The Wine Curmudgeon

Winebits 251: Wine prices, Amazon, Champagne fraud

• Never trust the media? Lew Perdue at Wine Industry Insight must have a wonderfully dark sense of humor. On the same day last week, he posted these two links on his daily e-summary: “U.S. wine producers reporting 'epic' 2012 harvest” and “End to cheap wine prices is near.” Both, obviously, can’t be true, but there they are. This points to the serious flaw in most of the reporting about the decline in the world grape supply. What is the demand for grapes? If demand is increasing, then prices will rise. But if demand is flat or shrinking, which could well be the case given the recession in Europe and the near-recession in China, then prices won’t do much at all, regardless of supply. This is basic reporting, and it’s depressing that so few people writing about the subject bother to do it.

• Amazon’s direct shipping plan: My pal Dave McIntyre has a very even-handed assessment of Amazon’s latest foray into the wine business – an example of good reporting. Dave hits the high points in what Amazon is trying to do, and also notes – which even I overlooked – that the plan will benefit mostly smaller and mostly Napa Valley wineries, which do the most direct shipping. This may well be the key to what seems like a very limited and modest effort by Amazon – pluck the most profitable and easiest part of the direct shipping market, and worry about the rest later.

• Why we need the French: Because any culture that really cares about wine should be appreciated. Can you imagine a U.S. prosecutor calling anyone who perpetrated a wine fraud despicable? Can you even imagine a U.S. prosecutor filing a case like that? But that’s happened with a $2.6 million fraud case in France, where a Champagne producer tried to pass plonk off as vintage bubbly. So if they want to be a little cranky about wine names, who are we to criticize?

The "What do you drink when your magazine is sold and everyone gets fired?" blog post

The Wine Curmudgeon’s career in the newspaper business included three newspaper closings as well as one really spectacular newspaper wake (for the late and much lamented Dallas Times Herald). So I am, sadly, well qualified to write this post.

Pet Age, the premiere trade magazine for the pet retail business, has been sold and all of its employees have been fired. I have freelanced for Pet Age since the early 1990s (one does not live by wine writing alone), and so I know the good work the staff did. Cathy Foster, who was my editor, was smart and quick to see how a story should be written, and editor Karen MacLeod, a fellow Northwestern alum, may know the pet business better than I know cheap wine.

So this is my gift to them for a job well done. After the jump, what to drink when they hold the Pet Age wake, be it public or just sitting at home trying to make sense of the whole thing:

The glamour behind a wine blog

It’s not always jet-setting and beautiful people and exclusive wine tastings here at the blog. Sometimes, the Internet intrudes as only the Internet can:

“Would you mind if I quote a several of your posts as long as I provide credit and sources returning to your weblog?" wrote one commenter.

The site where he wanted to post the links? Something called Boobworx, which does pretty much what it sounds like it does. Who knew the Wine Curmudgeon was so popular with porn types?

Expensive wine 44: Jean-Marc Brocard Chablis Vau de Vey 2010

Those of you who insist on drinking chardonnay that tastes like it was flavored with vanilla and a national park full of oak trees can skip this review. The rest should pay careful attention.

That’s because this wine is chardonnay from the Chablis region of Burgundy in France that is made without oak and that takes the idea of unoaked chardonnay one step further. Regular visitors here know how much the Wine Curmudgeon appreciates white Burgundy, though Chablis sometimes gets short shrift given my preference to Montrachet.

This is not meant as a slight to Chablis, as the Brocard ($35, sample) demonstrates. This is classic Chablis -- clean, crisp, green apples -- at an incredible price. Everything that makes quality Chablis is here, from the minerality on the nose to the telltale acidity to the long finish. Best yet, this is a $35 wine that will age and only get better over the next couple of years as its fruit and acid blend and mellow. In this, it will demonstrate why a wine doesn’t always need oak to get better.

Serve this chilled with a classic bistro dinner – roast chicken, fried potatoes, garlicky green salad, and apple tart. And if you’re starting to wonder about holiday gifts, I know at least one wine drinker who would enjoy getting a bottle.

Does cheap wine cost too much money?

Karl Storchmann: "Significant overpricing of mediocre wines."

The answer may well be yes, according to study conducted by one of the leading wine economists in the country. New York University’s Karl Storchmann wanted to find out if scores helped better align the price of wine; that is, do good scores boost prices while bad scores lower the price? Instead, Storchmann, Alexander Mitterling, and Aaron Lee discovered just the opposite.

The key is what Storchmann calls noise – the publicity a good score gives a wine. “The noise raises the quality perception of the wine, and the noise is larger for bad wine,” he told me. In the study, cheap wine is defined as “bad” because it’s less expensive than “good” wine, and better quality wine should cost more.

What happens, says the study, is that a high score for one cheap wine influences the perception of the entire brand, as well as for different vintages – possibly raising the price of every wine in the brand. That means that if Winery X’s 2011 merlot gets a 92, that score gives consumers the idea that the rest of X’s wines, whether chardonnay or zinfandel or whether 2009 or 2010, are equally as good. Which isn’t necessarily the case.

More, after the jump:

Wine of the week: Beni di Batasiolo Gavi 2011

Gavi is one of those Italian wines that lingers in a netherworld – not as popular as pinot grigio or even Soave and not always easy to find. But when it’s done well, it’s a wine that makes you go, “Wow, why was I wasting my time with all that crappy pinot grigo?”

Case in point is the Beni di Batasiolo ($14, purchased), which was everything I hoped it would be. This white wine is made with the cortese grape in Piedmont, where it has to vie for attention with some of the best-known Italian red wines, Barbaresco and Barolo among them. Is it any wonder it gets lost in the shuffle?

This wine has bright and fresh lemon fruit, some stoniness (or was that bitter almonds?), and low alcohol – the kind of balance that the best Italian white wines are known for. It’s surprisingly versatile, whether you drink it chilled on its own, with grilled seafood, or even with Tuesday night takeout.

Winebits 250: Wine names, wine prices, Buena Vista

• U.S.-based chateaus? The cyber-ether is abuzz because the French don’t want to allow U.S. wines that say chateau on the label to be sold in Europe. The dispute is part of negotiations to revise a 2005 treaty between the European Union and the U.S. that defined wine and food terms, so that we can’t call a hard cheese made in the U.S. Parmigiano Reggiano and the Europeans can't call ham produced in Italy Smithfield. As part of the 2005 treaty, some U.S. wineries that used terms like chateau and Champagne were grandfathered in for products sold in the U.S. We’re asking the EU, as part of negotiations to revise the treaty, to end the foreign ban on the term chateau, so a winery like Chateau St. Jean won’t have to change its name to be sold in Europe. I can’t do justice to the topic here, save to say that it’s a lot more complicated than many people are portraying it. This story, from Britan’s Independent, clears things up a little.

• Wine price panic: The Europeans, facing several drought-stricken grape harvests, are in a tither about increasing wine prices, and wine in Britain is already up three percent from last year. The Wine Curmudgeon has some advice, based on our experience this year with the U.S. wine price panic. Take a deep breath. Take a sip of wine. Take another sip. Everything will be OK. Retailers always say stuff like that. Spain is in the middle of a massive recession, with almost 25 percent unemployment, and the jobless rate is almost 12 percent in Italy, which is also in recession. That means there is much less domestic demand for wine, which will undercut the supply shortage and mitigate price pressure. Really. Why else would I use economic-speak?

• Buena Vista changes: One of the oldest wineries in California is updating its image and its brands, part of its acquisition by wine tycoon Jean-Charles Boisset. The 155-year-old Buena Vista has restored and updated its champagne cellar, which was damaged in a 1989 earthquake. Wine is being made on the property for the first time in some 50 years, and it is carrying the Sonoma label. Even though Buena Vista is located in the state’s second-best known wine region, its previous owners had stopped making wine with the Sonoma appellation.