wine sooth

The wine world is changing. Wine is changing. Amidst recurring discussions of trends and the globalization of wine (as a result of the influence of a purported small cabal of people), and murmurs that not every wine-producing region has the stuff to make world-class, complex wines, there is one essential point that goes unmentioned:

Democratizing luxury goods - making them appealing and accessible to the average consumer - devalues them and causes a decline in quality standards.

A luxury commodity is devalued by democratization because increased supply makes the good more common and, thus, less desirable. This seems to be the basic tenet of this book. Additionally, quality inherently declines with increasing volume of production. (more…)

There has been much discussion lately about lowering the legal drinking age. Tom Wark has argued strongly for lowering the legal drinking age in the past and has again spoken in support of the idea.

Lowering the legal drinking age will not do anything to reduce road fatalities and it will not make 18, 19 or 25 year-olds more responsible with alcohol. The parenting attitudes and practices of an entire country would need to change to affect a difference in the behaviors of 18-25 year-olds.

Not that it would be easy. And it would not happen overnight. Then, there is the fact that we are still dealing with individuals whose brain development is not always ready for truly adult decisions. (more…)

On this Fourth of July weekend, many will head to wine country. Some will be bringing their kids along. There has been some discussion, recently, if children should be allowed at winery tasting rooms and a recent piece on Time.com examined drinking patterns of our children and relevant legal mneasures.

As a parent, I appreciate that childcare is tough to secure on a holiday weekend and not everyone has the luxury of leaving the kids with grandma and grandpa. I also realize that after being at the office during most of their waking hours, parents want to spend some time with their kids.

There are plenty of parents who go wine tasting and share driving responsibilities and make sure their kids don’t get unruly and disruptive. Wine country also offers some ways to keep kids occupied - like walking through vineyards (as long as they don’t attempt any novel canopy management techniques or start harvest a tad early).

Still, I’m nagged by this feeling that wine tasting rooms are adults-only environments. (more…)

I buy wine at supermarkets. Not all of my wine, but whether I am doing full-on grocery shopping or if I get sent out to pick up anything from tomatoes to toothpaste, I like to poke my head into the wine section.

The two supermarkets near me - Ralph’s and Albertson’s have pretty good wine sections. Albertson’s has a good selection of Central Coast wine, so I like to see if there is anything I might like to try and possibly write about. The Ralph’s near me is one of the test stores for the chain’s Wine Steward program. The stewards are generally helpful and they taste the wines they stock. There is even a large, walk-in, climate-controlled cellar where they keep the pricy stuff. Both stores will occasionally have some obscure import for under $15 - like the $9 torrontés I found at Ralph’s (which turned out to be a dud). (more…)

In a post on his blog, New York Times wine critic Eric Asimov says: “…too many American pinot noirs are simply too big, not so much in alcohol but in body and sweetness“.

Along with others, I have said that the trend of increasing ripeness in Claifornia wine has become a runaway train. But it’s not just ripeness and sweetness that are of issue to Asimov (and those of like mind). These wines go beyond rich, corpulent, full-bodied or bold. Some of these pinots are grotesque monstrosities. This is no coincidence or a product of the climate. It is a conscious and deliberate decision on the part of producers. Besides farming practices and harvesting decisions, cellar practices are employed by winemakers seeking to appeal to (or appease) the mainstream preferences. (more…)

A few days ago, Mark Fisher wrote in his blog, Uncorked, about Ohio’s new Quality Wine Program.

This program, sponsored by the Ohio Grape Industries Committee and the Ohio State University Agricultural Research and Development Center’s Viticulture and Enology Program, is intended to elevate the status of Ohio’s wines made from Ohio grapes. There is also more detail here.

Part of this includes creating a “rating system based on industry standards to identify the best estate-grown wines in Ohio”. A mark would be applied to those wines meeting or exceeding the criteria set forth by the program. While I commonly support standardization and certification endeavors, my purpose here is not to defend the practice. (more…)

Many thanks to Dale Cruse at DrinksAreOnMe.net for helping me out with some coding/scripting on this blog!

I created an interim header image for this blog but could not get it to show up. Just then, Dale replied to an email I’d sent earlier and I asked for his advice. Dale is web developer by profession and he also uses WordPress, so I was hoping he could point me in the right direction.

He was kind enough to actually go into the code and find the error. Now, I don’t mean to advertize “Dale’s Free Blog Support” - the guy’s gotta eat - but he was very gracious and I truly appreciate that.

Next time you’re in L.A. Dale, Drinks are on ME.