Wine Wire
Research Shows Terroir Matters
Tests on German Riesling show strong
similarities based on soil types
Gary Werner
Wines & Vines
London, England -- Research conducted over three
years by an agricultural research center
in southwestern Germany appears to offer
scientific proof of a nebulous tenet
long championed by oenophiles:
Terroir exists and matters.
The results of the study were presented
to the U.K. wine trade and press during
a seminar sponsored by the German Wine
Institute in London on Nov. 7th. Speaker
Andrea Bauer of the DLR-Rheinpfalz in
the city of Neustadt, said, "We have
tried to explore how conditions in a
vineyard influence the sensory profile
of the wines that it produces."
To do so, Bauer and research director
Dr. Ulrich Fischer focused exclusively
on Riesling. Bauer explained that wines
from this variety were appropriate for
their study because they are recognized
as being particularly expressive of
their origins--not least because their
production traditionally avoids
character-altering techniques such as
oak-influenced fermentation or
malolactic acid conversion.
Read More
Music to drink wine by:
Vintner insists music can change wine's
flavors
W. Blake Gray
San Francisco Chronical
Which goes better with a fine Napa
Valley Cabernet: Mozart or Metallica?
Until recently, I would have said
"Mozart, of course." But I have since
had a life-changing experience: I paid
attention to the latest theory from wine
industry provocateur Clark Smith. Now I
may never taste wine and listen to music
the same way again. Beware: If you read
this article, the same thing may happen
to you.
Music influences the way wine tastes.
This seems obvious, and is the reason
professional tastings are done in
silence. If food, glassware, ambient
temperature, perfume and the people
sitting next to you all influence the
taste of wine, why wouldn't music?
Smith, 56, isn't content without
experimentation. His premise is that
different music makes some wines taste
better and others taste worse, and the
great majority of tasters will agree
with the "right" and "wrong" pairings
regardless of their taste in wine or
music. Moreover, it's not possible to
record a generic "music to drink wine
by" CD because a song that might make
Pinot Noir taste great can make Cabernet
Sauvignon taste awful.
You have to pay attention to individual
music and wine pairings.
Read More
The Berger Merger Report
How Corporate Consolidation of the Wine
Business Is Affecting What’s in the
Bottle.
Dan Berger
Appellation America
Newspaper reports of winery buyouts,
mergers, consolidations, and initial
public offerings that we have seen
reported over the years have appeared
mainly on the business pages. They
rarely appear on the news pages, because
of the journalistic theory that such
news does not affect wine consumers.
This was certainly the case more than a
dozen years ago when the Robert Mondavi
Winery went public in what I considered
pretty big news. I was the wine editor
at the Los Angeles Times at the
time and the editors declined to run my
exclusive story on this development in
the news section. My story ran (days
late) in the business section.
Wine consumers may not realize it, but
such business dealings in wine may
actually have a dramatic impact on the
wines they have come to know. Most
cynics would suggest that corporations
only ruin wine, but that’s not always
the case. There are examples where
corporate ownership has saved a wine
company and improved the caliber of the
wines.
But in any case, mergers almost always
have huge consequences for wine lovers -
even those who don’t care that a winery
is no longer owned by the founders.
Read More
|
