• British on-line booze ban? A report has called for the government to crack down on on-line liquor sales in the United Kingdom, reports the Harpers trade publication. The author told the magazine that traditional retailers were doing such a good job in preventing underage drinking that more teens and pre-teens were turning to on-line retailers to buy alcohol. This study follows in the wake of a U.S. report that found much the same thing here, and called for stronger state and federal laws to prevent underage purchases.
• More affordable Burgundy? Regular visitors here know that the Wine Curmudgeon has long lamented the high cost of wine from the French region of Burgundy, and especially red Burgundy, perhaps the world’s best pinot noir. That may be changing, thanks to new a appellation law that changes the way the old AOC, entry level wines were made. This may well help producers to make better and more affordable wine, reports Shanken News Daily. That’s the goal, anyway. Whether it actually happens is something far too complicated to predict, given the French winemaking mindset.
• Ray Bradbury: Someone else found Ray Bradbury’s death worth noting on a wine blog. Wrote Paul Mabry at Vintank, who once briefly met Bradbury: “I watched mesmerized by the man whose books I’d devoured through my childhood. He spoke as passionately and as effortlessly as it felt reading his writing. At the end, on his way out of the chateau, I was allowed to shake his hand. I offered him a clumsy letter that I had taken three weeks to write thanking him. When I handed him the letter he softly touched my face and said, ‘Do great things, son, do great things.’ “
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