• Consumers still want value: Which, of course, is only surprising to those in the wine business. But a report by Moody’s Economy.com says the dramatic shift to lower-priced wine is expected to continue this year, reported the North Bay Business Journal. Said the report: "“For smaller wineries, the combination of falling sales and accumulating inventories has been damaging to their balance sheets. The number of defaults and foreclosures of wineries in the ... surged last year."
• Aussie chardonnay fraud: The former head of an Australian wine company has been found guilty of selling chardonnay adulterated with grape juice, and his customers included leading box wine producer Hardys. Decanter reports that the scam was first uncovered in 2003, when thousands of liters of so-called chardonnay sent to major winemakers, including Hardys, was quarantined by the Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation after buyers raised doubts over what was in the product. Some of it turned out to be sultana grape juice. Note to Winestream Media and hysterical bloggers: This is a much bigger deal than the three-tier bill introduced in Congress that everyone is throwing a fit about. In the last several years, several of the world's biggest wine producers have been selling wine that wasn't what they said it was. Why aren't you writing about that?
• Frenchman named best sommelier: Gerard Basset, who is co-founder of the Hotel du Vin chain of and president of the Court of Master Sommeliers, has won the World's Best Sommelier Competition in Santiago, Chile. He bested 51 other contestants and survived a grueling 40 minutes of practical tests to take the title. That included blind tasting and describing in detail four different wines, aw well as identifying eight spirits in three minutes. Said Basset: "It's the most difficult thing I've ever done."
Good on you for pointing out the Aussie fraud, The French one, the Italian one....hmmmm what is going on?
Posted by: Tim | April 20, 2010 at 12:27 PM