GrapeSmart.net

Photo credit: VineSmart.com - Grapevines in Tulare County

California exports relatively little wine (100 million gallons, half in bulk at just over $4 per gallon; sales in bottle average $11.60 per gallon.) Lapsley pointed out that low-cost wine is made from inexpensive grapes, most from the San Joaquin Valley. The districts south of the Delta grew 52% of all grapes crushed in 2009. – Wines & Vines

Monday as I drove through the very flat, relentlessly hot, and not to mention smoggy San Joaquin Valley from CA-46 south, I couldn’t help but notice the abundance of grapevines growing along I-5. I said to Mitch, “Maybe they’re for raisins and table grapes?” But they’re for wine?!

According to the Wine Institute, California supplied 61% of all wine sold in the U.S. (about 30% is imported). Wines retailing for less than $7/bottle represented 72% of the total, and fully 30% sold for less than $3 per bottle.     - Wines & Vines

When I think about how much wine we drink within California and how much of it is “premium” or even in the $10-15 range, this statistic makes me stop wondering why more people in the country don’t drink wine! All they’ve got access to is plonk!

Read the full article here

South African Wine Regions Map "borrowed" from WineMecca2009's Blog

The other day the infamous Jancis Robinson (“internationally known wine writer respected for my independence”) sent out an innocuous tweet while waiting for an event to begin. It went like this,

“Why aren’t SA wines more appreciated in the US? (You can tell I’m nervously waiting for charity gala to start.) Rowley Leigh ready to cook.”

Twitter being twitter and requiring abbreviations all over the place, me being me and knowing little about wines from outside the Americas, I had to reply… “I don’t know… what are SA wines? RT @JancisRobinson: Why aren’t SA wines more appreciated in the US?”

The twitter community was quick to respond and I got many answers telling me, duh, she meant South African wines! Somebody, thank goodness, actually said it COULD have been South American wines, but since we do drink South American wines here in pretty sizeable quantities, at least in our house, I figured she must have meant South African wines, too.

But it leaves a question that DOES beg to be answered. Armed with a few pieces of data and some assumptions that I carry about how the general consuming public in the US buys wine priced under $25 per bottle, I’ve come up with a few ideas that probably contribute to our lack of interest in South African wines.

1. Political problems created a massive stumbling block
   This one’s not my idea, I stole it from Eric Asimov. But he makes a good point. Right about the time American’s were “learning” about wine the culture of Apartheid and the associated trade embargoes, made it impossible for South African wines to find their way to the U.S. So we learned about California wine, French wine, and Italian wine instead.
2. Americans are Xenophobes
   I’m not personally a xenophobe, but culturally-speaking, our melting-pot doesn’t like new ingredients. It especially abhors anything it can’t read (which these days includes 4th-grade textbooks), and many of the labels I looked at contain German- or Austrian-sounding names (another group of wines that doesn’t get much attention from the general consumers of America)
3. Americans buy based on the pretty pictures on the label
   There’s something interesting that I noticed in the labels of the wines from South Africa. It’s very subjective, but they reflect a different culture of marketing & packaging design than ours. I’ve noticed this in my adventures in e-commerce, but I’m sure it holds true in the physical world as well. What works in America doesn’t work other places. Other cultures have different aesthetics than ours and while other cultures like what we do, we shy away from what seems different than the our “style” of doing things.
4. We’ve been taught that Southern Hemisphere Wine = Cheap Wine
   Unfortunately, the Australians are learning this the hard way, but Americans have been programmed to believe that wines from the Southern Hemisphere are inexpensive and not well-made. Now I’ve had enough fantastic wine from Down Under, New Zealand, and Argentina to know that ain’t true, but it is the “grocery store” version of how Southern Hemisphere wines are marketed in the US. If I’m already thinking it’s cheap because of where it comes from, why spend my money to try the one or two bottles that MAY show up at my local store?
   

If I’ve misunderstood, been wrong, or left out important information, school me please!

Keep in touch with the people I mentioned in the article.

Follow Jancis Robinson on twitter
Visit Jancis Robinson’s website

Follow NY Times: The Pour on twitter
Read NY Times: The Pour

Here’s an interesting exercise I was asked to do by one of our twitter followers (@LibArtsAndMinds): “@grapesmart Oh, do I need your help!Had Willow Heights Chard,’99 the other night. Divine doesn’t begin to describe.Can u think of 1 similar?”

Here’s my experience and thought process in trying to help her find another wine like the one she tried and loved.

My first thought was, “Wow, you had a Chardonnay from 1999? I wonder what that was like!” Next came, “How can I possibly answer this question? I’ve never had this wine.” Then the part of me that comes to life in the face of a good challenge lit up like a firecracker and I started searching.

The first order of business was to accurately identify the wine we’re trying to match. This was an easy, but curious challenge. With the information I had, the 99 seemed like a vintage, but I couldn’t find a Chardonnay from 1999 that also bore the name Willow Heights. I located a candidate called No.99 Wayne Gretzky Estates Chardonnay which CellarTracker thinks is somehow related to the Willow Heights Estate Winery.

Regardless, both wineries are located in the Niagara-Escarpment appellation of Ontario, Canada… an area I’m personally quite familiar with! My husband hails from the area and we visit a couple of times a year. Haven’t actually made it out to Niagara yet, but I’ve sampled many Ontario wines and had the pleasure of buying wine at the LCBO.

Note: It’s pretty likely that @LibArtsAndMinds hails from Ontario and she has to buy her wine through the LCBO (Liquor Control Board of Ontario). They’re constantly changing their stock, subbing in some new wine for an older one, and they heavily prioritize Ontario wines. Odds are good a staff member at the LCBO headquarters could help her locate something similar. If she had it at a restaurant, it would be worth talking to the person who buys the wine for the restaurant and seeing what could be done. Lastly, contacting the winery directly to see if they have any more stashed away somewhere would be the easiest way to get more.

It turns out what she was really looking for is “Reserve 1999 Willow Heights Stefanik Vineyard” Chardonnay. As I alluded to earlier, searching for a 10-year old white wine is a bit of a challenge so the possibility of finding a hidden bottle of the exact wine is slim-to-none. My next choices would be two related groups of wines… 1) Other 1999 Chardonnays from the Niagara Escarpment 2) Newer Chardonnays from Willow Heights Stefanik Vineyard.

Here are some of those wines that I was able to locate online:

1. LCBO: 2006 Willow Heights Chardonnay Reserve
2. Catalpana (restaurant in Toront0) has several older Willow Heights Chardonnays on their wine list
3. Winery to Home had some useful information (confirmed the winery is now owned by Wayne Gretzky)

There are a couple more ways to go in searching for a wine to recreate the experience, but it seems like they would be the least reliable and most tedious methods… 1) Trying to get my hands on the original tasting notes for this wine and then trying to find other Chardonnays (especially from the Niagara Escarpment) that have the same or very similar tasting notes. 2) Looking for other wines produced from the grapes at Stefanik Vineyard. Since Willow Heights is an Estate Winery, I’m not sure I’d have any luck finding other wines sourced from Stefanik Vineyard grapes.

At the end of the day, we’ve ALL had this experience… we fell in love with some obscure bottle of wine and we won’t be able to find another. Here are my platitudes to help you cope:

1) Enjoy every sip while you can
2) Remember and appreciate the once-in-a-lifetime experience
3) Keep drinking! More gems are waiting for you!