Be'er No. 1! Be'er No. 1!

According to a new Gallup poll, beer's lead over wine and spirits has returned to double-digits for the first time since 2002, particularly among adults between the ages of 30 and 49 who tried wine for a few years then shifted back to beer, according to a new Gallup Poll.

The firm's annual "Consumption Habits" poll shows that in combined data from its 2004 and 2005 surveys, drinkers aged 30 to 49 were about as likely to prefer wine as beer. Now, drinkers in this age bracket have shifted back to beer, with an average of 47% in the combined 2007-2008 data saying they most often drink beer.

Drinking preferences among adults ages 21-29 have remained stable in recent years, with the majority showing a wide preference for beer.

Beer continues to represent the largest segment in the alcohol beverage category in volume and dollar sales, accounting for 56% of all alcohol beverage servings.

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Winery may produce first true American tequila

Those who follow the adult beverage industry know the occasional battle erupts over the use of such terms as "champagne," "Scotch whisky" and "vodka." The next tussle shaping up could well be over the use of the term "tequila."

Presently, only spirits distilled from pure or high-percentage blue agave plants in the Mexican state of Jalisco and several adjacent spots can be called tequila. That's the Mexican government's stance and it is adhered to worldwide.

Now, however, a Hollister, CA, entrepreneur who already has a successful winery, Leal Vineyards, and has been making tequila from imported agave is eyeing an American tequila. He has planted 10 acres of blue agave in the hills near Gilroy, an area known as the "Garlic Capital of the World."

Frank Leal (above) attracted notice last year when he won two gold medals and one silver at the Spirits of Mexico competition in San Diego for his Tequila 5150, which he aged in repurposed wine barrels. He won a medal each for his three styles of the 100% blue agave spirit: añejo, aged 13 months; reposado, aged seven months, and unaged blanco.

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Brit pubs will have to offer shorter wines

Brits and visitors alike will be seeing new offerings in UK pubs and restaurants that serve wine,

The change: Addition of a smaller, 125ml serving to go with the usual 175 and 250ml sizes.

The change is a result of a campaign by Greg Mulholland, Member of Parliament for North Leeds, who introduced a Private Member’s Bill in January that requires all pubs to offer the smaller serve.

“In the last few years there has been a clear move to ‘trade up’ wine glass measures and phase out smaller glass sizes, the result being that often drinkers do not know how many units of alcohol they are consuming," Mulholland told the Morning Advertiser which calls itself "Officially the piub trade's favourite."

“Requiring pubs and bars to sell smaller wine glasses, as well as the larger sizes, would increase consumer choice at the same time as being a simple and effective method of increasing alcohol awareness and encouraging responsible drinking, and I am very pleased that the government has recognized this.”

Mark Hastings, communications director for the British Beer & Pub Association, claims requiring pubs to offer smaller measures will have “little or no impact on the quantity they drink, but would have an impact on their enjoyment.”

He noted this by saying that because buying in 125ml serves encourages people to re-order quickly -– meaning they purchase 250ml -- rather than “linger” with a 175ml glass. And, he said, 20-30% of wine bought in pubs is by the bottle, “which makes the size of glass irrelevant.”

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Rosé appreciation on the rise

William M. Dowd photo

Anyone who thinks the increased shelf space given to rosés by smart wine shop owners in many markets is a local aberration isn't keeping up with the wine press.

That's those who write about wine, not the device used to squeeze the grapes.

What they're doing is reflecting a nationwide uptick in sales of the pink wines.

The Nielsen Co, reports that total table wine sales in the 52-week period ending February 9 grew nearly 8 times faster by value and 17 times faster by volume than total table wine sales.

Sales of rosé wines priced $8 and above grew 53.2% by value and 49.1% by volume during that same period increased 6.3% by value and 2.9% by volume. Domestic rosé sales priced at $8 and higher showed stronger growth than those for imported rosés. Domestic rosé sales increased 62.6% by value and 51% by volume, while imported rosé sales grew by 50.5% by value and 48.5% by volume.

"Though still a small slice of the overall U.S. wine market, these numbers are very impressive," said Danny Brager, Nielsen's VP group client director, beverage alcohol.

In what Nielsen terms key markets, rosé sales really soared percentage-wise: Miami with 89.4% growth, Seattle 86.6%, New York 75.2% and San Francisco 39.4%. Imports continue to dominate the category, owning a 76.7% share based on dollars.

Defining a rosé beyond it being identified as such on the label can be a bit tricky, depending upon which school of thought one subscribes to. White Zinfandel, for example, often is billed as a rosé but actually is a "blush" wine. A mixture of red and white that tends toward a pale color also can be found masquerading as a rosé. But, that is not a rosé, either.

Rosés, like reds, get their color from the amount of time the grapeskins stay in the liquid. Rosé winemakers tend to allow this to happen for only a few hours, enough time to tint the grape must, before removing the skins. The finished product can range from pale pink to orangey, depending on the type of grapes used. Blush wines usually go through the process of "bleeding," or "saignee," in which some of the fluid is removed to give red zinfandel more color and flavor.

Personally, I find the right rosé -- meaning one with some distinguishable tannins and a decent floral, fruity nose -- is an excellent summertime change of pace, particularly when you want something to go with the array of salads, cheese platters, and light seafood and chicken dishes we tend to grill up during the hot months. Plenty of time for the bold whites and beefy reds when the leaves begin to fall and we feel that very mammalian instinct to store up nutrients for the winter.

Here are just a few examples of rosé commentaries I've come across in the past few weeks:

• "I have already made the leap -- I love drinking good rosé and am willing to say so even amongst the most snobbish of wine lovers. ... The recent boom in demand for rosé has been a blessing for the (Provence) region. Where many areas in France suffer from excessive production and unsold wine, Provence producers simply don't have enough juice to go around. Depending on which appellation you are in, rosé accounts for 70 to 90% of all the wine produced. Even Bandol, the most prestigious of red-wine producing appellations in the region, produced a record amount of rosé last year.

-- Bill Zacharkiw
wine critic/columnist, Montreal Gazette

• "I was living in England. ... I was introduced to rosé, served cold, sometimes even on ice, and drunk to waste away the spring afternoons. I have loved them ever since. ... The other point to stress is that rosés look great on you. They really do. No matter what you are wearing, you will look dashing, t fascinating, and certainly comfortable in your sensuality, with a glass of rosé onm your hand. The color goes with everything, and suggests a certain lightness of spirit."

-- James MacNaughton
wine columnist, Life@Home magazine, Albany NY

• "Let’s face it, it's not hard to conceive of rosé as a sort of mid-point between red and white wine, because that’s pretty much what it is. What rosé has is a sort of centrist mass appeal. First, its alcohol levels tend to fall somewhere between reds and whites, so they are rarely too big for delicate dishes, but rarely too light for more unctuous foods, either. ... Though one rarely gets the full whack of what reds do best and what whites do best in all rosé wines, one almost always gets a fair amount of both, making rosé a sort of oenological lingua franca in its ability to communicate with all kinds of foods. It makes me think of a certain Rolling Stones song that goes 'You can’t always get what you want, but if you try, sometimes you find that you get what you need.' "

-- Tom Ciocco
blogger, Terroir Wine Library.com

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Inspections may solve Brunello flap

From Bloomberg News Service:

Italy's Agriculture Ministry is introducing inspections of Brunello di Montalcino wine, ending a two-month spat with U.S. trade officials who had threatened to block imports of the wine over doubts about its composition.

Agriculture Minister Luca Zaia signed a decree in Montalcino, Italy, today calling for inspections of all bottles of Brunello di Montalcino destined for export, an e-mailed Ministry release said.

"The Ministry will guarantee the 7 million bottles of Brunello di Montalcino that are sold around the world,'' Zaia said in the statement.

The U.S. Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau had warned Italy that imports of the wine, which is supposed to be made exclusively with Sangiovese grapes according to standards set in 1888, would be blocked by customs unless there was certification on its composition. Brunello is one of Italy's best known and most expensive red wines, and is produced in the Tuscan region around Montalcino, a town located some 70 miles (113 kilometers) southwest of Florence.

(Go here for the rest of the story.)

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St. Emilion wines lose top classifications

The St. Emilion wines from France's Bordeaux region have lost their top classifications.

After a year-long legal battle by four winemakers whose wines were demoted in 2006, a French court has ruled that "grand cru classés" labels should be taken off bottles.

The ranking, which applies only to the St. Emilion region, is reassessed every 10 years. It consists of three classifications: premier grand cru classé A, premier grand cru classé B and grand cru classé.

The rankings are done by a jury of brokers, merchants, oenologists and a wine professor who hold blind tastings of vintages from the previous decade. They also judge a range of other criteria, such as soil quality, the blend. bottling conditions and price.

Industry analysts say the awarding of a high ranking can both increase the price of the wine by one-third and affect property prices.

The rankings were suspended last year pending a final judgment. The suspension was lifted last autumn, but Tuesday's decision is effective right away. It was immediately assailed by industry professionals.

"It's an aberration to condemn the classification over so little," said Nicolas Thienpont, owner of Chateau Pavie-Macquin, recently awarded the second highest rank. "All those who have worked so hard to move up the rankings are being told today 'Sorry, because of four imbeciles who don't agree with it, we will cancel everything'," he told the London Telegraph.

Jean Baptiste Bourotte of Audy, a Bordeaux wine merchant, told the Telegraph, "The whole situation is ... idiotic and absurd. They can't stop the 60 or more chateaux that have the rankings from using them. I don't see how we could sell the wine."

The four St. Emilion châteaux behind the legal action are Guadet Saint-Julien, La Marzelle, Cadet-Bon and La Tour du Pin-Figeac. They argued that the classification jury had shown "partiality" by visiting only seven of the 95 candidate châteaux.

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