• Wine over the phone: Never thought you would see the words wine and telemarketing in the same sentence, did you? But several California companies are making the concept work, reports the Press Democrat in Santa Rosa. VinoPRO handles phone sales for 50 wineries, including Jackson Family Wines, Constellation Brands and Treasury Wine Estates, and totaled in $8 million in sales in 2012. Growth over the past three years? 1,800 percent. An official from another wine telemarketer reports that he's always surprised that customers will stop what they're doing to talk to someone from a winery. Was never like that when they called at dinner to sell long distance, was it?
• Academics take on tasting notes: Spanish researchers are collecting a data – some 12 000 tasting notes from places like the Wine Advocate, Wine Spectator, Wine Enthusiast and Decanter. The words used will be compiled in a database so we can tell how they’re used, reports Jamie Goode of the Wine Anorak blog (whose notes will also be included. It’s not so much that this isn’t a good idea, but that I’m not sure what it will accomplish. Do we really need to know how many times leathery is used for a red wine? Or toasty and oaky for white? The answer, without a need for research, is too many.
• British booze taxes: The man who runs one of Britain’s biggest retailers says the government, in its curb to cut binge drinking through taxes and sales restrictions, will destroy the country’s wine business. Wine, he says, will become a luxury available only to the rich: “Having established this culture of food and wine, you know, which is a sea change from where we were 30 years ago, why would we want to stop that?” I have been following this debate for the past several years for a couple of reasons, one of which is that the English always seemed so sensible about drinking compared to us. The other is that just when I think the three-tier system is bad, I see another example that is almost makes it seem sensible.
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