Low Cost Wine Taking Over The World

PARIS — Is the world drowning its sorrows in cheap wine?

An industry group said Thursday that more wine could be consumed globally this year, thanks to crisis-fueled demand for cheaper or discounted tipples, particularly in the United States.

While that might benefit some low-end producers, the organization’s director cautioned wine growers to resist what he called the “massive pressure on prices,” which erodes profits.

“If you cut too much, it’s difficult to go back to your original price,” Federico Castellucci told The Associated Press.

After years of steady growth, global wine consumption started to retreat last year, along with the rest of the world economy.

The International Organization of Vine and Wine said that erosion may have halted as wine growers battled to maintain sales volumes by cutting prices and as more wine is sold in bulk.

It predicts world wine consumption should rise by 4 percent to 246.3 million hectoliters (6.5 billion gallons) in 2009 from an estimated 244.9 million hectoliters last year.

“People who want to keep drinking are buying cheaper wines,” said Castellucci, noting that holiday season purchasing has not been tallied and that this year’s consumption could yet fall.

He said that the United States — second only to France in terms of total wine consumption — has “continued to import but with a strong attention to prices.”

Improved winemaking technologies mean that cheaper wine is much more palatable than 20 years ago, said Castellucci, whose family has made wine in Italy’s Marches region for three generations.

“We should make sure people have wine at a reasonable price so they can drink everyday,” he said.

In the United States, large-scale vintners such as Fred Franzia, co-founder of the Bronco company in California, are producing brands such as Charles Shaw, known as Two Buck Chuck, for $1.99 a bottle in some states. It hopes to sell as much wine as possible and believes no bottle should cost more than $10.

Last year, the U.S. surpassed Italy in terms of total wine consumption for the first time.

In European countries like Britain, large supermarket chains such as Sainsbury are offering sale gimmicks such as two-for-one offers and offloading large quantities of cheap wine.

Castellucci said the industry’s challenge is to keep attracting people who haven’t been brought up in a culture of wine, with the hope being that when the economy recovers, they will move on to more expensive wine.

“In classical music, you don’t start with Wagner, you start with Boccherini,” he said, referring to the 18th-century Italian composer and cellist. “It’s the same with wine. We start with very simple, gentle wines, after they go up in scale.”

The latest figures on wine production around the world also reveal a few key shifts.

Global wine production is expected to remain flat this year at 268 million hectoliters, the same level as 2008, although the estimates were made before northern hemisphere crops were completely harvested.

Overall, European Union wine volumes are forecast to grow by 1 percent this year and France is seen overtaking Italy as the world’s biggest producer in volume terms.

Wine production in the so-called “New World” — Argentina, Chile, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and the United States — is seen falling by 1 percent. U.S. volumes are expected to grow by 6 percent.

Taken from Associated Press

2007 Byron Santa Maria Valley Pinot Noir – $20

Estate bottled Pinot for $20 out of California’s Santa Maria Valley!

Winemaker Jonathan Nagy knows that Pinot Noir is a touchy grape that needs to be handled delicately in order to preserve the fragile essence of its fruit. What I thought was cool about Byron – they’ve designed their environmentally-sensitive winery from the top down, utilizing gravity rather than pumps throughout the winemaking process. They use old-world natural techniques to gently move the grapes, juice and wine along, which allows them to produce wines that are balanced, elegant, pure and true.

Their 2007 Pinot hit me with smoke ,earth and rose petals on the nose and more smoke and cherry cola on the palate. It has a nice smooth, silky and smoky finish.

Drink with salmon, pork chops, grilled chicken or a Smoke Daddy’s pulled pork sandwich.

2007 D’Arenberg The Stump Jump GSM – $8

A Rhone blend sourced from multiple vineyards from all over South Australia, Grenache 50%, Shiraz 29% and Mourvedre 21%. It’s an Aussie wine so it has a screwtop. 89 points WA, but Vaynerchuk hated it, gave it a 71. So, we will see who is right.

The color is a see-thru plum red. The nose is a fresh baked rhubarb/strawberry pie, just after you used a menthol inhaler, opens up your sinus’s and makes your mouth water at the same time. Tastes of cherries, strawberries and a hint of milk chocolate. The spice from the Shiraz is definitely there, the tannins are very light. It has a long lingering finish, not as yummy as the initial taste, but it does go on. Mouth feel is light, kind of like 1% milk. I think Wine Advocate got this one right. It’s a tasty approachable wine at a nice price

Now you can get a BUZZ & a brainfreeze from the same place

Look out Two-Buck Chuck. The home of the Slurpee and the Big Gulp is launching a line of value-priced wines targeting consumers looking for a boozy bargain during these tough economic times.

7-Eleven plans to sell a $3.99 Cabernet Sauvignon and a Chardonnay under the proprietary “Yosemite Road” label at its stores in the United States and Japan.

“The consumer is really pinched as far as discretionary income,” Kevin Elliott, senior vice president of merchandising and logistics of Dallas-based 7-Eleven, Inc., told the Associated Press. “We’re seeing a lot of success in products that really resonate on a value basis.”

The world’s third-largest winemaker — the Wine Group in California, which also makes Corbett Canyon and Glen Ellen wines — will produce the two wines for the convenience store chain.

7-Eleven previously added higher-end wines to its shelves — Sonoma Crest and Thousand Oaks — which retail for about $10 each, but this is the company’s first global proprietary wine release.

The wines are limited edition, while supplies last, bottles.

Last year 7-Eleven launched the 7-Select line of convenience-store regulars which includes cookies, candies, chips and beef jerky, the AP reports. 7-Eleven plans to release the wines in 15,000 stores.

(courtesy slashfood)

2007 Spellbound Petite Sirah – $15

Spellbound means a lot of different things to me – there’s the Siouxsie & the Banshees song, the AC/DC song (both from ‘81), the Hitchcock movie, the Paula Abdul album. For you geeks there’s the spellchecker for Firefox and the video game. But last night, it meant nothing but this rich approachable Petite Sirah from Lodi. That’s in California, folks.

But get this – because of its simple but effective black label with a moon on it (pictured) – to the chick next to me at the bar, it meant she should enjoy some too, because it made her think of the movie “New Moon” in theaters Friday as they say (yes, she was younger, thanks for asking).

It’s murky crimson like a Romanian lake and on the nose reminds you of, well same said lake. Actually, she said it reminded her of her home aquarium when she opens the lid to feed the fish.

Up front, this wine has  some nice structure – decent backbone and supple tannins. The mid-palate is “floaty” and hovers at the top of your mouth, but then the finish disappears like a vampire in a Polaroid.

Mondavi’s grandson Rob is the vampire behind this line. Drink it with pizza, steak (stake, get it?) or turkey chili. And drink it with your vampire or werewolf friends.

2007 Columbia Crest Riesling – $7

The number one question we get asked this time if year is, “What wine would go with my Thanksgiving turkey dinner?”

Well, a lot of wines compliment turkey, but few quite as well as Riesling, and since Thanksgiving is an all-American holiday, give the German Riesling a rest and go with Riesling from Columbia Valley. Plus it IS among the best.

So, here comes Columbia Crest. Enough fruit for a harvest farm stand – apricots, pears, peaches and melons all getting together at the house this year.

Throw the coats on the bed, have a seat and take a sip of this crisp, refreshing white. Not too sweet, it’s terrifically tongue-loving. All those fruits present on the nose come back to party one more time in your mouth. Fine by itself, but wait ’til you sip it after a bite of Thanksgiving turkey! Its clean acidity, pure fruit flavors and mild alcohol (11.5%) bring a nice counter-balance of lightness to the feeling of heaviness as the dinner progresses.

Ever notice you never get any on Thanksgiving? Must be all the coats on the bed.

Beaujolais Nouveau: History Behind the Third Thursday in November

At one past midnight on the third Thursday of each November, from little villages and towns like Romanèche-Thorins, over a million cases of Beaujolais Nouveau begin their journey through a sleeping France to Paris for immediate shipment to all parts of the world. Banners proclaim the good news: “Le Beaujolais Nouveau est arrivé!” One of the most frivolous and animated rituals in the wine world has begun.

By the time it is over, over 65 million bottles, nearly half of the region’s total annual production, will be distributed and drunk around the world. It has become a worldwide race to be the first to serve to this new wine of the harvest. In doing so, it has been carried by motorcycle, balloon, truck, helicopter, Concorde jet, elephant, runners and rickshaws to get it to its final destination. It is amazing to realize that just weeks before this wine was a cluster of grapes in a growers vineyard. But by an expeditious harvest, a rapid fermentation, and a speedy bottling, all is ready at the midnight hour. By French law, Beaujolais Nouveau is to be released no earlier than the third Thursday of November.

Beaujolais Nouveau began as a local phenomenon in the local bars, cafes, and bistros of Beaujolais and Lyons. Each fall the new Beaujolais would arrive with much fanfare. In pitchers filled from the growers barrels, wine was drunk by an eager population. It was wine made fast to drink while the better Beaujolais was taking a more leisurely course. Eventually, the government stepped into regulate the sale of all this quickly transported, free-flowing wine.

In 1938 regulations and restrictions were put in place to restrict the where, when, and how of all this carrying on. After the war years, in 1951, these regulations were revoked by the region’s governing body, the Union Interprofessional des Vins de Beaujolais (UIVB), and the Beaujolais Nouveau was officially recognized. The official release date was set for November 15th. Beaujolais Nouveau was officially born. By this time, what was just a local tradition had gained so much popularity that the news of it reached Paris. The race was born. It wasn’t long thereafter that the word spilled out of France and around the world. In 1985, the date was again changed, this time to the third Thursday of November tying it to a weekend and making the celebration complete. But wherever the new Beaujolais went, importers had to agree not to sell it before midnight on the third Thursday of November.

On a more technical note, the wine is strictly speaking, more properly termed Beaujolais Primeur. By French and European rules, a wine released during the period between its harvest and a date in the following spring, is termed primeur. A wine released during the period between its own and the following years harvest, is termed nouveau. Well, enough of that!

It is a triumph of marketing and promotion, mostly due to the efforts of Georges Duboeuf. The largest negociant in the region, he is a tireless promoter of Beaujolais and Beaujolais Nouveau. More than a fifth of his annual production, about 4 million bottles, is Beaujolais Nouveau. All in all, in the last 45 years, sales have risen from around a million bottles to more than 70 million bottles.

Apart from the fanfare, what makes Beaujolais Nouveau so popular? And especially in the U.S. where consumption of red wine is less than 30%? Simply put, Beaujolais Nouveau is as about as close to white wine as a red wine can get. Due to the way it is made -the must is pressed early after only three days- the phenolic compounds, in particular the astringent tannins, normally found in red wines, isn’t there, leaving an easy to drink, fruity wine. This, coupled with the fact that it tastes best when chilled, makes for a festive wine to be gulped rather than sipped, enjoyed in high spirits rather than critiqued. As a side note, it makes a great transitional wine for anyone wanting to move from white to red wines.

Finally, the race from grape to glass may be silly, but half the fun is knowing that on the same night, in homes, cafes, restaurants, pubs, bars and bistros around the world, the same celebration is taking place. It hasn’t the pedigree to be a classic wine, but it is always good. Any other opinion you may regard as boorish and uninformed.

(courtesy intowine.com)

Pinot Days – Navy Pier- Chicago, Illinois

At cheapwinefinder.com, we focus on under $20 wines – we use that cut-off because for under twenty dollars you can find wines from every country, every growing region and every grape varietal, but you can not get the real deal complicated, seductive, enticing Pinot Noir.

Pinot Noir is just too finicky, too hard to grow, too labor intensive for the words “reasonably priced” to be attached to it. Yes there are Pinots priced under twenty dollars available, and I have had quite a few that were enjoyable to drink, but the best of those only gave glimpses of what the Pinot Noir grape can do when in the hands of a talented winemaker.

That’s why Pinot Days (Daze is a better description) was such a joy to attend, table after table of first rate Pinots, from all the growing regions. Wineries had examples from different sections of their estates, different vintages all in one place ready for you to sample. ( Note: We at cheapwinefinder.com believe that wine is made for drinking and therefore we don’t use the spit bucket, so our notes from the beginning of the tasting are always more legible than from the end of the tasting)!

But Pinot Days did inspire me – we have found $20 Shiraz’s that hold their own with the big boys, and we have stumbled upon $20 Cabs that taste just like the forty-five dollar Cabs, for some reason. We need to search for the Holy Grail, the $20 Pinot Noir that hits all the bases. I might have sampled it at Pinot Days, but like I said my notes are somewhat unreadable.

2008 Orleans Hill WELL REaD Organic Red Table Wine – $6.49

A Trader Joe’s exclusive wine, organic, vegan friendly and no sulfites detected certified. Made by Orleans Hill Winery using Grenache, Sangiovese and (their words) a splash of Syrah.

The color is a see-thru ruby red, the nose is kind of funky, half stewed strawberries and half medicinal. The mouth feel is a bit light, the taste is of dark fruit, plums, blackberries and Nestle Quick cocoa powder. There is a bit of a jolt in the back of the palate from the tannins and the oak, nothing too obtrusive and the tannins do smooth out with each additional sip.

There’s a lot to like about an organic, no-sulfite wine that costs only $6.49, it’s not bad tasting either.

2007 X Winery Truchard Pinot Noir – $18

Like a walk through the forest hand-in-hand with  Megan  Fox, only she’s wearing a bikini made of wild berries. Smells awesome – you detect wild strawberries, raspberries and cranberries along with cedar from the walking path. You don’t know where to start – sniff, taste, explore – either one will get you into trouble with that dude who played David on 90210.

So take a sip – nice velvety texture with a good balance – acid but not too much acid, making it great with prime rib, filet mignon or even just Arby’s.

Not only from the Carneros region – which is considered by some to be the sweet spot of Napa and Sonoma Valleys – but specifically from the Truchard Vineyard, which is well-known for producing some of Napa’s best grapes. And just like Megan, this one’s delish and just a little dirty.

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