Category: Guest Column

The U.S. wine and spirits industry is reported to be hurting. The tariffs imposed over the past three months are having an impact on both its markets and costs. The industry sees little or no silver lining in the current situation – which may, of course, change.

Up to now, the largest export market for U.S. wines has been Canada, worth more than $1 billion per year. However, the Canadian provincial governments, who run most of the retail outlets, have retaliated against tariffs imposed on Canadian products by orchestrating boycotts of both U.S. wines and liquors. The Canadian market may not be a total loss, but little is reported to be crossing our northern border now, and once a market is lost, it’s not easy to recapture.

On the cost side, the news is also not good for the industry. Corks come from Spain and Portugal, oak barrels from France and glass bottles from China. All are suddenly more expensive, some much more so. Some of these cost increases are avoidable to some extent – substituting screw caps for corks, for instance, or using wine boxes instead of bottles, but at the price of considerable capital investment. Small U.S. wineries do not have considerable capital.

So what is a wine drinker to do? Some substitution is possible, bearing in mind that costs to U.S. wineries may be rising faster than to our international competitors – for bottles, for example.

A few months ago, my wife and I were dining out at a local restaurant and the couple at the next table were asking the waiter for a full-bodied red wine recommendation. He suggested a Syrah from France. The couple declined, saying they didn’t like Syrahs and said they would take a further look at the wine list. Their ultimate pick was an Australian Shiraz. If you’re smiling, you may already know that the ‘Syrah’ grape and the ‘Shiraz’ grape are the same, just called by different names. Did the couple know that?  And while wines produced from the same grape in different areas almost always have distinct styles and tastes, we’ll leave that for a future article.  

There are more than 10,000 different grape varieties according to WorldAtlas and Wine Enthusiast and while recent DNA analysis concludes the number is more like 1,400 truly distinct varieties, even experts would be uber-challenged to name them. To complicate matters, many names differ by country or region.  

Here are some of the more common varieties that have multiple names:

• Syrah = Shiraz
• Pinot Noir = Pinot Nero = Spätburgunder
• Pinot Blanc = Pinot Bianco = Weissburgunder
• Malbec = Côt
• Pinot Gris = Pinot Grigio = Grauburgunder = Sivi Pinot
• Tempranillo = Aragonez = Tinta Roriz
• Zinfandel = Primitivo = Crljenakl = Tribidrag
• Vermentino = Rolle = Pigato

One of my favorite winemakers is Vincent Arroyo, whose winery is in Calistoga, at the north end of Napa Valley in California.  He recently introduced a wine he calls Melange Blanc, which, as you might guess, is a white blend.  I am pretty sure he’s having fun with his customers; the Merriam-Webster definition of “mélange” is “a mixture of often incongruous elements.”  This particular wine is 50% chardonnay and 50% sauvignon blanc, which a cynic might say manages to take away the oakiness of the chardonnay and the tartness of the sauvignon blanc at the same time.

But it did make me curious about the notion of blending wines, and it turns out that red blends are now the second most popular type of red wine sold in the U.S. (behind cabernet sauvignon).  And you don’t have to look hard to find them:  Bordeaux wines are perhaps the best-known blends, usually with either merlot or cabernet grapes dominating.  And there are others, too, for example:

• Chianti, a very popular Italian wine, is typically a blend of Sangiovese with cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc and/or an Italian grape called canniolo.
• Super Tuscan, another Italian wine, is a blend that disobeys Tuscan wine standards by using more than a single grape.
• Rioja is a Spanish wine that must contain 75% tempranillo and uses other red grapes grown locally.

Does it really matter what type of corkscrew you use to open your fine bottle of Chateau Mouton-Rothschild, or Two-Buck Chuck, for that matter? Well, yes, it does. You need a corkscrew that penetrates easily without destroying the structure of the cork (whether natural, synthetic or otherwise). You need one that removes the entire cork with minimal effort. And if you’re a sommelier (I’m not), you need one that you can manipulate easily while holding the bottle in one hand, standing up and engaging your customers in pretentious banter about the bottle you’re just opening.

All corkscrews have a worm – that’s the spiral which engages into the cork. Some corkscrews have wings with a double helix to first insert the worm, then reverse direction to extract the cork (center left and bottom right above). Some are battery powered. Some are lever action – think the Rabbit™ which has been so popular (not pictured). Some have a single hinge that engages the top of the bottle (top right above). Some require plenty of brute force to remove the cork (most of the examples above). But for portability and ease of use, nothing beats the Sommelier’s Corkscrew.

Historically, organizations like the Lions Club have led eyeglass recycling efforts. Since 1925, Lions International has championed combating vision impairment and blindness through their recycling programs. The Lions still spearhead this effort by working with several partners to facilitate the collection of eyeglasses and lenses, and several other organizations now join in this effort.

Where can you donate glasses and lenses in our area? Your contribution can help someone in need experience the world with clearer vision.

The WineLines post sent earlier this morning contained some errors in content. Please disregard the previous post and enjoy this version of WineLines.

How do you choose a bottle of wine when you’re in a wine store or  supermarket? The type of grape or vintage year? The “expert” ratings? The price? The country or region? The producer or Chateau name? The store’s promotional tag? Well, perhaps one or more of these are included in your criteria but you might be surprised to learn that the design element on that wine bottle influences most buyers and maybe even, at times, the more knowledgeable wine drinker.

So what information is provided on a wine bottle label? Let’s start with the legal/regulatory requirements and for purpose of this article, I’ll only address United States rules. The “Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau” (TTB) regulates most of the information required on labels, even including the type, size, font and to some degree the placement of this information.