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Wine Business Good News/Bad News
There’s good news and not so good news for the wine industry based on a Gallup poll conducted last month. The good news is that American women continue to prefer wine as their alcoholic beverage of choice by a larger margin than ever. Fifty-four percent of all women prefer wine when drinking.
The not so good news is that once again beer has edged out wine as American’s drink of choice. The 64 percent of Americans who say that they consume alcohol show a slight preference for beer (40 percent) over wine (34 percent), with liquor the favorite of only 22 percent.
We are just a little apprehensive about alcohol’s health benefits according to the poll. Only 22 percent of Americans believe that moderate drinking is beneficial to one’s health. It wasn’t a surprise to see that 33 percent of those who drink daily believe in alcohol’s health benefits. Fifty-five percent of the daily drinkers seem indifferent, while 10 percent claim that their daily drinking is unhealthy. I’m not a daily drinker; however, I’m sticking to the health benefits platform and have no foreseeable plans on changing my views.
Inside the wine industry, this topic has been debated for years. Now the disagreement is going broader in scale. Controversy has always surrounded fruit-packed, punched wines that possess high-alcohol content. Sante magazine notes that in recent weeks, two respected players in the wine industry have spoken out publicly about these styles of wine. Well-known Sacramento wine merchant Darrel Corti announced that his store would severely cut back on the number of 14 ½ percent plus alcohol wines in its stock; Winemaker Randy Dunn of Napa Valley’s esteemed Dunn Vineyards sent an open letter to several journalists condemning the practice of elevating alcohol levels in pursuit of high score.
“I don’t believe the average person is so insensitive to flavors and aromas that they must have 15 percent Cabernet, Chardonnay or Pinot Noir to get the aromas and flavors,” wrote Dunn.
There is no question that these types of wines draw big crowds at wine events and receive many favorable reviews. Their full-sized flavors are what many wine lovers think are perfect finds. Unfortunately these mouth-watering wines don’t always match up with what you’re eating since they can obscure the food.
Next time you open that tannin-filled $40 Cabernet, Zinfandel or Shiraz, check the alcohol content on the label. Let’s say for example that the label indicates the alcohol level is 14 percent. By law, the label variance can be up to one and a half percent. A wine label stating “Alcohol 14.5% By Volume” can legally range anywhere from 13 to 16 percent. That jammy little Zinfandel you’re drinking is more than likely to have a higher alcohol level than the label shows.
Wines with 16 percent alcohol are multi-purpose. They can sear the meat right off your steak bone, destroy tooth enamel and also perform wonders on your car by removing tar and bugs.
And finally, as the wine-growing season nears its end, it looks as if most of the California’s appellations are headed for an outstanding harvest. A little over a week ago Robert Mondavi began picking Sauvignon Blanc grapes at their vineyards in Napa near Calistoga. Other North Coast producers have started harvesting the, usually first to pluck, sparkling wine grapes and early ripening white varieties. All-in-all a moderate and uneventful growing season should yield outstanding quality throughout California.
Elsewhere, an unusual early harvest began in Germany’s Pfalz and Rheinhessen regions Aug. 8. This is the earliest start to a German wine harvest season since systematic records have been kept. Things are no different in Italy where there too growers have already begun to pick. The recent hot vintages have increased yields and fruit concentrations. They have, in many regions, made superlative wines.
These are profitable times for producers. They are, though, acutely aware that adjustments to their growing and harvesting practices will need to take place if the climate continues to warm.
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Contributor's Note
Article written by Nick Pappas, National Accounts Director for the Dreyfus Ashby Wine Company located in New York City.
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The copyright for this content entitled "Wine Business Good News/Bad News" has been specified by the contributor as:
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This intel was contributed by dpap12
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