• Money doesn’t matter: Only two percent of people starting wineries do so to make money, says a new study of winery startups conducted by a University of Missouri researcher. That’s an amazing figure, even for those of us laugh at the “How to make a million in the wine business” joke. The study found that 30 percent of started a winery, because they loved wine, 22 percent wanted to improve their quality of life, 19 percent wanted to farm, and 10 percent did so because of a sense of community. The other interesting number: The number of wineries in the U.S. has quadrupled in the past decade.
• Truth in labeling: Yet another reason why we need better ingredient labels on wine bottles – a wine additive called Mega Purple, which is grape juice concentrate used to darken the wine’s color without adding flavor or aroma. This post from Blog Your Wine is fascinating; Mega Purple, apparently, is common in $10 pinot noir, where it’s used to make the wine look more wine-like. My favorite bit? That Mega Purple is made from rubired and royalty grapes. Yes, that’s an excuse to use the Wine-Grape Glossary.
• Mix and match: If craft beer isn’t trendy enough for you, how about craft beer made with wine? Or, dare I say, bwine? Shanken News Daily reports that brewers see a chance to lure consumers to craft beer with the hybrids, which have been developed over the past couple of years. The best known may be Blue Moon Vintage Blonde, produced by a unit of beer multi-national MillerCoors and that includes juice from chardonnay grapes. These bwines, notes the story, are not only popular with craft beer drinkers, but with women wine drinkers.
If you want to find Mega Purple, try almost any 'old vine' Zin, especially the Lodi variety. Or those wines with the number 7 in their name.......
Posted by: Tony | January 29, 2013 at 10:38 AM