Top 30 Wine Brands of 2011
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Winery Shows Off Flash Extraction Monterey Wine Company experiments with new French technology by Laurie Daniel
Cognac of Napoleon’s army for sale
18 Feb
A Dutch antique trader is selling his collection of over 5,000 unopened bottles of Cognac and other liquors, which he claims is the biggest of its kind. The most precious bottle in Bay van der Bunt’s collection, which is valued at 6 million euros ($7.84 million), dates back to 1795 and was a Cognac taken by Napoleon’s army on campaign for the officers. Van der Bunt estimates that bottle is worth between 100,000 and 150,000 euros. (more…)
The sommelier as endangered species…(Those with a sense of humor may be worth saving)
16 Jan
If you go to the Calafia Cafe, in Palo Alto, you won’t have to wait for a server to take your order. Instead, you just call up the menu on the touch screen mobile pad on your table, look at hi-res digital images of the foods, and then punch in your selections. Let’s say it’s the clams and udon noodles for an appetizer, then the grilled hanger steak for the main course. Your friends do the same thing. Your orders go right to the kitchen. While you’re waiting for the food, you might play a social game on the same tablet; your table’s high scorer at trivia gets $1 off the cost of dessert. Of course, when your food is ready, a real live human being brings it to your table–the tablet can’t do that. But when the meal’s over, you can pay for it with a swipe of your credit card–no waiting for a busy waiter to have to notice you’re ready to leave. You can enter your email and get a digital receipt promptly sent. And, since the night is still young, you can browse the tablet and discover clubs, bars and so on that are right in the neighborhood. (more…)
2 Million Dollars = Cheap Merlot…
9 DecWinery Shows Off Flash Extraction Monterey Wine Company experiments with new French technology by Laurie DanielThe equipment is manufactured by Pera, based in Florensac, in France’s Languedoc-Roussillon region. David Bayle, an enologist with Pera, explained the technology to about three dozen California winemakers and winery officials. Flash-Détente, which translates roughly as “instant relaxation”, involves a combination of heating the grapes to about 185ºF, then sending them into a vacuum chamber where they are cooled. The cells of the grape skins are burst from the inside, allowing for better extraction of anthocyanins and skin tannins. All this takes place before any alcoholic fermentation, so the more bitter tannins aren’t extracted. “We don’t get this green tannin that you sometimes get at the end of fermentation,” Bayle said. (more…)
Futuristic Energy… Grape Power
1 Dec
Create fiery plasma and lightning, with a single grape
Plasma is what’s responsible for St Elmo’s Fire. It’s the solar wind that whips through our planetary system. It’s part of the ionosphere. It’s part of the sun. And you can create it in your microwave, with a grape (provided you have no further use for either the microwave or the grape.) Plasma is what happens when electrons are stripped away from the nucleus they orbit, and stay away from it, even though they’re still stuck in the same medium. This can happen under conditions of high difference in electric potential, like between a ship’s mast and the clouds during a storm, or it can happen when a substance is so hot that its electrons simply can’t be permanently anchored by protons anymore. (more…)
Parker smells potential
28 Nov
If you hesitate about choosing from a large selection of wine, what will you do? For many people, the solution is quite simple: choose one with a high score from Robert Parker. The worlds most influential wine critic, Parkers million-dollar nose and his 100-score rating system have great impact on the wine industry. The famous oenophile was on tour in Shanghai and Hong Kong recently to share his views and advice with wine lovers, the emerging wine market. Parker attended an exclusive dinner at the Pudong Shangri-La Shanghai, which featured a selection of rare vintage wines he has highly rated. Despite the price of 28,888 yuan per person ($4 522.63), 
all the 40 tickets were sold out within two weeks, with some guests flying to Shanghai to meet him. Chinese wine consumers are often considered to be unsophisticated, as they often select wines based on prices. However, Parker feels the fine-wine market in China is real and Chinese peoples interest in quality wine is genuine and will grow. “I say that because first of all, its a beverage pleasure. I think Asians have an appreciation for the culture behind wine,” he says. “It also complements food.”
For instance, he says, Cantonese cuisine works fabulously well with all kinds of wines and even the spicier cuisine of Sichuan can pair wines very well, though more white wine is needed.
Is ‘Grand Cru’ a meaningful term in the US?
8 Nov‘Grand Cru’ and the Use of Quality Terms in the United States
by Lindsey A. Zahn on November 7, 2011
Recently, I read an interesting article discussing the use of the term ‘Grand Cru’ by a United States winemaker. (See Much Ado About a Wine Marketing Designation.) The story reflects the use of the term ‘Grand Cru’ by Sea Smoke Cellars of Santa Barbara, California. After receiving a review in 2008 from Wine Spectator writer James Laube that dubbed the winery as one of the “grand cru” properties in Santa Barbara, (more…)
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