The Wine Curmudgeon

Wine of the week: Cusumano Nero d'Avola 2011

One day, perhaps, Sicily will take its place as one of the world’s great wine regions. The Winestream Media will flock there, and its members will write glowing 94-point reviews about wines made with grapes most people have never heard of. The region’s winemakers will become celebrities, starring in glossy cover photos and showing up in wine gossip columns.

Until then, let’s drink the wine and not let anyone else know how well done it is.

Case in point is the Cusumano ($10, purchased), yet another Sicilian wine that is stunning in its combination of value and quality. It’s made with the nero d‘avola grape, common on the island, and one that gives the wine a dark, plummy and almost earthy character. Which, of course, is not what most of us expect from a $10 red wine. There is no sweet fruit, no winemaking alchemy to take out the tannins and smooth out the acid. You get what the terroir and the grapes offer, and that’s a drinkable, impressive hearty red wine of the kind not found often enough in California.

Pair this with a red sauce, roast chicken, hamburgers or sausage. And if someone asks you where you got it or how much it cost, mumble your answer so it stays our secret.

Winebits 269: Champagne, wine in grocery stores, Amazon

• More bad news for  bubbly: Just when you thought it couldn’t get worse for Champagne, it did. Sales fell 4.4 percent the 12 months through December, according to the Comité Interprofessionnel du Vin de Champagne trade group. And Champagne shipments to the U.S. were down 25 percent in the first six months of last year, continuing that trend. And to think – it wasn’t all that long ago that the Champagne business was considering expanding the size of the Champagne region so they would have more land to get grapes from.

• Never underestimate three-tier: Abut a year ago, a federal judge ruled that a Kentucky law that banned grocery store wine sales was unconstitutional. So what’s advancing through the Kentucky legislature? A more constitutional version of the ban, reports wkyufu,org. Said the bill’s sponsor: “So we would have liquor in convenience stores, dollar stores, wherever they could get a liquor license. And that's something that nobody wanted.” Nobody, of course, not being the state’s wine drinkers, who don’t have the campaign cash to pay legislators to write bills for them. but the state’s retailers who want to keep grocers out.

• Amazon adds two states: And they’re not New York and Pennsylvania, which speaks volumes about how difficult it is to sell wine directly to the consumer in the U.S. If you live in Colorado or South Carolina, you can now use the Amazon service, which includes 15 states and the District of Columbia. Amazon usually doesn’t break out many sales figures, but we should be coming up the first quarter of its wine retail operation. The numbers would be fascinating.

Update: Final day for the Cheap Wine Book

This is the final day for the Kickstarter fund-raising period, and the project still needs $2,500. Thanks to those of you who have contributed, and you can still help by passing this link to friends who see a need for what we're trying to do. Or, as one contributor wrote: "This is going to be the best way to get the word out to everyone about how wine should really be appreciated."

If you haven't contributed, know two things: If I don't raise the entire $8,000, I don't get anything, and I probably can't do the book. Second, you can contribute with a pledge of as little as $25. That gets you a copy of the ebook (and the second edition), which means all you're doing is buying the book before it comes out.

Here are the links that explain all:

• The Q&A explaining how Kickstarter works.

• The Kickstarter link.

• What the book is.

The 2012 Wine Market Council report: More of us are drinking cheap wine more often

Are more of us drinking wine more often? That’s one of the conclusions from the Wine Market Council’s annual report, which tracks U.S. wine consumption habits and trends.

The report, which has been published since 1994, says that core wine drinkers – those of us who drink wine at least once a week – make up 25 percent of the U.S. adult population and drink 93 percent of the wine. The good news? That the number of core wine drinkers has increased by two-thirds since the first study.

"Wine drinkers are gravitating towards higher consumption," says John Gillespie, the president of the market council. "And the driver seems to be they see more occasions as wine drinking occasions."

But, even then, we're watching prices. More than 9 of 10 core wine drinkers said it's possible to buy wine without spending a lot of money. (Insert plug for The Cheap Wine Book here). Says the report: "The most desirable characteristics in a wine bought at retail are value, high quality, previous trial, and a high level of comfort when serving it to friends." Note that this does not say anything about scores, reviews, or any of the things that drive the traditional wine business.

This fact, tempered with the demographic information that showed that Millennials (consumers ages 21-36) drink more wine than the Baby Boomers, should make everyone in the wine business break out in a cold sweat. Because, though Boomers make up 38 percent of wine drinkers, they consume only 32 percent of the wine. The numbers for Millennials are 29 and 38 -- and that doesn't include the 8 million of them who aren't old enough to drink yet.

There are still some numbers in the report that bother me, not the least of which is that per capita wine consumption in the U.S. has remained more or less the same for 40 years. But, says Gillespie, that's probably not as big a problem as I think it is. His focus is on the core numbers, which shows that Americans are taking wine more seriously than ever before. I'll settle for that.

So long, Champagne, it's been good to know you

The wine business continues to do things no one expects, and the latest Champagne sales numbers are a striking indication of what’s going’s on.

This French wine service story is stunning in its conclusions: “Champagne was dominant 10 to 15 years ago, but the world has changed.”

The story, though written for the European market, is well worth reading because it documents the trend we’re been talking about here for several years (and not just because I’m trying to put together The Cheap Wine Book). Today, when consumers have a choice between two quality products, they’re more likely than ever to buy on price. Champagne exports declined 2.8 percent last year, while non-Champagne sparkling wine accounts for 70 percent of the European market.

In other words, we’re buying more cava and prosecco and so are the Europeans -- and that it’s not Champagne doesn’t seem to bother us.This is shocking news, and especially for the Europeans. Their market never, ever worked that way.

This also demonstrates the continuing evolution of the wine market into two tiers – everyday wine drinkers, who are mostly ignored by the Winestream Media, and a much smaller, score-driven minority that still buys wine the old-fashioned way and is doted on by most of the wine world.

And how cheap are these wines? Cava costs €8 (US$11) or less in most European retailers, while prosecco ranges from €5 to €15 (about US$7-$20). Those of you who buy either in the States will note that’s pretty much what we pay for it. Call it the pricing power of the biggest multi-national wine companies (cava giant Freixenet’s annual production is about two-thirds of the entire Champagne region), and they’re more than willing to trade margin for market share – another theme we’ve discussed in detail here.

"Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue"

The Wine Curmudgeon has spent the last week with a bottle of Tylenol and antibiotics, enduring a version of strep throat that I wouldn't wish on the world's worst wine snob.

This explains why the blog content has been a little less than what it usually is. It's hard to write about wine when you can't drink it. Or think straight, for that matter, and when all you want to do is bury your head in a bucket of ice. But I'm back with the living today, and things should return to normal.

So what's with the quote from the movie "Airplane!"? For one thing, I had skip the International Eastern Wine Competition, where I was supposed to judge this week. For another, I haven't been able to keep you posted on DrinkLocalWine developments; the 2013 conference is in Maryland in eight weeks and tickets are on sale.

And then there is the Cheap Wine Book, which has suffered since I haven't been well enough to nag more people about it. That, to me, has been the worst part about being sick.

 

Wine of the week: Gruet Brut NV

The Wine Curmudgeon used to regularly pour this wine blind, and dare anyone who tasted it to guess where it was from. It was, of course, a trick question – there’s no way anyone would guess New Mexico.

Unfortunately, Gruet has been a victim of its own success. It was probably the first regional wine with distribution throughout the U.S., and it long ago had to start using grapes from California to ensure it could make enough to meet demand. And its price hasn’t been $10 in a number of years (to say nothing of the company’s other problems).

I was also unsure about quality after the addition of the California grapes. It might have been my imagination, but something seemed to be missing the couple of times I had tasted it. So I was relieved to find that the Brut ($13, purchased), Gruet’s entry level wine, was up to its usual standards this time around.

Look for lots of tiny bubbles, some crisp green apple and a little something more than most bubbly at this price has. In this, it’s less austere than a cava but not quite as complicated as a well-made, medium-priced California sparkling. Which means it’s an ideal wine for The Holiday That Must Not be Named; you can still get a smile when you tell the other person the winery is in New Mexico.