• If you can have wine jelly. ...: I have no idea what to make of this, so I'll just report it. An Arizona company is selling something called wine fragrances and body rubs, made from grape seeds. And, yes, the prose is just as convoluted as some wine writing: "... the complex scent of oranges and tangerines, with hints of rose. ..."
• Big prices for Aussie wine: Barossa Valley Ares Shiraz, Aphrodite Cabernet Sauvignon and Aerope Grenache -- all produced by Two Hands Wines -- fetched $130,000 at the Naples Winter Wine Festival last weekend. Those are impressive prices for Australian wine, which tends to lag behind Bordeaux and Napa at these sorts of events.
• Costco and the three-tier system: More news, not necessarily welcome for consumers, from Costco's long-running attempt to overturn Washington state liquor laws that regulate the prices the chain can charge for beer and wine. A federal appeals court upheld state laws that allow the Washington State Liquor Control Board to prohibit discounts, require wholesale distributors to charge uniform prices to all retailers and require a 10 percent markup. The wine industry has been following the Costco case, since its ramification could affect how wine is sold in the rest of the country.
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