Michigan Unties Winery Restrictions

Muddled wine is one thing. Muddled wine legislation is another. And, it seems to be the rule in the US of A.

While most states still are dealing with wading through a thicket of arcane rules on sales, shipment and the like, Michigan wineries (click here for a wine trail connection) now are allowed to ship their products directly to consumers in other states and consumers living in Michigan are allowed to receive items from out-of-state suppliers.

“It opens us up to becoming a national wine industry,” Donald Coe, president of the trade association WineMichigan, said after Gov. Jennifer Granholm signed legislation granting direct-shipping rights.

Coe, managing partner of Black Star Farms in Suttons Bay, MI, told the Associated Press, "I have 60,000 visitors a year, and fully 25 percent of them come from outside Michigan. Many of them have no access to our wines when they get back to their states because we’re such a small winery, we don’t have distribution in those states yet. They now have an opportunity to order the wines from us, and we can ship to them.”

Granholm signed the bills during an appearance in Traverse City, heart of northern Michigan wine country. Twenty of the state’s 42 wineries are in Grand Traverse and Leelanau counties. Michigan’s $75 million industry ranks ninth in the country in wine grape production, with a combined 1,300 acres.

The Supreme Court this year struck down Michigan’s policy of allowing only in-state wineries to ship directly to Michigan residents, saying it gave them an unfair competitive advantage. Under the new laws, any winery can send up to 1,500 cases a year to Michigan residents. But the laws continue to require out-of-state wineries to use a wholesaler to get their wines to Michigan restaurants and retailers, while in-state wineries can sell directly to those establishments.


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Bad Times In Bulgaria

A bad grape harvest in Bulgaria has forced one of the Eastern European nation's top wineries to cut its output.

The Domaine Boyar winery, a 14-year-old operation, produces Domaine Boyar and Blueridge wines. The company also distills hard liquor, a segment of its business unaffected by the poor harvest, according to CEO Margarit Todorov.

The company is a leading producer and exporter of Bulgarian wines with sales of more than 5 million liters per year. It began as an agent for various Bulgarian wineries in export markets, particularly in Western Europe. In the mid-1990s, the process of privatization in Bulgaria as the government shifted from dictatorship to democracy changed the national economy.

Todorov and his partners created a strategy to gain direct control of production and the company became a wine producer as well as a sales agent. It has wineries in three cities. The Shumen operation will be most affected by the cutbacks.


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Finally, Ice Wine From the North

Wisconsin doesn't routinely make people think about wine. But when they do, they're more inclined to make it ice wine.

Oddly enough, the northern state has been having trouble making ice wine for the past half-dozen years. The early winters have been too mild. Now, however, for only the second time in that span an early cold snap has allowed one Wisconsin vintner the chance to resume it.

Wollersheim Winery (shown here) in Prairie du Sac has been producing ice wine since 1999, but this is only the first time it was able to make the true style -- from grapes harvested after freezing in the vineyard and then, while the grapes still are in a frozen state, pressing them into ice crystals.

Julie Coquard, Wollersheim vice president, told the Associated Press, "I know it doesn't seem much like harvest time, but this is exactly when the grapes for ice wine must be picked and pressed.''

Coquard said Wollersheim intends to continue increasing the crop and making Wisconsin (click here for a wine trail connection) ice wine a major part of its product line.



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Wine Collection Cooked

It's a sure-fire recipe. For disaster.

Take one of the world's best wine collections, increase the heat from a constant 58 degrees to upwards of 120, then sit back and watch the fine wine turn to vinegar.

That's what happened to the wine cellar at Brennan's Restaurant in New Orleans, a victim of the Hurricane Katrina devastation. The cellar has held Wine Spectator magazine's Grand Award since 1983, and its 85,000-bottle collections has been rated among the 85 best in the world.

No more. The collection of such stars as an 1870 Lafite Rothschild, various Chateau Moutons and Chateau Margauxs, and dozens of other high-ticket wines is history.

"They may be drinkable, but they're probably better for salads," Ted Brennan, whose brother Jimmy spent 35 years building the collection, told The Washington Post.

The two-story collection -- doemstics on the first floor, imports on the second -- is housed in a former carriage house of the 18th Century French Quarter mansion that is home to Brennan's. When power was lost during the storm, the climate controls were rendered ineffective.


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