• No more Champagne corks? Duval-Leroy, a leading Champagne house, will start selling bottles with aluminium tops later this year. This will be the first time cork has not been used for its sparkling wine in the company's 350-year history. I like the quote from the Decanter editor when informed of the news: "I am sure there was an equally big outcry when they first stopped using goatskins and started putting wine in bottles." Actually, the sparkling wine equivalent of screw caps is nothing new. Several U.S. producers have been using plastic tops for a number of years.
• Even old geezers use Facebook: Older Americans users have been especially enthusiastic over the past year about social networking tools, reports the Pew Internet and American Life Project. Social networking use among internet users ages 50 and older nearly doubled, from 22 percent in April 2009 to 42 percent in May 2010. This is especially significant for the wine business, which sees social media -- Facebook, Twitter and the like -- as a way to reach young drinkers. But the idea that people my age are amenable to learning about wine through social media is still a subject of much discussion. I'll have something more on this later this week -- The Wine Curmudgeon as social media expert.
• Even old geezers use Facebook: Seattle wine writer Paul Gregutt did a faceoff between a variety of cheap, grocery store wines. And while he didn't always appreciate the back label oversell ("the hype-laden packaging included a lot of blather about 'pairing well with the planet,' as if our Mother Earth were a piece of cheese"), he liked what he tasted. The best wines, he wrote, were a couple of $8 Kenwoods -- "Packaging is simple and the excellent quality of the fruit is immediately apparent. Both blends are thoughtful and delicious."
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