Wine exports drop five per cent

A drop in bulk wine shipments has contributed to a five per cent fall in Australian wine exports in the year to the end of February.

Some 749 million litres of wine was exported in the 12-month period, valued at $2.9 billion.

Bulk wine exports dropped 25 per cent in the year to the end of February this year, but bottled wine shipments rose five per cent.

The United Kingdom remained the largest and most lucrative market, taking 280 million litres of wine valued at $949 million.

The United States was second (192 million litres valued at $862 million), followed by Canada (49 million litres at $282 million).

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Grocer's beer, wine sales plan stalled

DETROIT -- An upscale grocery store that wants to open in Brush Park and sell beer and wine has the City Council rethinking an ordinance banning stores smaller than 15,000 square feet from selling spirits.

But the law couldn't change until at least July because three government bodies and the public need to weigh in on the issue.

"The reality is it's been legal since the end of Prohibition," City Council President Kenneth Cockrel Jr. said of selling alcohol. "In this particular case, we are talking about a full service grocery store."

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Sam Calagione is Beer Guy - a very trim and fit Beer Guy, seeing how he puts the suds away. Marnie Old is Wine Woman - also trim, delivering sonnets about chenin blanc and arias over rosé.

Calagione owns Dogfish Head Craft Brewery in Milton, Del. Old is a Center City sommelier, consultant and director of wine studies at Manhattan's French Culinary Institute.

"Beer is more primal," he says, between sips.

"With wine, it's all about the acidity," she says, expertly swishing her glass at Restaurant XIX atop the Park Hyatt at the Bellevue. "Nothing can compare to its taste and diversity."

It's a Dogfish and pinot show.

Their act, perfected over five years, 20 drink-off dinners, and now the book He Said Beer, She Said Wine (Dorling Kindersley, $25), is pairing wines and beers with specific foods and judging which beloved libation is the winner.


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Wine expert Tim Hanni tells me I'm a closet White Zinfandel drinker.

Oh geez. If word gets out, I'm finished in this town.

Hanni, one of the first two Americans to pass England's prestigious Master of Wine exam, assures me that it's not my fault. He believes that taste in wine is physiologically predetermined by the number of taste buds on the tongue. Besides, he says, there's nothing wrong with White Zinfandel.

"The wine industry has convinced people what they have to drink to be sophisticated," Hanni says. "We're making mistakes from false assumptions and from not knowing how drastically an experience might vary from one person to the next."

Many leading scientists agree with much of Hanni's taste-bud theory. Some of the movers and shakers in the wine industry don't.


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http://www.just-drinks.com/article.aspx?id=93216&lk=alrt3&amd=3076

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Michel Rolland has transformed the world's wine market, wooing producers with hot science and entrepreneurial energy. But in a controversial new film, Mondovino, critics accuse him of betraying his native traditions and sacrificing individuality to the tastes of the mass market. Is he dumbing down? John Carlin meets the genie of the bottle. .


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