Tag Archives: Chinese wine

Winebits 485: Rose, Chinese wine, three-tier

chinese wine
Apparently, he’s the reason we’re drinking rose.

This week’s wine news: Who knew? Millennials are the reason we’re drinking rose, plus Chinese wine in the U.S. and a Pennsylvania convenience store chain adds wine

• So cheap and good doesn’t matter? One of the first things the Wine Curmudgeon learned as a young reporter was not to write something unless there were facts to support it. So this piece, called “It Turns Out Millennials Were Right About Rosé The Whole Time,” made me want to exhume all the cranky, Front Page newspapermen who taught me the business and let them chew out the the writer in their pre-modern, cigar-chomping style. Nothing in the post supports the headline, and most of it is about why we should be drinking rose. Which, of course, is what many of us have been writing for a decade, without the help of Millennials, the Winestream Media, or anyone else. Apparently, the post is on some sort of food blog, so I’m probably expecting too much that it should write intelligently about wine.

• Welcome the Chinese: Winemakers in the Chinese province of Ningxia want to sell their product in the U.S., which includes sparkling, riesling, syrah, merlot and cabernet sauvignon. The article, which appears in the U.S. version of the state-run China Daily, is not so much about wine as economic development. And, because it’s about wine, it compares the Chinese vineyards favorably to the best regions in France and California. I’ve yet to see a story about an emerging wine region, even in non-state-owned media, that doesn’t do that.

• Rutter’s adds wine: Ordinarily, convenience stores selling wine isn’t news. But when it’s in Pennsylvania, it’s worth noting because the state has ended its monopoly on wine sales. That means that privately-owned retailers like the 47-store Rutter’s chain can, so it will “carry a large selection, including Cabernet Sauvignon, Riesling, Chardonnay, Merlot, Pinot Noir and other varietals.” One can only hope that the wine will be of sufficient quality and not suffer too badly from convenience store markups. Otherwise, what was the point?

Winebits 479: Prosecco, wine renaissance, Chinese wine

proseccoThis week’s wine news: A winner in the Prosecco war, plus discussion of a U.S. wine renaissance and Chinese wine

• Is the Prosecco war over? The Italian Wine Guy looks at the numbers, and by his reckoning, La Marca Prosecco has won the Italian sparkling wine war. In fact, he writes, it may be on its way to becoming the best-selling sparkling wine of any kind in the U.S. “Never have I seen a category so overtaken and dominated in the market since the Santa Margherita Pinot Grigio phenomenon. In fact, the domination is so totally overwhelming that I have tried to advise hopeful producers to bypass the American market. The gates are closed; the wall has already been built.” La Marca, from E&J Gallo, has some 45 percent of the U.S. Prosecco market, and grew 42 percent last year. The post also analyzes how Gallo created the brand to fill a need in the marketplace, and then priced and marketed it successfully.

• Wine renaissance? I really want to believe what Matt Brehony writes in this post from The Buzz Bin: “We’re experiencing, what I believe is just the beginning of a renaissance in wine appreciation and consumption throughout the U.S. and beyond.” And he says all the right things about what wine does wrong to hamper its popularity – the foolishness of winespeak, too many cute labels, and so forth. But I’m more doubtful than he is because he doesn’t parse the numbers, the ones that suggest that wine growth in the U.S. has flattened and that the renaissance is a long ways off. Hopefully, I’m wrong, and Brehony sees something that I don’t.

• Chinese wine: We’ve heard way too much about the Chinese wine market, Chinese wine, and what Chinese wine drinkers like in the past couple of years, as the wine business falls all over itself to sell wine to the world’s most populous country when they still don’t do a good job of it in this country. Now, British grocer Sainsbury’s is selling Chinese wine – a red blend described as “an elegant expression of Cabernet with an intense, smoky red, packed with blackberries and cassis and a smooth finish.” It sells for £10 (about US$12.50), which given the price and description, sounds like it comes from California’s Paso Robles region. Has the International Style struck again?

Winebits 185: Bordeaux prices, direct shipping, Chinese wine

? French government weighs in: The controversy over skyrocketing prices for red Bordeaux increased this week when the French foreign minister said prices for the wines "are actually great value." The Bordeaux pricing mess has turned into great theater, especially since that's how most of us — who can't afford the thousands of dollars a bottle that the best wines command — get to enjoy Bordeaux these days. Can you imagine Hillary Clinton, the U.S. secretary of state, weighing in on Napa Valley cabernet sauvignon prices? But, to paraphrase F. Scott Fitzgerald, the French are different from you and me.

? HR 1161 update: Ignore the headline on the story that this links to, because it's not especially accurate. Instead, know that HR 1161, the direct shipping bill that everyone in the wine business loves to hate, is as dead as always. The bill has no sponsor in the U.S. Senate, which means that the Senate can't consider the bill. Which means it won't become law, and which means that those of you who buy wine directly from the winery in the 38 states that allow it will be able to continue to do so.

? China becomes leading producer: The Chinese wine industry makes more wine than the Australian industry does, which is just one more bad piece of news for the Aussie in a decade of what seems to be unrelenting bad news. The article, which is actually a video transcript, offers some interesting insights into the battle for market share between Chinese producers and the rest of the wine world.

Winebits 161: Constellation sale, Chinese wine fraud, Pennsylvania wine laws

? Constellation exits Australia: The world's biggest wine company has sold its Australian labels as it continues to retrench in the wake of the recession. Constellation Brands is selling its 80 percent stake in a venture that includes Hardys and Banrock Station to an Australian private equity firm for about $230 million. After the sale, it will no longer be the biggest wine company in the world; that honor will go to E&J Gallo. The other catch? Constellation paid $1.1 billion for the Aussie brands when it bought them in 2003, and its timing was perfect — the Australian wine business was entering a slump which has only gotten worse. Which leads the Wine Curmudgeon to wonder: How does a company stay in business after it sells something for only 20 percent of what it paid for it?

? Tainted Chinese wine: Six people have been detained, several wineries shut down and bottles pulled from shelves in China after authorities found wine containing several chemical additives. An expose broadcast by state television found that that wineries were doctoring their products with sugar water, coloring agents and artificial flavorings, and then falsely using famous brand names. No wonder Chinese collectors are paying so much for high-end Bordeaux — at least it's really wine.

? Pennsylvania de-regulating booze? Pennsylvania is a control state, which means all alcohol is sold through state-owned stores and nowhere else. It's the poster child for the control system — but all that may be about to change. Says Philly.com: "But 2011 may usher in a different outcome for the state Liquor Control Board and the 620 wine and spirits stores it runs: Gov.-elect Tom Corbett appears committed to yanking state government out of the business of selling alcohol once and for all." We talk a lot here about government regulation and where it's headed, and there have been big doings over the past couple of years. But Pennsylvania getting out of the booze business? That would be the biggest news yet.