France's wine exports hit record $13.8B; China big buyer

PARIS -- France's wine and spirit industry scored record exports in 2007, with triple-digit surges in China and an exuberant performance from the star of French wines, Champagne.

France sent nearly 9.4 billion euros, or about $13.8 billion, worth of wines and spirits abroad in 2007, an increase of nearly 7 percent year-on-year, the French Federation of Wine and Spirits Exporters announced Wednesday.

Growth in China more than doubled to nearly 247 million euros ($364 million) worth of alcohol. The country of 1.3 billion people, and a growing middle class discovering a taste for wine and already fond of cognac, was the 11th-largest market by value for French wines and spirits in 2007. Barely a decade ago, wine buyers' choices outside of the poshest hotels, restaurants or stores were mostly limited to Chinese-made rot-gut.


Read More

Grape expectations

SCIENTISTS AT CALTECH and Stanford recently published the results of a peculiar wine tasting. They provided people with cabernet sauvignons at various price points, with bottles ranging from $5 to $90. Although the tasters were told that all the wines were different, the scientists were in fact presenting the same wines at different prices.

The subjects consistently reported that the more expensive wines tasted better, even when they were actually identical to cheaper wines.

The experiment was even more unusual because it was conducted inside a scanner - the drinks were sipped via a network of plastic tubes - that allowed the scientists to see how the subjects' brains responded to each wine. When subjects were told they were getting a more expensive wine, they observed more activity in a part of the brain known to be involved in our experience of pleasure.


Read More

Classy wine lounge now open in Drayton Tower

The Roman god of wine has found a home on Liberty Street. Bacchus Wine Lounge opened last weekend on the ground floor of Drayton Tower. For owner Brian Kight, it's the culmination of nearly 20 years in the bar and restaurant business.

A Dublin, Ga., native, Kight worked in Athens and then in California before moving here eight years ago.

A confessed "Georgia boy," Kight told me he just felt the need to be closer to home. "I got too deep of roots," he laughed as we chatted a few days ago across Bacchus' exceptionally comfortable bar.

Once Kight decided to move back to Georgia, Savannah seemed an obvious choice even though he didn't know anyone who lived here at the time.

He was especially attracted to the city's walkability. "There aren't a lot of cities like that," he said.


Read More

A photo caption with a report on the opening of the South Beach Wine...

A photo caption with a report on the opening of the South Beach Wine & Food Festival misspelled the name of celebrity chef Rachael Ray. The error, which was made in the editing process, was on Page 4A of some editions Friday.

• In a story that ran Friday on Page 1C concerning a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation of MasTec, J. Marc Lewis, the company's vice president of investor relations, misspoke when he said the company had been exonerated. The SEC simply ended its investigation without recommending enforcement action.

A story about a multiple shooting in Miami-Dade, which ran Friday on Page 1B in Dade and 5B in Broward, incorrectly stated how two wounded victims got to the hospital. They were transferred by fire-rescue truck, not by air.


Read More

Stew Leonard's wine tasting to benefit United Way of Norwalk and Wilton

Stew Leonard's will present its fifth annual wine and food grand tasting to benefit the United Way of Norwalk & Wilton and United Way of Westport-Weston on Friday, March 14, from 6 to 8 p.m. at Aitoro Appliances HDTV Home Theater, 401 Westport Avenue, Norwalk. The tasting will feature more than 70 wines from California, Oregon and Washington, along with the cuisine of Stew Leonard's Executive Chef George Llorens. "Following the hot trends in the wine business, this year's tasting features the 'best of the West' including Oregon Pinot Noir, Sonoma Chardonnay, and some of the new cult Washington vintners," said Amy Dixon, Stew Leonard's fine wine specialist. "The tasting will showcase well-known producers such as Caymus, Ponzi, Andrew Will, Chateau St Michelle and Bernardus, with their top cuvees being poured.


Read More

Bill would allow bottled wine sales at festivals

A Vermont lawmaker with two wineries in her district wants to make it easier for them to sell bottles of their product at wine and food festivals.

Wineries already are allowed to sell their wares by the glass at such festivals; the bill would add the words "or by unopened bottle" to the law.

Wilmington Rep. Ann Manwaring says the bill would maintain the current requirement that permission for such sales be sought from the selectboard in the town where the festival is to occur.

Lauraine Muha of Honora Winery in Halifax told lawmakers that allowing sales by the bottle would make it more economically worthwhile for wineries to send representatives to such events.

------

Information from: Brattleboro Reformer

.


Read More

Some Napa vintners pump up the alcohol

SEBASTOPOL, Calif.

California's big reds are coming on strong these days as winemakers pursue riper, fuller-flavored fruit.

A number of wines have been creeping past 14 percent alcohol and even into the 15- to-16 percent range, as opposed to the tamer 12- to 13-percent of years past. This is largely because vintners wait longer to pick their grapes. More mature fruit is thought to make tastier wine, but it also means sugar levels have a chance to rise, which comes with the side effect of pumping up the alcohol volume. Warmer harvests only increase the phenomenon.

Some are calling for a halt to the so-called "hot wines."

"I just hate high-alcohol wines," said Randy Dunn, founder of Dunn Vineyards, who fired off an open letter last year urging consumers to demand wines of 14 percent alcohol or less.


Read More