This week’s wine news: A legal challenge to Oklahoma grocery store wine, the history of chilling wine, and inside dope on how retailers price wine.
• Not in Oklahoma: A judge won’t stop a November referendum to decide whether to allow Oklahoma grocery store wine, though her ruling was not a ringing endorsement. The Associated Press reports that the judge had questions about whether the ballot measure was constitutional and would schedule another hearing to decide that issue. Oklahoma grocers can’t sell beer or wine; only the legendary 3.2 “weak” beer, which has about 1 percent less alcohol than “strong” beer.
• Chill, dude: U.S. restaurants aren’t the only place where you can find wine served too cold. Sarah Bond writes in Forbes that several ancient civilizations were using snow and ice to chill wine as long as 2,000 years ago. In fact, the “shape of ceramic vessels from the ancient world also indicates how much Greeks and Romans enjoyed a cold beverage. The original wine cooler was in fact called a psykter, and was a mushroom shaped vase.” That shape allowed it to float within a much larger bowl of cold water or snow, chilling the contents of the psykter. My question? Did the Greeks and Romans have to pay $200 for theirs?
• Damn that competition: This article from the trade website Shanken News Daily details the discomforts of selling wine in Minnesota, where competition has cut prices significantly and where Surdyk’s, one of the state’s oldest retailers, is feeling the pinch. It is selling Black Box wines for $14.99, which is $7 from what it “should” retail for and is “pennies” above Surdyk’s wholesale cost. The interview with Jim Surdyk shows perfectly how competition is cutting wine prices in many markets, and is written so that even consumers can understand it. The catch? The site has gone to a paywall after years of free access, and most of us won’t be able read it.