The dish should be just slightly bigger than the piece of fish.

Cover the salmon with a mixture of salt, sugar and white pepper (not black). Mix the salt sugar and pepper in a bowl first. Use lots of salt and sugar, and a generous amount of pepper. Traditionally the proportions are one part salt to two parts sugar, some make it 50/50 today (don't worry, it won't be too sweet, nor too salty). The pepper should be coarsely ground. The salmon should be completely covered in a medium-thin white layer of salt & sugar. Yes.

Put lots of fresh dill on top of the salt & sugar. Lots of dill. And some more. (If you can't find dill you can use aniseed. It'll be different but still OK.)

Take the other piece of salmon and put salt and sugar and pepper on it too. Then put that piece on top of the one in the baking dish, skin side up, so that the two pieces are one on top of the other, flesh sides against each other.

Cover the dish with plastic foil.

Put a weight on top of it all. (The best thing is to put a slightly smaller dish on top and then put some weights in that second dish.)

But it all in the fridge. Keep it in the fridge for one (short), two (normal) or three (very long) days.

At least once a day you take it out and turn the package with the two pieces of salmon over. Don't separate the pieces. It is normal that during part of the process there will be a lot of liquid in the dish. Just leave it there. Sometimes it is reabsorbed, sometimes not. If you still have liquid in the dish when finished marinating, you just pour it out.

Voila. Done.

Wipe the salmon clean (not too clean) from the remaining dill.

Put the pieces in the freezer for a few days (this is what is recommended by the health authorities since it will kill off any unwanted parasites... Ugh. I'm not sure it's necessary. Some say it isn't for farmed salmon. And if it was already frozen when you bought it the question is irrelevant).

It's now ready to serve. Just slice it and serve it.

Traditionally it is sliced almost parallel to the skin in wafer-thin slices, but that's not important.

Very nice. Serve it by itself as a starter, or with scrambled eggs, or with a French potato salad (you know, with lots of olive oil), or in any number of different ways.

BKWine Pick: Jack’s wine of the month: Smith Woodhouse Late Bottled Vintage 1995

Jack’s wine of the month:
Smith Woodhouse Late Bottled Vintage 1995

Forget dry, red, white. In December it should be sweet and strong. Christmas arrives with strong and blue cheeses that require some substantial counter-artillery to create a holiday harmony. The saviour comes in the shape of a bottle of port of course. A brilliant choice is Smith Woodhouse Late Bottled Vintage 1995 (some 15 euro). Not quite a vintage but not far from it. It squeezes as much character out of an LBV as one can reasonably hope for, full of fruit, cherries, mint, vanilla and a long, luscious finish. And so affordable that you can even bring it out when the whole wide family, cousins and all, arrives for the Christmas-time cheese and port rituals.

BKWine Pick: Åsa’s …. olive oil of the month

Åsa’s …. olive oil of the month
Querce2

The olive oil of the month comes from Tuscany and the partly Swedish-owned farm Querce2, just south of Florence. They make an excellent oil that fulfils all requirements to be called “eccellente”, as the Italians would say. It has a low acidity, below 0.4%, is freshly pressed using only their own olives. The olives are brought to the press within 48 hours after harvest. The oil is not as green as some oil ‘nouveau’ can be but is more shimmering gold-yellow. The flavour is round and full-bodied with a bit of peppery spice.

It goes very well with salads and steamed vegetables, or you can create a gastronomic feast by just pouring it over a plate of rice or pasta with a bit of freshly grated parmesan cheese as the only addition. Or try it on a slice of grilled bread with a touch of fresh garlic and salt. One of my favourites! www.querce2.it

BKWine TV: [E] Wines from Portugal #2 with Charles Metcalfe

>> Sunday, December 20, 2009

PART 2 of the interview with Charles Metcalfe, who can be called the guru on Portuguese wines: on the excellent wine and food in Portugal today.

Is Portugal perhaps a New World wine country (with all the new technology and new knowledge)? Charles says perhaps, but perhaps not. It is maybe more a question of rediscovery of the old world. Portugal has also benefited enormously benefited from infrastructure investments financed by the European community.

What about the prospects for the Portuguese to market and sell their wines with these local and unknown grape varieties on the international market? Are Portuguese grape names the future? Perhaps for arinto, touriga nacional, and maybe on or two others. Otherwise it is probably more important to emphasise the brand. But it can be very small brands e.g. Quinta do Crasto or Quinta de la Rosa to take two examples from the Douro Valley. Brands and branding is probably the way to go rather than the grape varieties, says Charles.

We must also mention the book The Wine and Food Lovers Guide to Portugal: A monumental book on Portugal, its food, the wineries and places to visits, hotels to stay in etc. A travel guide for people who love eating and drinking. By Charles Metcalfe and Kathryn McWhirter of course.

This interview was made at the European Wine Bloggers Conference #EWBC 2009 in Lisbon: http://winebloggersconference.org/europe/

On the book: http://www.innhousepublishing.com/
Charles blog, The wine singer: http://thewinesinger.blog.co.uk/
More on Charles: http://www.wineeducators.com/charles_metcalfe.html

Music: Kaleidoscope, Sol e dad, http://www.jamendo.com

By BKWine, http://www.bkwine.com. Interviewer: Per Karlsson, BKWine

See all our wine videos on our BKWine TV channel: http://www.youtube.com/bkwine

BKWine Pick: Champagne Fleury, Champagne

Champagne Fleury, Champagne

It is far between the organic or biodynamic growers in Champagne, but if you look closely you will find a few. Champagne Fleury in Côte des Bars in the southern part of Champagne is one of them. They started “converting” their vineyards to ecologic farming already in 1989 and in 1992 the whole property became biodynamic. “It’s not a problem, even with our cold climate”, says Morzane Fleury, “you just have to be attentive all the time”. Their Brut Sans Année is made from 100% pinot noir and feels classic and fresh. Fleury Fleur de l’Europe has good concentration and elegance. The vintage Fleury 2000 is very good, classic, dry and mineral, with quite a lot of refreshing acidity. If you like really dust-dry champagnes you should try their Extra Brut 1995: they blocked the malolactic fermentation and kept it 12 year before disgorging.

Click here for address and more recommendations.

BKWine Pick: Champagne Turgy, Mesnil-sur-Oger

Champagne Turgy, Mesnil-sur-Oger

Catherine and Jean-Michel Turgy have 6 ha, all planted with chardonnay. The property is in the small village Mesnil-sur-Oger, in the middle of the Côte des Blancs district, known for its high quality chardonnay grapes. It was founded in 1881 and Jean-Michel took over after his father Michel some 15 years ago. Jean-Michel pays a lot of attention to detail, both in the vineyard and in the winery. The style is creamy and quite full-bodied champagnes with very little dosage (sugar). Try his Brut for example, an excellent and affordable champagne.

Click here for address and more recommendations.

Welcome to the BKWine Brief nr 77, December 2009

>> Saturday, December 19, 2009

At this time of the year we start thinking of what port wines we might find in our cellar, to bring up to the table for the festivities. This year we already know exactly which port we will have. This summer we brought home (to Paris) the wine cellar that we have had resting in Stockholm since we moved to Paris. That’s twenty years ago (! ooh) so the wines resting up north have generally reached maturity, if not more. We suspect that some will be best described as “interesting”. But that’s one of the charms with wine. The wine might be too old, passed its peak, but it is still interesting – an experience.

When we were putting all the bottles down in boxes in Sweden we noticed one bottle of port with a cork that had leaked a little bit. When we looked closer at the by then standing bottle it even looked as if the cork would be falling down into the wine. But we didn’t much fancy finishing a full bottle of old port in the heat of summer so we packed it up and brought it home. We’ve had it waiting in a cool place ever since – waiting for Christmas. We bought the bottle long ago, when they were still allowed to export the port in bulk and bottle at the destination. This wine had been bottled by the then monopoly importer in Sweden, Vin & Sprit (the lost their monopoly in 1995 and were recently acquired by Pernod Ricard. Now we’re just waiting for the retail monopoly, which still exists, to disappear. We might have to wait for a long time). That was the time when you could buy a bottle of vintage port in Sweden for less than ten euro. Bottled in Stockholm. What port it is? It’s an Offley Boa Vista 1962. Wonder how it will turn out. If we get the cork out OK!

But we would also like to suggest that you try some other kind of sweet wine for Christmas. It’s one of the few times you (we) really indulge in these sweet wines. At other times one has far too few occasions to drink them. There are many other exiting sweet wines to try: Try for example a Vin Doux Naturel (VDN) wine from the south of France: Banyuls, Rivesaltes, Muscat of different kinds (Frontignan, Mireval, Lunel, Beaumes-de-Venise… There’s even a special cuvée called Muscat de Noël!), Maury, and so forth. An interesting point is that these wines are often made in a way that is close to the way that port is made: you let the must ferment for a short time and then you add grape alcohol. Madeira, that exists in very many different styles, some which are lusciously sweet. Sherry, even if the ones that we long most for are the really, really dry styles they do make excellent sweet wines. The most extreme is the one called pedro ximenes, made from the grape of that name. It’s almost syrupy. Definitely a Christmas sweet all in itself. Or a Moscatel de Setubal from Portugal, with a lovely sweet muscat perfume.

Or you can go down a bit in alcohol contents and drink some “naturally” sweet wines, without added alcohol. Sauternes, of course, or you could try one of the neighbouring districts, less famous but also less expensive: Loupiac, Cadillac…; or a lovely sweet Jurançon with a vibrant fresh acidity, if you can find one, they’re quite rare, but quite good! A Vin Santo from Italy perhaps, which would give you reason to munch on some almond cookies too; an ice wine from Germany or Austria, or less extreme, an auslese; or if you want to be really exotic you could try a sweet Jura wine, Vin de Paille (or the rare, and dry, Vin Jaune).

There is plenty to choose from. And if you don’t have any of that in your cellar, perhaps it can be something to hope that Father Christmas brings in the stocking. Or you could give it to someone else, who might share it with you. Or you could come over to our place and help us finish the Boa Vista!

In any case, we hope that the festive season will be an occasion for you to try many new wines – be they sweet or not. We will certainly keep the cork screw busy over Christmas.

Britt & Per

PS: Recommend to your friends to read the Brief or forward it to them !

More on wine:

G et the full BKWine Brief here for free!

BKWine TV: [E] Wines from Portugal #1 with Charles Metcalfe

>> Tuesday, December 15, 2009

PART 1 of the interview with Charles Metcalfe, who can be called the guru on Portuguese wines: on the excellent wine and food in Portugal today.

Charles also talks about the recent history of Portuguese wines. 20 years ago, when Charles and his wife Kathryn wrote their first book about Portuguese wines, there used to be only a small number of producers. Today there is a large variety and large number of a young generation of winemakers in Portugal. The old image of rustic reds and oxidised whites is now history. The new generation winemakers make wonderful wines. Today there is so much more knowledge on how to make high quality wines.

There is a vast variety of Portuguese grape varieties that give wines of characters and flavours that are unique. Some examples: Vinho Verde with aromatic grape varieties such as loureiro; Douro, not just red but also whites; Bucelas with e.g. arinto; etc.

One of the big surprises with Portuguese wines for many people is that there are many excellent fresh and aromatic white wines from grapes such as bical, sercial, and arinto.

Is Portugal perhaps a New World wine country (with all the new technology and new knowledge)? Charles says perhaps, but perhaps not. It is maybe more a question of rediscovery of the old world. Portugal has also benefited enormously benefited from infrastructure investments financed by the European community.

What about the prospects for the Portuguese to market and sell their wines with these local and unknown grape varieties on the international market? Are Portuguese grape names the future? Perhaps for arinto, touriga nacional, and maybe on or two others. Otherwise it is probably more important to emphasise the brand. But it can be very small brands e.g. Quinta do Crasto or Quinta de la Rosa to take two examples from the Douro Valley. Brands and branding is probably the way to go rather than the grape varieties, says Charles.

We must also mention the book The Wine and Food Lovers Guide to Portugal: A monumental book on Portugal, its food, the wineries and places to visits, hotels to stay in etc. A travel guide for people who love eating and drinking. By Charles Metcalfe and Kathryn McWhirter of course.

This interview was made at the European Wine Bloggers Conference #EWBC 2009 in Lisbon: http://winebloggersconference.org/europe/

On the book: http://www.innhousepublishing.com/
Charles blog, The wine singer: http://thewinesinger.blog.co.uk/
More on Charles: http://www.wineeducators.com/charles_metcalfe.html

Music: Kaleidoscope, Sol e dad, http://www.jamendo.com

By BKWine, http://www.bkwine.com. Interviewer: Per Karlsson, BKWine

See all our wine videos on our BKWine TV channel: http://www.youtube.com/bkwine

BKWine TV: [E] On cork: interview with Amorim

>> Saturday, December 12, 2009

Cork in the bottle? Interview with Carlos de Jesus, marketing and communications director from Amorim, the worlds largest producer of natural cork.

There has been a lot of criticism of cork in recent years, and people arguing that other type of stoppers are better: screw caps, plastic corks etc. Is cork a bad material to close bottles with? Is it better always to use screw caps? Is the cork the ultimate culprit for cork taint, corked wine, wine that tastes bad when opened? But perhaps "the rumour of my death has been highly exaggerated".

Carlos argues that natural cork (from cork oak trees) is still the best bottle stopper:

Cork is the most used bottle stopper, or closure of any, used in the majority of the 16 or 17 billion bottles produced every year. In recent years Amorim has invested 53 million euros to improve the quality of the corks. They have invested in research, process improvements, training, sophisticated chemical analysis equipment, quality control etc etc, and have today very sophisticated tracking and quality control tools which minimise any problems that there may be with cork.

Carlos explains that 2,4,6-trichloroanisole (TCA that is often said to be the reason for cork taint or 'corked' wine bottles) and other anisoles can come from many different sources, not only the cork. A cork stopper has 800 million cells. It comes from a tree that is at least 50 years old (before the first quality harvest). Each tree is then harvested every nine years. We also talk about the oxygen or air transmission between the outside and the wine, through the cork (oxygen ingress) and the oxidising impact that can have on wine.

We also get some views from a cork forest where we see the oak bark (and some cows), as well as newly harvested trees, and a quick visit to a cork factory storage yard. There are huge piles of cork bark drying and waiting to be processed.

More information can be found on Amorims sites:
http://www.corkfacts.com
http://www.amorim.com

This interview was made during a visit to Amorim in connection with the European Wine Bloggers Conference #EWBC 2009 in Lisbon: http://winebloggersconference.org/europe/

Music: El Perez, rumba francesa, http://www.jamendo.com

By BKWine, http://www.bkwine.com

See all our wine videos on our BKWine TV channel: http://www.youtube.com/bkwine

More European Wine Bloggers Conference videos in the #EWBC playlist here.

Book review: L’histoire du Crémant d’Alsace ou la genèse des bulles

>> Friday, December 11, 2009

L’histoire du Crémant d’Alsace ou la genèse des bulles
By: Nicole Laugel
Bublisher: Jérôme Do Bentzinger Editeur

The story about the creation of the Crémant d’Alsace appellation is an entertaining success story. AOC Crémant d’Alsace came into existence not until 1975 and now they sell 30 million bottles per year. It’s the preferred bubbly of the French after champagne. The Dopff family (from Dopff au Moulin) is the protagonist in the book – it’s the family that pioneered sparkling Alsace wine with a second fermentation in the bottle. Already in the early 1900s Julien Dopff sold wine labelled as Champagne Dopff. At the time Alsace was part of Germany but in 1918, when it became French, using the word ‘champagne’ was outlawed. Instead they had to label it under the designation “vin mousseux”. This marked the beginning of the fight against this (as it is perceived) terrible denomination, since almost any cheap bubbly plonk can be called mousseux. Finally, in 1975, the fight is won and the Alsatians are allowed to start called their wines Crémant d’Alsace. But the road to get there was long. Outdrawn discussions with authorities (always sceptical), with Champagne houses (who have since relinquished the label ‘crémant’ that used to signify a lower pressure champagne), Spaniards (who it turned out also wanted to claim the Crémant name as theirs), growers, cooperatives…

The book reads well and gives a very interesting insight into the travails behind the creation of an appellation contrôlée. We are also given some details of how you make sparkling wines with different methods. At the outset it was only Dopff au Moulin and two co-operatives who made sparkling Alsace wine. Now almost every producer makes one or more bubbly cuvées.

Click here for more book reviews on my site. You will also find links to on-line book shops on that page.

New Wine Tech gallery / slide show

>> Thursday, December 10, 2009

In our (recently started) series of galleries on slightly more technical issues around vine growing and wine making, and not just pretty grapes or beautiful chateaux, we have just published our second slide show.

The second Wine Tech gallery is on machine harvesting grapes (follow this link). the slide show illustrates various aspects of mechanical harvesting.

The first Wine Tech gallery was on pumping over (remontage) in the winery.

BTW: 'Wine Tech' is just a temporary name (perhaps). Do you have any suggestion for a better name for these galleries / slide shows?

Book review: Grand Crus Classés, Grands Chefs Etoilés

Grand Crus Classés, Grands Chefs Etoilés
By: Sophie Brissaud, photo Cyril le Tourneur d’Ison & Iris Sullivan, plus many contributing chefs and sommeliers
Publisher: Editions de la Martinière

It’s logical. This is a book made to impress, about wines made to impress, and about food designed to impress. It weighs in at 3 kg, almost 400 pages, so it will certainly not pass unnoticed. The book is about 87 of the “grand crus” of Bordeaux, produced in collaboration with the Conseil des Grands Crus Classés. Each of the chateaux covered in the book is presented with a profile describing some of its history as well as some technical details about the wines. To each wine there is a matching dish, designed and prepared by a Michelin-starred chef (a different chef for each wine), presented with a detailed recipe. It’s the ultimate coffee table book, or should one say wine cabinet book in this case. All is lavishly illustrated of course. Perhaps it is a book to leisurely leaf through, a book designed to create dreams and desires?

Click here for more book reviews on my site. You will also find links to on-line book shops on that page.

Book review: South-West France, the Wines and Winemakers

>> Wednesday, December 09, 2009

South-West France, the Wines and Winemakers
By: Paul Strang, photographs by Jason Shenai
Publisher: University of California Press

This is a book that has been in the coming for a very long time and now finally (!), is it published. Let’s start with this: if you are even remotely interested in wines from other than the big-and-famous appellations you should read this book. It covers a huge area of France, the South West (le Sud-Ouest) where you have a very large variety of wines and wine styles. It’s a very ambitious project to try and cover all of it but Paul Strang carries it off excellently. Secondly, this is really (really!) a region that deserves more attention from the wine lover. There are a few moderately well know districts, Cahors and Madiran mainly, but even those are just barely recognised by the average wine lover.

The problem, as Strang points out, is that almost all wine growers are small family enterprises, with limited production and no marketing budget, so they rarely make it to the supermarket shelves – production is just too small. So you have to seek them out in specialised shops, or on location. And Strang’s book is an excellent guide to find the best wines. The bulk of the book is producer profiles, but each region also gets a thorough introduction explaining rules and regulations, grape varieties etc. Grape varieties is a subject of particular interest in this region – you can find a wealth of local, traditional varieties that exist no where else, making some very interesting and character-full wines (and some very strange wines too).

It’s a pleasure to read it and think of some of the wines one has tasted, and long for some that one has not yet tried but now read about. Two gripes: why are there no captions on the photos? Really a pity. Now one has to guess what’s on the pictures. It would also have been nice with a few more photos – it’s such a beautiful region and it doesn’t quite come through. But book editors sometimes don’t like when the page number goes up and up I guess. Definitely a book to read about a region whose wines you should try.

Click here for more book reviews on my site. You will also find links to on-line book shops on that page.

Book review: History of Wine Words

>> Tuesday, December 08, 2009

History of Wine Words
By: Charles Hodgson
Publisher: P2Peak Press

The best use for this book is probably as a dinner conversation piece. Or as something to leaf through idly in the sofa. It a dictionary of wine words – each word is described with a bit of history and sometimes an amusing story. You can learn, for example, that ullage, the empty space between wine and cork, comes from the French ouillage, meaning to top up, which in itself has its roots in the Latin oculus, meaning ‘eye’. And the eye supposedly refers to the empty air space in a barrel. Or that a ‘butt’ is not what you think but a 15th century English word for barrel (or sometimes bottle). I’d have liked to know the origins of the bung, as in the bung hole, but it’s not there unfortunately. The author is a wine lover and etymologist with his own web site at podictionary.com. Entertaining.

Click here for more book reviews on my site. You will also find links to on-line book shops on that page.

Book review: The Ultimate Austrian Wine Guide (2009/2010 edition)

>> Monday, December 07, 2009

The Ultimate Austrian Wine Guide (2009/2010 edition)
By: Peter Moser
Publisher: Falstaff Publications

We’ve previously reviewed this book, in an earlier edition, so this is just an update. And it’s well worth mentioning again! The title tells it all. This is the ultimate guide to Austrian wines, as far as we know. The bulk of the book is made up of wine producer profiles. We can’t claim to be able to judge if it is an extensive coverage or not, but what is there is very informative. The profiles are organised according to wine regions. Each region has an introductory text with maps that are quite detailed and useful, even for the traveller on location. A short introduction explains grape varieties, rules and regulations etc. There’s even a section at the end with addresses to importers of Austrian wines across the world. We certainly hope it will contribute to making the excellent Austrian wines better known outside of the country. A good thing the book exists in English!

Click here for more book reviews on my site. You will also find links to on-line book shops on that page.

BKWine TV: [E] Niepoort Douro #2, Luis Seabra, winemaker

>> Saturday, December 05, 2009

Interview (Part 2) with Luis Seabra responsible for the vineyards and the winemaking; the Niepoort winemaker. Were sitting at the brand new winery in the Tedo river valley, overlooking the terraced vineyards along the river and the Douro region impressively steep slopes. We are talking about the red wines and about the future of the Douro wines.

Niepoorts four main red wines are Vertente Tinto, Batuta, Redoma and Charme. They also make a new-old red wine called Robustus that is made in an old-fashioned style aged longer in wooden barrel.

Luis Seabra is clearly someone who likes to experiment with different wines, different grapes and different vineyards. There is plenty to material to choose from: there are 40,000 hectares of vineyards, 100 different grape varieties for the reds and 80 different grape varieties for the whites.

So, what will happen in the ten coming years? Luis thinks it is the great challenge of the Douro! For example improving the quality of the wines, but also in quantity, producing wines both of quality and in quantity; perhaps not always going the easy way. Louis speculates in the future strategy and emphasises that the key is to keep true to the origin of the vineyards, while at the same time avoiding doing too much work in the wine cellar: the wines must be allowed to express their origin, soil and grape material. We also draw some parallels with Priorat in Spain and learn some lessons from their mistakes.

And one should not forget the port wines in the Douro; Niepoort is above all a port wine company and without the port wines the Douro would not be the same.

Do not miss Part 1 of the interview where we talk about the white wines and about the style of winemaking at Niepoort.

More on Niepoort: http://www.niepoort-vinhos.com

This interview was made during a visit to the Douro Valley and the Douro Boys wineries in connection with the European Wine Bloggers Conference #EWBC 2009 in Lisbon.

Music: Mofessor, ScentoMeter, www.Podsafeaudio.com

By BKWine, http://www.bkwine.com

See all our wine videos on our BKWine TV channel: http://www.youtube.com/bkwine

Book review: Choosing the Right Wine

Choosing the Right Wine
By: Beverley Blanning
Publisher: Teach Yourself

This is a soft cover, pocket size book on how to teach yourself about wine. Small, simple (no glossy paper, virtually no illustrations) and very good. One of the best introductions to learning about wine an in particular wine tasting we’ve seen in quite some time. The author explains the basics and then goes on to more advanced subjects. Her approach is also refreshingly free from snobbism and “wine nerdery”. This is a book that in simple steps can teach you how better to appreciate and understand wine – a book for the curious. One can of course have opinions about the opinions voiced in the book – but that’s what wine is about. Opinions and discussion. The first part of the book deals with how to taste wines, including some practical exercises of course. Part two goes more into details on the tastes of wines with a closer look on grape varieties, climate, winemaking and other things that influence the result. Part three is a very short overview of some of the most important wine regions including flavour profiles and tasting exercises. The last part of the book goes into practical aspects like wine and food, buy and serving wine. An excellent introduction, easy and pleasant to read, for the aspiring wine lover.

Click here for more book reviews on my site. You will also find links to on-line book shops on that page.

BKWine TV: [E] Niepoort Douro #1, Luis Seabra, winemaker

>> Friday, December 04, 2009

Interview with Luis Seabra responsible for the vineyards and the winemaking; the Niepoort winemaker. Were sitting at the brand new winery in the Tedo river valley, overlooking the terraced vineyards along the river and the Douro region impressively steep slopes. The new winery was opened in 2007 and it has allowed them to do the winemaking the way they really would like to do it - with the time and space they want. They can for example work entirely by gravity.

Luis talks about the style of the Niepoort wines, often understated. The ambition is not to make big and impressive wines but to make balanced wines that go well with food. Niepoort is often lighter, fresher and more balanced wines than many others, wines where you want to finish the bottle to the end.

They make a wide range of different wines, white, red and port wines. The whites includes Tiara, a stainless steel fermented wine from very old vineyards, a bit riesling inspired, also left for a long time in vat with some reductive character; Redoma and Redoma Reserve, both fermented in barrel, which are unfortunately often drunk far too young. They are loft for quite long time on the lees.

Do not miss Part 2 of the interview where we will talk about the red wines and about the future of the Douro Valley wines.

More on Niepoort: http://www.niepoort-vinhos.com

This interview was made during a visit to the Douro Valley and the Douro Boys wineries in connection with the European Wine Bloggers Conference #EWBC 2009 in Lisbon.

Music: Mofessor, ScentoMeter, www.Podsafeaudio.com

By BKWine, http://www.bkwine.com

See all our wine videos on our BKWine TV channel: http://www.youtube.com/bkwine

Book review: Oenologie et crus des vins

Oenologie et crus des vins
By Kilien Stengel, editor
Publisher: Editions Jérôme Vilette

Supposedly, this book is intended for student sommeliers and restaurateurs, as well as those studying viticulture, oenology. It is an ambitious task and one that it does not live up to. It is, as far as we know, only published in French. One would hope that a student in wine would merit a concise and structured introduction to wine but then we would suggest looking elsewhere. Let us take some examples: In the oenology chapter we can read “destemming and crushing are not absolutely indispensable operations” and “the press is an agricultural machine used in a fixed place to extract by pressure certain juices, notably the grape juice, destined for wine making” or “a bottle is a generally a recipient cylindrical at the base and narrowing towards the top”. Or worse: “these varying methods [of mechanical, chemical or no removal of weed and grass] are sometimes called ‘biodynamics’, a process that does not yet have an official definition”. The book starts off with a section on viticulture and vinification. It then has a few “practical tips” chapters: where to buy, how to store and how to serve etc. the third section is a brief overview of all French wine regions. No non-French wines are mentioned. It is a curious mix of a text that tries to go into technical details in some areas but misses important points. The original, now revised text is from 1984. Perhaps it would have been better to write something entirely new instead.

Click here for more book reviews on my site. You will also find links to on-line book shops on that page.

Wine sales up again – in the US

Sales of wine in October were up 7% according to numbers released by Nielsen for the US market. Sales dropped sharply at the beginning of the year but picked up a tiny bit in September. This positive trend are confirmed by the October numbers. On the other hand, wine sales seems very cyclical with a big peak in December and January. Comparing the 2009 numbers with 2008 shows that this year’s sales are very similar to the sales volumes (in dollar value) last year, which seems to contradict that the wine sector in the US has been hard hit by the “crisis”. More info: www.winebusiness.com

Buy an organic vineyard

>> Thursday, December 03, 2009

If you feel tempted to invest in a vineyard and winery, and in particular in an organic one, then there are three currently for sale at Vignobles Investissment: One in Minervois La Livière with 80 hectares of grounds (2.5-5M €), one with 40 ha with panoramic views over the landscape in the Cevennes (1.5-2.5M €) and a third one also in the Languedoc-Roussillon but with the vines on vins de pays land, 72 ha (1.5-2.5M €). But don’t expect to have a calm and quite country life in the south of France shade if you buy a vineyard… More info www.vignobles-investissement.com

Organic vineyards increasing in France

3.3% of all French vineyards are cultivated organically. It adds up to a total of 28 000 ha. The acreage increased with 25% in 2008. the agricultural ministry has set a target of 20% of all agricultural land in 2020. Vine growing is ahead of other farming when it comes to organic culture: 3.3% of vineyards compared to 3% for all farm land. On the other hand (non-organic) vineyards account for a disproportionate amount of the use of chemicals used on farm land. Three areas account for two thirds of all organic vineyards:

- Languedoc Roussillon, with 8337 ha (+36 %)
- Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, 6674 ha (+26 %)
- Aquitaine (with e.g. Bordeaux), 3763 ha (+23 %)

More info: www.vitisphere.com

BKWine TV: [E] Fattoria Poggerino (#2) in Chianti, biodynamism by Piero Lanza

>> Wednesday, December 02, 2009

Part 2 of the interview with Piero Lanza, co-owner (together with his sister) and winemaker at Fattoria Poggerino, Radda in Chianti.

In part 2 Piero explains what it means to be a biodynamic winery.

Piero explains how he farms his vineyard with biodynamic principles, how he works with preparations and how he started with organic viticulture and then moved further to biodynamism.

Biodynamic farming is focused on the ground, the soil. They use for example the 500 treatment, which is based on cow manure prepared and matured under ground in cow horns. It is used to prepare treatments to spray on the vineyards. Before spraying the preparations have to be 'dynamised' in a 'dynamiser'. The biodynamic treatments increase the energy and the humus in the ground. It helps the vineyard to survive in extreme climate and weather conditions. They also use 501 which is based on quartz powder which helps the plants, the leaves, to capture the sunshine. It can also help close to harvest time if there are poor and wet conditions. During the growing season they also use herb preparations to help the vines grow. They use a well known biodynamic consultant from Burgundy called Pierre Masson.

Do not miss part 21 where Piero Lanza talks about his wines and vineyards.

http://www.poggerino.com/

Music: George Wood, One more for the road, http://www.podsafeaudio.com

By BKWine, http://www.bkwine.com

See all our wine videos on our BKWine TV channel: http://www.youtube.com/bkwine

A Bordeaux chateau goes up in smoke

Figuratively speaking. Chateau Labegorce Zédé (Médoc, Bordeaux) will cease to exist as a wine as of 2009. Both Labegorce Zédé and Chateau Labegorce are owned by the family of the deceased Hubert Perrodo. The two wines will now be combined and be sold under the label Chateau Labegorce. The family also owns the Chateau Marquis d’Alesme Becker. that wine will henceforth be sold under the label Chateau Marquis d’Alesme (without Becker). Some of the grapes from the Labegorce wines will in the future be used for the Marquis d’Alesme. This is quite interesting as an illustration of the fact that the chateau names in Bordeaux is really nothing else than wine brands. Provided the grapes come from the correct appellation (and even that with some flexibility sometimes) you can use them for whatever chateau wine you want. A consequence of this is of course that the classifications (e.g. the famous 1855 one) are really a classification of brands, nothing else. Interesting, isn’t it? www.decanter.com

Why white wine goes better with fish

>> Tuesday, December 01, 2009

White wine with fish is one of the best known rules of thumbs in food and wine matching. Researchers at Mercian Corp in Fujisawa in Japan has discovered why red wine and fish don’t marry well. Apparently, when the iron contents in the wine reaches 2 milligrams per litre or more there’s a chemical reaction that creates unpleasant fishy tastes. The researches are not quite certain with what the iron reacts but think that it might be with an unsaturated fatty acid that exists in some types of fish and shellfish. And since red wine generally has higher iron contents than white wines it is the red-with-fish combination that does not work. However, not all red wines have such high iron contents and not all fish/shellfish produce this result. So the conclusion is: if you want red wine with fish you just have to try it and see if it works. As reported in sciencenow.sciencemag.org

The founder of the Spanish Wine Academy wanted by Interpol

The headline only refers to one of the aspect of this strange story. Pancho Campo founded some years back the Spanish Wine Academy, a training and event organising profit motivated corporation (and not as one might guess from the name an official Spanish body). Campo is also the organiser of the wine hullabaloo Wine Futures that is taking place in Rioja at this very moment (November 13) with speakers such as Robert Parker, Jancis Robinson and Gary Vaynerchuk. It turns out that Campo has been sentenced to one year in prison in absentia in Dubai and that there is an international arrest warrant on him. When the news of this broke Campo decided to relinquish the management of the Wine Futures congress and hand over the responsibility to someone else (his brother in law if we remember right). Jim Budd, an investigative English wine journalist (if ever there were such a thing), has delved into this affair and found that e.g. Campo has been accused by his business partner in Dubai to have “misappropriated” 640,000€, that he was forced to surrender his passport to a Dubai court (so as not to disappear), but left the country using another passport (since he has double nationality). Budd also poses the question (to himself and to Campo) where the funding for the Spanish Wine Academy came from. It is not very difficult to read between the lines and get the impression that it may have been from the Dubai affair. Budd has so far not had an answer from Campo. You can read more about this wine thriller of international dimensions (e.g. Campos MW credentials) on Jim Budd’s blog: Jim’s Loire.

”The world’s smartest way to sell alcohol”

Usually, this is a story that would only appear in the Swedish edition of the BKWine Brief but this is so outrageous so we have to share it with everyone. In a recent issue of one of the biggest daily paper the Swedish monopoly retailer of wine and spirits, Systembolaget, run a two page ad. No, it was not to sell some good wines. It was to proclaim that they are the world’s best retailer and that the Swedish people should be happy that they have a monopoly market. Because otherwise we would all be alcoholics. So this is a monopoly (Systembolaget, a state owned company) that spends about 2.5 million euro each year, according to their previous CEO, on “marketing”. And marketing in their view is to tell people

a) Systembolaget is the world’s best retailer,

b) Sweden has one of the world’s best selections of wines and spirits (a bit short of 2000 items;. Berry Brothers, alone, in London has some 4000 items. Can you follow the logic? No, we neither. Some years ago they hired Jancis Robinson to do a study of their range. No, I don't know what Jancis' conclusion was. The report is secret and classified information and the monopoly has declined to share it with us),

c) without the monopoly all Swedes would drown in misery, we would have 1,600 more deaths each year, 14,000 more wife beatings and 16 million more sick leave days.

We’re not joking. This is exactly what they say in the ad. That’s based on what they call a “scientific research report”. That report is the creation of a dozen or so alcohol and drug researchers, led by Harold Holder of Berkley, California, who sat down around a table and started guessing: “So how much do we think that alcohol consumption will increase if they start selling it in grocery stores. Oh, I’d say perhaps 30% more or so… What do you think?” Scientific report, yes indeed. They also claim that John D Rockefeller sponsored a major study to see what model for alcohol sales was best and that it concluded that “the Swedish model” was the best. That when prohibition was over many US states introduced alcohol monopolies and most of those are still in existence (that’s very typical for the deceitful facts they use: “many states” introduced monopolies and “most of those” still exist). Some years ago there was a study that considered that it was a peril to democracy when government agencies (or government controlled companies such as the Systembolaget monopoly) took on the role of propagandists. It is the role of the people to decide the polices and for the state to execute them. Not the other way around. The Systembolaget ignores it of course. In Sweden the Systembolaget alcohol monopoly spends 2.5 million euros a year on forming public opinion. No wonder people think they’re great.

What do you think? Comment on "The world's smartest way to sell alcohol" here!

BKWine TV: [E] European Wine Bloggers Conference 09. How was it for you? (Full version)

>> Monday, November 30, 2009

Interviews with a handful of participants at the European Wine Bloggers Conference ( #EWBC ) that took place in Lisbon, Portugal, in October/November 2009.

What did you think about the conference? How was it for you?:

Featuring:
Miss Vicky Wine (Anne-Victoire Monrozier): http://www.missvickywine.blogspot.com/
Justin Roberts on sherry: http://jerezwine.com/
Maria da Assuncao Foy: http://terruswine.blogspot.com/
Julia Sevenich: http://www.julia7ich.com/
Daniele del Gesso http://www.wineontherocks.com/
aka Finkus Bripp: http://www.finkusbripp.com/
Brett Jones: http://thewinemaestro.co.uk/
Gwendolyn Alley: http://artpredator.wordpress.com/
and also http://winepredator.wordpress.com/
(Sonadora: http://wannabewino.com/, who could not come)
Emidio Santos: http://www.adegga.com/
Rachel Black: http://rachelblack.ca/
and http://twitter.com/Nebbiolata
João Rico: http://www.pumadas.blogspot.com/
Nico James: http://iamvino.com/
and http://www.nicojames.es/
and http://www.vinomotion.com/

More on the EWBC here: http://winebloggersconference.org/europe, the European meeting place for wine bloggers and anyone interested in blogging, wine, social media, networking, twitter, facebook, etc etc.

By BKWine, http://www.bkwine.com

See all our wine videos on our BKWine TV channel: http://www.youtube.com/bkwine

BKWine TV: [E] (Short) European Wine Bloggers Conference 09. How was it for you?

Interviews with a handful of participants at the European Wine Bloggers Conference ( #EWBC ) that took place in Lisbon, Portugal, in October/November 2009.

What did you think about the conference? How was it for you?:

THIS IS JUST THE INTRO. WATCH THE FULL VIDEO IF YOU'RE CURIOUS ABOUT THE #EWBC. (coming soon)

More on the EWBC here: http://winebloggersconference.org/europe, the European meeting place for wine bloggers and anyone interested in blogging, wine, social media, networking, twitter, facebook, etc etc.

By BKWine, http://www.bkwine.com

See all our wine videos on our BKWine TV channel: http://www.youtube.com/bkwine

Rosé port

There’s a new category of port wine: rosé. The Port Wine Institute (IDVP) has approved rosé port as a denomination. Already last year Croft launched a rosé port: Croft Pink. Formally, it has been considered a very lightly coloured ruby but now it has its own category. Apart from Croft’s there has not been many rosé ports available, except an own label brand in some British super markets. The rosé must by made by the saignée method, i.e. a short maceration on the skins before the lightly coloured grape juice is separated from the skinks. In other words, it is not allowed to make it by blending red and white, as is allowed in Champagne but in few other European wine districts. We have not tasted it but reports indicate that we have not missed a great deal

Antinori makes wine in Romania

“[Romaina] has all the right ingredients to produce great wines: perfect climate, very good exposure, great terroirs.” Piero Antinori says to Decanter. He has just launched his first Romanian wine, Cantus Primus 2007, made in a joint venture with British wine importer Halewood International. The wine will retail for around €8-9. The vineyards will in time cover 106 ha. More info: www.decanter.com

Parsed wine

>> Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Are you looking for a nice gift to give to your enemy? Perhaps one of the strange decanters made by the artist Etienne Meneau can fit the bill? The shape of the decanters is reminiscent of the root system of a vine (or an upside down tree). Each can contain one normal bottle of wine. The price is a little bit over 2000 euro. On the site there is an instruction on how to use them: “after a short training you can perfectly pour wine in a glass without any drop anywhere”. To your enemy? Can you imagine washing it! http://the-strange-decanter.blogspot.com/

Box bar?

>> Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Can you make BiBs trendy? The first “pop up bar” is what they call it. The wine importer Philipson Söderberg has launched a wine bar dedicated to the “celebration of bag-in-box wines” in the centre of Stockholm. They will mainly (only?) be serving Fleur du Cap wine from plastic bags in cartons. It sounds about as inspired as if you launched a restaurant proclaiming to use only frozen raw materials – nothing fresh – in the cooking. Or if you organised a concert and only provided a transistor radio as a loudspeaker. Bizarre. Some kind of inverted snobbism? http://boxbar.se/ (Trivia: more than 50% of all wine sold in the monopoly wine shops in Sweden is sold in bag-in-box.)

White wine is dangerous for your teeth

The high acidity found in most white wines can damage your teeth, according to a report in Nutrition Research. The acidity in the wine attacks the calcium and erodes the enamel. If you eat e.g. cheese with the wine the effect may be lessened. This is perhaps not big news. Have you ever been to a tasting of a large number of Alsace wines or Champagnes you may have noticed the unpleasant feeling in the teeth afterwards. To avoid sever damages one should avoid brushing the teeth after drinking or tasting the wines, it is suggested. Good advice, we think, that our dentist agrees with. Last time we were there she recommended a new type of tooth paste (called Pro-émail) that supposedly helps rebuild the enamel. news.bbc.co.uk

Mechanical harvest at Isole e Olena, Tuscany

>> Monday, November 23, 2009

http://www.bkwine.com/wine_tours/wine_tours.htm --- Harvest at Isole e Olena winery in Chianti, Tuscany. Harvesting the grapes with a tractor - mechanical harvest machine.

You can see the ripe grape bunches in the vineyard before harvest and the naked grape stems that remain after the harvester has passed.

In the vineyard in Chianti, Tuscany, Italy.

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Machine a vendanger pour les vendanges chez le vignoble Isole e Olena a Toscane en Italie.

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By BKWine, http://www.bkwine.com

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Amazon.com closes down it’s wine shop

It was big new in ecommerce when Amazon.com decided to launch a wine shop. but even before the shop has started they have decided to close down the wine sale project at Amazon. We haven’t seen an official explanation for it, but industry observers think that it has to do with logistical and regulatory difficulties. In the USA it is very complicated to sell wines from one state to another. There are many rules and regulations (and different ones in each state) that stipulates how it must be done, sometimes requiring impossible logistics or other restrictive requirements. Unfortunately, since this severely restricts the choice of wine for consumers in many states. The system was created after the prohibition and remains largely in place. It is of course defended by many of the established players, whose positions are protected by it. www.winebusiness.com

The (new) ultimate wine site for everything? Findawine.com

>> Tuesday, November 17, 2009

There are a surprising amount of people who think that there is money to be made from online wine sites. Some are wine lovers, some of business people, and some try and be both. FindAWine.com probably falls into the latter category.

Founded by two young French business school graduates, it’s been in the works for almost three years. Finally, it’s now launched. And you can try it here: FindAWine.com.

If you want to find where to buy a wine you can use Findawine (just like Twenga, PriceRunner, Kelkoo, or Wine-Searcher). If you want to store your tasting notes and manage your cellar, you can do it (just like Snooth or Adegga for example). If you want to find the best wine and food match the have an artificial intelligence engine to help you. If you want to read up on wine knowledge, they have 1000+ pages with wine articles. If you want to read comments and tasting notes on a wine you can do it, Parker’s, Tanzer’s and other “authorities” (but it is unclear what kind of copyright rights they have to publish those notes though), or other community members. If you want to partake in a wine community you can do it (just like at Wine 2.0 or OWC for example).

And this points perhaps to the concern I have about FindAWine. It’s trying to be all things to everyone about wine. It’s as if there could be one site that answers all your questions about wine and does all you could ever want to do. And generally, that’s not how things work today on internet. Often, the specialists have an edge over the generalists.

Is this a sign of the Frenchs’ belief that there can be one true (and centrally managed) source of information (like the plans they had for a humanly managed search engine to compete with Google)?

The only way to find out if it makes sense is to try it and see if it’s useful to you. And that you can do here: FindAWine.com. Oh, and the money? Well, they intend to make the money on commissions from the online wine shops. Each time you go from a recommendation on FindAWine to a wine shop and buy a bottle they get a cut.

Oh, and in spite of the name the site is in French.

Wine of the Month

Criteria: an interesting wine (not too cheap) and one that you can enjoy with dinner or friends (not too expensive). And very good!

Åsa’s wine of the month:

Rosé du Coteau from the agricultural institute in Aosta – cheap rose with class

This month’s wine comes from Valle d’Aosta in northern Italy. The Rosé d’Aosta is made by the Institut Agricole Régional. They frequently experiment with various techniques in the vineyards. It is an easy-drinking rosé made from the gamay grape. The vines are planted in a vineyard at 800 m altitude on a steep slope. It goes well with starters or simpler main courses that are not too fat or heavy and not too strong flavours. It is very fresh with a hint of bitterness in the finish that avoids that it gets boring. The colour is light with some beautiful hints of brownish yellow. Excellent value for money. Approx 5 euro. www.iaraosta.it

Jack's wine of the month:

A Amarone 2006 from Alpha Zeta

It is a dark November evening, just a plain weekday, and you need some red to go with your parmesan that you just picked up at the cheese shop. The scenario requires quite a substantial red wine and the solution is at hand: Try a A Amarone 2006 from Alpha Zeta (~10€ for a half bottle). It gives you lots of fruity flavours, good concentration, quite dense, with a good long finish. It survives even the stronger cheeses. In spite of the high alcohol (15%) the wine is balanced and gives you a lot of character for a relatively modest price. You can also keep it in your cellar for a few years but it’s delicious to cheese this November!

BKWine Pick: Au Vieux Comptoir, Bar à vins – Restaurant, Paris 1

Au Vieux Comptoir, Bar à vins – Restaurant, Paris 1

A popular restaurant on a side street to the busy rue Rivoli. Nice atmosphere and very friendly and helpful staff (well worth underlining!). At lunch time you can have Today’s Special for 14€, traditional French cooking, e.g. a ‘hachis parmentier’ (a gratin of mashed potatoes with minced meat), excellent to try in winter when you need to warm up. If you like beef you should try their tempting côtes de boeuf, a giant ‘beef chop’ from cows of the Maine Anjou race (but you should be two persons sharing – it weighs in at 1.4 kilos!) with sauce béarnaise. Or try the excellent charcuteries from Alsace, the Jura of the Basque countries, the veal from Corrèze or the scallops. All is made from prime raw material. They have an interesting wine list with, unusually, many wines served by the glass. A bistro one will come back to!

Click here for address and more recommendations.

BKWine Pick: Restaurant Cap Sud, Tours

>> Monday, November 16, 2009

Restaurant Cap Sud, Tours

A charming little restaurant in the heart of Tours in the Loire valley, located between the Cathedral and the Vieux Tours. Open Tuesdays to Saturdays. In short: very high ambitions and moderate prices! It’s an innovative cuisine, with inspired presentations of the dishes. The emphasis is on southern French raw materials and products, lots of shell fish and vegetables. At lunch time you can get a three course menu for around 15 euro, in the evening they have a “small” menu (not on Sat) for just under 20€, and one for 38€. The wine list offers a range of wines from all over France, starting at 20€. They have several interesting Vouvrays on the list.

Click here for address and more recommendations.

BKWine Pick: Domaine Marronniers, Chablis

Domaine Marronniers, Chablis

We find Domaine Marronniers in the small village of Préhy, a short drive from Chablis itself. There Bernard Legland and his wife welcome you for a wine tasting of a range of Chablis wines. The domaine has some 20 ha of vineyards: petit Chablis, Chablis, and Chablis premier cru. Bernard is fond of the crispy, clean style of Chablis so none of his wines are aged in oak. “Why would we want to hide what we get from our soil?” he asks. In his view, Chablis has a unique soil, that makes Chablis a true vin de terroir, with a steeliness and minerality that resembles no other. If you don’t believe him, try his very drinkable, crispy Petit Chablis 2008 (6.5€ at the cellar door) or the Chablis 2007 with very refreshing aromas of citrus fruit and a nice minerality. Very good. If you are looking for something a bit more complex you can try the 1er Cru Montmains 2007 (11.50€), still a bit reserved but with very good development potential. Or a Chablis Vieilles Vignes 2005 (9€) already with a bit of maturity and a nice, honeyed character.

Click here for address and more recommendations.

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