Tag Archives: drink local

Remembering the State Fair of Texas wine garden

Cotton Bowl stadium at State Fair of Texas
The Texas wine garden was at the top of the picture, more or less.

A decade ago, we struck a blow for Drink Local

Shelly Wilfong, a well respected Dallas wine writer, sent me an email over the weekend: “Sounds like a neat gig you had doing the wine chats.”

Which brought back a bunch of memories that I had almost forgotten about — the five autumns that John Bratcher and I did wine talks at the State Fair of Texas wine garden. The first couple of years, we did Wine 101 (first, with the late Camille McBee, and then with Dan Peabody). The next three years, we did interviews with Texas winemakers, sommeliers, chefs, and assorted local wine personalities. I always compared it to a mini-talk show, minus the monologue but with a terrific theme song.

Shelly does a fine job recapping what happened, including the Texas Legislature’s foolishness that ended the wine talks (which, as dumb as it was, doesn’t hold a candle to its power grid shenanigans). She was also quite polite when I sent her a longish e-mail in return, with more information about the talks then she could have imagined.

We did good work, and people still ask me if John and I are going to do it again. So what do I remember the most?

• The enthusiasm of the audiences. Really. We actually had people come early, and especially when we did the interviews. They wanted to know about Texas wine, and this was one of the few places to get it then.

• The enthusiasm of the people we interviewed. We had some big names (including Dean Fearing, a leading celebrity chef, and TexSom impresario James Tidwell) and I didn’t have to do much to convince them to come. Which speaks volumes about how important they thought Texas wine was.

• The crowds during Texas-OU weekend, which came for the football game but ended up attending many of the talks. Our location had chairs, beer for sale, and was next to the Cotton Bowl, where the game was played. The result? I tell people I never had to deal with hecklers in the Catskills; John and I had drunks during Texas-OU weekend.

studio microphone

Winecast 72: Denise Clarke and the progress — and challenges — for Drink Local

Photo od Densie Clarke
Denise Clarke

“You’re making a commitment to s special product”

Denise Clarke is one of the pioneers of the regional wine movement. She was there when we held the first Drink Local Wine conference in Dallas, worked with us for the Colorado event, and has been spreading the gospel ever since as a wine marketer and wine educator.

So who better to talk to about Drink Local, as much of the country celebrates its local wine month in October? We talked about the progress regtional wine has made, as well as the challenges that remain. Included in our discussion:

• Yes, quality continues to  improve, and those of you who haven’t tried a regional in a while should try again. Denise says she hears that a lot, and wishes wine drinkers would be more open minded.

• Hybrid grapes, which traditionally have been spurned by many winemakers and most wine drinkers, have come into their own thanks to the regional wine movement. We discussed chambourcin, which makes terrific varietal wine, but there are many others.

• Regional wine must do a better job marketing its product, focusing on what sets it apart from mainstream wine — that it’s less traditional, less formal, and more fun.

• One surprising challenge: That there are fewer wine writers interested in Drink Local — not because they aren’t interested, but that there are fewer media outlets that run regional wine writing.

Click here to download or stream the podcast, which is about 14 minutes long and takes up almost 9 megabytes. Unfortunately, the quality is not what it should be, and especially for the first minute. But bear with it..

More wine podcasts:
Winecast 71: Paul Tincknell and solving all of wine’s problems
Winecast 70: Ray DelMuro of Refresh Glass and recycling wine bottles
Winecast 69: Nick Vorpagel and the dilemma of the independent wine retailer

Winebits 743: Local wine, best-selling wine, technology

tash 80
It was difficult enough writing a football game story on this; can’t imagine what tasting notes would have been like.

This week’s wine news: A study finds local wine may not be all that local, plus supermarket wine dominates a best-seller list and the Trash-80, which helped the WC get to where he is today

Not so local: Canadian researchers have found that wine drinkers define local wine differently than they do local food. The study, from Brock University, said a majority of wine drinkers consider a wine local if it comes from anywhere in North America and Canada. This is in marked contrast to local food, where a majority of those surveyed said local was with 100 km (62 miles) of their home. This is not surprising, given what we learned during Drink Local. It was always difficult to get food writers and bloggers interested in the project; they seemed to think that wine wasn’t local the way that food was. It was one thing to actually see the pig that would be turned into that night’s pork shoulder roast and another to understand that wine could be local when grapes were just grapes. It’s worth noting, as Becca Yeamans does in her analysis of the study, that this is not necessarily a representative sample of all wine drinkers. Still, it does take a step in figuring out what’s going on with the perception of local wine.

Hot brands: A host of supermarket wine brands heads this year’s Hot Brands, compiled by the company that owns the Wine Spectator. Among the wines are Josh Cellars, Bota Box Nighthawk, Barefoot Fruitscato, Bread & Butter, Stella Rosa, La Marca, 19 Crimes, Kim Crawford, and Santa Margherita. The formula to identify a Hot Brand is complicated, but the gist is that these wines showed tremendous growth at a time when wine itself did not. And what do they have in common, save for their lower prices? Almost all are supermarket brands, which shows again how much the wine business is changing.

High-tech: John Roach, the man who helped make the personal computer ubiquitous — and who sent the WC down the rabbit hole with the portable TRS-80 100 — died last week. I mention it here because much of what the post-modern world has evolved into, including the blog, depends on Roach’s vision. The Trash-80, as we called it, was not the first personal computer, but the portable version was the first I used. Originally, it had acoustic couplers, so I had to find a pay phone to file a story. The upgraded version had a phone jack, so at least that part was easy. The rest was never easy, and that includes reading what I typed on that impossibly small screen.

Winebits 724: Happy 14th birthday to the blog

local wineThis week’s wine news: Stuff that makes the WC shake his head, because some things never seem to change — even after 14 years

Hooray for Texas wine: No less than the Wine Enthusiast — about as Winestream as it gets — sings the praises of Texas wine: “Over the last 30-plus years, Texas winemakers have honed their craft and the state’s wine has established regional and national esteem.” Wow. Who knew? (Yes, sarcasm.) What’s most annoying is not that Texas wine deserves recognition, but that every time an article like this appears in a major wine magazine, it seems like big news. Which, of course, to those of us who have been advocating for Drink Local, it isn’t. Right, gang?

Love those chateau: Talk to winemakers and marketing types, and they still insist that putting a castle on a wine label is a smart thing to do. Now, a British study reinforces that approach, because premiumization: Consumers judge the quality of wine by how much it costs and what the label looks like. In blind taste tests, however, they couldn’t tell the difference between £6 (about US$8) and £36 (about US$48) bottles. As if that isn’t depressing enough: Corks and heavy bottles are thought to denote quality, and one-third of those surveyed ranked a £10 wine (about US$13) with an image of a French château on the label as more premium than one costing almost 10 times as much.

Where is Romania? Here’s a long story blaming the woes facing the Romanian wine industry on the Cold War, when too much of its wine was cheaply and poorly made. The problem with that excuse, as we’ve seen before: Who buying wine today remembers that? Communism fell more than 30 years ago — two generations in wine drinking time.  The reasons aren’t complicated: Declining wine consumption, lots of wine from lots of other places, and the reluctance of importers, wholesalers, and retailers in the U.S. to handle something that no one has ever heard of.

Winebits 705: Drink Local, glass bottles, ancient wine

ancient wine
The Greek god Apollo apparently enjoyed a cup or two wine when he wasn’t spreading plague.

This week’s wine news: Is regional wine coming to the wine business’ rescue? Plus, one more analysis dissects glass bottles and wine may be even more ancient than we thought

Regional wine to the rescue? The mainstream media has again discovered Drink Local, offering it as a way to enjoy wine without crowds and high prices as the pandemic ends. Plus, writes Erica Lamberg in USA Today, “Just keep in mind your wine-tasting and winery visits may be different that you’re used to. But that can be a good thing.” Which, of course, is what those of us who support regional wine have been saying for years. Lamberg suggests Colorado, Virginia, and Pennsylvania, as well as Oregon – though it’s hardly off the beaten path. The first three are first-rate suggestions, and it’s especially nice to see Pennsylvania – not among Drink Local’s best-known states – on the list.

No more glass? Emilie Steckenborn, writing in the British trade magazine Harpers, doesn’t mince words: “The sustainability wave is sweeping across the world, and there’s hardly an industry that could see a more radical transformation than food and beverages. While consumers are happy to see changes in food packaging, the wine sector – with 19 billion glass bottles sold into the global market annually – is a slow mover.” Which, of course, is not news to anyone who has been paying attention. Still, that the article appears where it does, and that it speaks so forcefully, is a sign that more and more people who are part of wine see the need for change.

How old was it? Wine drinking in Europe may date to 4300 BC in prehistoric Greece – much earlier than previously thought. Archaeologists working in northern Greece have found thousands of ancient grape seeds and pomace – residue from pressed grapes – in the remains of a burned house near Philippi. That may be a couple of thousand years earlier than first suspected. As such, it’s the earliest evidence of wine drinking in Europe, and researchers expect the work to shed more light on the daily activities of ancient Greeks. So far, there is no evidence that the three-tier system existed in ancient Greece, but that’s probably just an oversight.

Photo: “Greece-0895 – Wide-bowled Drinking Cup” by archer10 (Dennis) is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

 

Is Gallo about to change the idea of winery tasting rooms forever?

Tasting rooms
Will wine drinkers soon be toasting each other with Gallo wine in company-branded tasting rooms?

Winery tasting rooms have traditionally been about Drink Local; Gallo’s plan could turn them into the wine equivalent of Disney stores

June 16 update: Bring on the Barefoot! The world’s biggest wine producer successfully negotiated the hurdles detailed in the first post and will build its warehouse, cannery, and bottling plant in rural South Carolina.

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster says the plan will hire almost 500 people over the next eight years, an impressive achievement for a county with around 1,000 residents.

The final agreement will allow Gallo to open three tasting rooms, but the company has not said where they will be.

Continue reading

studio microphone

Winecast 55: Wine America’s Michael Kaiser and helping small wineries make it through the pandemic

michael Kaiser
Michael Kaiser

Michael Kaiser: I haven’t been to a winery in nine months, and it’s my job – so you can imagine how difficult it has been for wineries that depend on visitors

Wine America, a trade group for U.S. producers, has played a key role in helping small wineries survive in the first nine months of the pandemic. Michael Kaiser, the group’s vice president of government affairs, has played a key role in that effort.

Foremost among that was passage of something called the Craft Beverage Modernization and Tax Reform ACT, a long way of describing a bill to change the way the federal government taxes alcohol producers. Yes, it’s a bit esoteric, but the bill’s passage means small wineries will face a more rational tax system – especially helpful during the pandemic.

We also talked about:

• What else can be done to help for regional wineries, both on the state and local level. Because, if the pandemic continues, Michael expects to see increasing numbers of wineries close.

• The tariff, and why it’s still with us. Michael makes a fine point: The wine tariff was intended to hurt the European Union, and it has. So, maybe, just maybe, we could see some progress in getting rid of it by the end of the year.

• New laws about can wine sizes, which should make it easier to make canned wine. This might sound esoteric as well, but it means we can finally buy canned in the same size can as we buy beer and soft drinks. And you didn’t know there was a difference, did you?

Click here to download or stream the podcast, which is about 25 minutes long and takes up 16 megabytes. Quality is good to excellent – you’ll probably notice three or so bits where I had to edit the recording because we lost our Zoom connection.