Tag Archives: mocktails

Winebits 720: Ancient wine, mocktails, North Korea

ancient wineThis week’s wine news: A massive ancient winery complex has been found, plus the increasing popularity of mocktails and North Korea and wine labels

• Ancient Big Wine? Archaeologists have unearthed a 1,500-year-old winery in central Israel that may have covered as much as two acres. According to a statement from the Israel Antiquities Authority, “We were surprised to discover a sophisticated factory here, which was used to produce wine in commercial quantities. We should remember that the whole process was conducted manually.” As part of this, the excavation found five wine presses and uncovered warehouses where the wine was stored and prepared for sale. This is just the latest discovery over the past several years confirming the key role wine played in the ancient Mediterranean economy. At a time when it was unsafe to drink water, wine was the everyday beverage of almost everyone, rich or poor, and wine was traded throughout the region.

• More mocktails? Nation’s Restaurant News reports that mocktails – cocktails made without alcohol – continue to grow in popularity. The story even quotes someone from what appears to be a very hip restaurant in Seattle: “I’m not ashamed to admit that I initially thought they were stupid. Which I now totally regret!” The new mocktails not just mimic traditional cocktails, but are made with better quality ingredients. And prices are apparently even increasing – call it mock-iumization.

• Designing wine labels? North Korea is perhaps the most secretive country in the world, where Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un has almost unparalleled control over its citizens. So any news coming from North Korea must be take as rumor first and foremost. Still, a recent report said Kim’s several absences from public life from January through May could have been related to a design competition, where the Supreme Leader was judging wine label mockups (as well as designs for school uniforms, buses, and a cargo ship). And we thought the wine business was weird in this country.

Winebits 574: Restaurant wine, wine apps, mock wine cocktails

restaurant wineThis week’s wine news: One more example of restaurant wine’s inability to deal with reality, plus the failure of wine apps and wine drinkers should try booze free cocktails

• Restaurant wine, yet again: That the Wine Curmudgeon can find so many of these restaurant wine pricing faux pas speaks to the problem: Those who price wine in restaurants aren’t living in the same world with the rest of us. A recent on-line story featured an up and coming sommelier bragging about his wine list: “These are my favorite things to pour for our guests: the wines that sell for $45 to $70 but completely knock it out of the park.” Given restaurant pricing, that means he looks for values among wines that cost $25 to $40 retail. Which misses the point of how much most of us actually pay for wine. A $40 bottle accounts for a couple of points of U.S. sales (if that much, depending on whose numbers you use). Hence, the sommelier is running his wine list for a tiny, tiny share of U.S. wine drinkers.

• Waste of a download? Most of us use wine apps fewer than a dozen times and then discard them, writes Robert Joseph in Wine Business International. There are exceptions like Vivino, but most of us who “ downloaded the app did so because they were briefly attracted by the novelty of the technology. But that interest soon wore off; they seldom if ever feel the need to record their views of the red or white in their glass, or scan a bottle before buying it.” This matters because wine apps were supposed to making wine pricing more competitive, since consumers could compare prices on their phones. Apparently, though, that isn’t happening.

• Bring on the mocktail: Do wine drinkers want to try booze-fee cocktails? Yes, says one of the leaders in devising mocktails that mimic their alcohol counterparts. “While it seems this may be only about soft cocktail recipes, the bigger picture is that it’s about connection, community, inclusion and taking good care of people,” she says. One suggestion for wine drinkers: spice mulled “wine,” made with apple cider and cranberry juice.