? Whither organic wine? Dave Falchek looks at organic wine, and offers new perspective on something that has raditionally been much less important in wine than elsewhere. "Once the vinous equivalent of an unkempt grunger, these wines now have more polish. There has never been a larger array of eco-sensitive wines." He also offers an interesting take on the differences between conventional, organic and biodynamic wine.
? Looking for a tax shelter? Think wine — or so suggests this website, run by a group called Premier Cru, "Europe's leading fine wine investment house." There is even a chart comparing an investment in wine to the leading stock exchange indexes since 2005, and guess what? Wine has done better. This assumes, of course, that you don't drink the wine you buy, which opens up so many metaphysical questions that it makes the Wine Curmudgeon's head hurt.
? The Greek wine crisis: The country's wine business has collapsed, along with the rest of the Greek economy. Wine is being sold below cost, and consumers are shifting to less expensive bulk wines. Why does this matter to Americans? Because the European financial crisis has softened demand for wine throughout the continent, lowering prices. And lower prices in Europe could well affect wine prices here, as Greek, Spanish and Italian producers look to dump in the U.S. that they can't sell at home.