Tag Archives: grape shortage

Winebits 425: Pierre de Wet, grape shortage, fake rose

pierre de wet ? Texas wine pioneer: Pierre de Wet, who died last month at the age of 61, was one of the bravest Texas winery owners I knew. He planted vinifera — chardonnay, cabernet sauvignon, and so forth — in the heat and humidity of East Texas, even though Pierce’s Disease kills vinifera just as surely as I drink coffee in the morning. This never deterred the South African native, and he used to enjoy taking visitors around his Kiepersol Estate vineyards in a golf cart to show them where Pierce’s had destroyed the vines and where it hadn’t. And, somehow, Pierre’s daughter, Marnelle Durrett, used those grapes to fashion quality wine, including a very nice syrah. The other thing about Pierre that I admired? He understood the scourge of tasting room palate, a regional wine affliction that blinds winemakers to the flaws of what they make, and worked hard to overcome it. He was constantly asking others for their honest assessment of his wines, a quality all too rare in regional wine.

? Lots and lots of grapes: Most of the reporting detailing the 2015 California grape harvest said it was five percent less than the 2014 harvest, which got the panic mongers started. One even went so far as to say there would be a grape shortage thanks to the smaller harvest and wildfires that gave the grapes smoke taint. Fortunately, the Wine Curmudgeon is here to point that the smaller harvest was still the sixth biggest ever, and that grape prices have actually declined — which wouldn’t happen if there had been a shortage. So if wine prices increase this year and next, it won’t be because there aren’t enough grapes. It will be because producers are trying to make up for the last decade, when they didn’t raise prices.

? Pink fraud: It was bound to happen, given the increasing popularity of rose. One French producer has been fined some $11,000 for making rose by mixing red and white wine, which is not only illegal in France but results in crappy wine. Rose is typically made with red grapes, and the grape skins give the wine its pink color depending on how long they’re left in the grape juice. Ironically, reports the France 24 news site, there was a 2009 proposal to allow rose to be made by mixing red and white wine, but it was rejected after protests by French winemakers.

Winebits 306: Grape shortage, Bogle, wine labels

? So much for the experts: Last week’s report that the world was facing an imminent grape shortage and a corresponding leap in prices sent the wine world into a minor fluff. Eventually, common sense prevailed and the news was discounted for what it was — at the very least odd and at the very most suspicious. There is no grape shortage, and the best reporting on the subject was done, as usual, by Lew Perdue at Wine Industry Insight. Stacy Finz at the Chronicle in San Francisco contributed a very sensible piece as well. Most telling was this bit in Finz’s article: “The report’s authors, Tom Kierath and Crystal Wang of Morgan Stanley’s Australian consumer and beverage branch, declined to be interviewed.” My experience, after some 30 years as a reporter, is that when someone doesn’t want to defend what they wrote or said, then there isn’t much reason to pay attention to it.

? Wine drinkers know a good thing: Bogle, the $10 wine that has been in the cheap wine Hall of Fame as long as there has been a Hall of Fame, continues to sell lots and lots and lots of wine. Shanken News Daily, the web news service (and part of the Wine Specator empire — oh delicious irony), reports that the company’s sales rose nearly 16 percent in 2012 to 1.75 million cases. That makes Bogle one of the biggest dozen or so producers in the country, and it has almost doubled its sales in the past 18 months since I interviewed Ryan Bogle. The Shanken article credits the quality of the Bogle wines for the label’s success, though in a very Winestream Media way, citing points — “more than 30 scores of 87 points or higher from Wine Spectator” — as proof of quality. Though, to be honest, as annoying as that is, I don’t know why I would expect anything different.

? An easier to read wine label, please: Lou Marmon, one of the best wine writers that not enough people know about, has a fine take on the foolishness that passes for wine labels these days. “Clearly front labels are critical to wine marketing,” he writes, “but is there any reason why they cannot be more accurate and informative?” Marmon details all the agonies involved in reading a wine label, whether misleading terms like “old vines,” cute labels, and variation in alcohol content. And, he points out, that doesn’t include the difference between European and U.S. labels, which take the subject in another, albeit equally confusing, direction.

Winebits 239: Sweet red wine, grape shortage, wine blogging

? Riunite goes sweet: Because, as it was once explained to me, the flagship Ruinite Lambrusco, the pure and natural wine, can ?t be called sweet, only soft. Hence two new wines from Banfi, which makes Riunite — Sweet Red and Sweet White for $6 a bottle, reports Shanken News Daily. The target audience is women 25 and older, and Banfi is spending $2 million for a digital ad campaign to promote the new wines. Which, for those who wonder if there really is anything to this sweet red thing, this probably means yes. One has to try to spend $2 million digitally, and Banfi is well known as a good marketer.

? Whither the grape shortage?  Rob McMillan at Silicon Valley Bank, perhaps the leading U.S. wine business analyst, was one of the first to sound the alarm about an impending California grape shortage. He even left a comment on the blog. Now, McMillan isn ?t so sure. He writes: ?The distinct possibility that the supply that we said was ?trending to shortage ? early this year, might just be equalized for another season. ? He cites good weather that could turn into a possible record crop in California, as well as cheaper imported wine that is holding down the price of bulk wine. And, because he has a sense of humor, McMillan also offers wine business investing advice. He tells the story of one wise guy who is buying California grape land figuring to make a killing from the grape shortage that may not be a shortage.

? Win blogging award finalists: And, once again, the Wine Curmudgeon is not among them. But that's OK. The Italian Wine Guy, in one of his other blogging voices, explained that I'm not a wine writer, but someone who writes about wine, which is a significant difference in this business. And you know what? I'd rather be someone who writes about wine. That said, I'm rooting for Randal Grahm, Blake Gray, and the Italian Wine Guy in their respective categories.