Mmmm, North Carolina sake

Asheville, NC. America's sake capital?

That may be stretching possibilities, but you have to start somewhere. So, Asheville brewer Mike Karnowski is setting out to make a variety of sakes, seasonal and otherwise.

Karnowski, assistant brewmaster at Green Man Brewing, has a background that includes rum making as well as beer. Sake seems a good next step since some regard the rice-based drink of Japanese origin as as wine, some as beer.

The details are here, on the Asheville Citizen-Times newspaper's Web site.

SakéOne, an Oregon operation, claims to be the only American-owned and -operated sake maker in the country.

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Hotel wine MacGuyver

Fellow drinks writer Camper English, a San Francisco-based fellow who writes a blog called "Alcademics," has this anecdote that I found a hoot. It begins:

"Say you find yourself in a hotel room on a cold London night, caught in a bout of sleep-free jetlag, but prepared to take the edge off with a bottle of wine. Unfortunately, you forget to bring a corkscrew. You don't have any cash to tip room service for bringing one up. What do you do? WHAT DO YOU DO? I can tell you what I did tonight."

Interested in how the story comes out? Go here and enjoy.

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TN wine shipping ban upheld

From the Associated Press:

A federal appeals court on Friday upheld Tennessee's ban on direct wine shipments, which prohibits consumers from buying wine online and having it shipped to their homes.

The opinion from the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati said federal trade rules allow Tennessee to prohibit wineries from selling directly to consumers without going through wholesalers.

The U.S. Supreme Court in 2005 struck down laws in New York and Michigan that allowed in-state wineries -- but not out-of-state businesses -- to ship directly to consumers. But Friday's opinion said Tennessee's law doesn't fall under that ruling because the state bans all direct shipment of wine regardless of where it's made.

[If you want more details, click here]

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Brunello scandal update

Castello Banfi, the top Tuscan wine producer, said in a statement released Monday that bottles of Brunello di Montalcino from the 2003 harvest have been released from impound and are back on sale.

The Italian government had seized 600,000 bottles back in April over allegations there were too many of them for the wine to be authentic. The conclusion was that the wine had been doctored with other wines.

Government investigators have not yet explained publicly why the wine was released.

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Another aussie wine glut in the offing

Bargain-priced wines from Australia may soon become the norm.

Recent bumper crops have increased the supply of wine grapes and helped drive down prices. Now, South Australian vines are showing promise of a good grape crop: i.e., another wine glut.

Paul Clancy, chairman of the Wine Grapes Council of South Australia, told the Aussie broadcaster ABC Rural that last year's crop was more than 500,000 tons and this can't be sustained year after year. He says that with overseas and domestic wine markets stagnating, many grape growers soon will have no buyers.

"I think in the next few years, growers will find that the contracts that have been written by some of the companies won't be renewed," he said. "And it's not a big bang catastrophe. It's death by a thousand cuts."

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Long island wine grape crop yield off

From Newsday, the Long Island, NY, newspaper:

"Across Long Island's wine country, grape growers say 2008 will go down as among the more challenging years in recent history. The problems started early as a May 1 frost stunted some grapes just as they were young clusters. Toward the growing season's end, heavy rains, including a deluge from the former Hurricane Hanna in September, threatened to plump up grapes and dilute sugars after a summer of high-maintenance cultivation.

"Depending on the grape varietal and location, growers say the crop yield is off 10% to more than 50%."

[Read the full story here.]

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In Sonoma, it was all a blur

I recently described my visit to the final day of grape harvesting at the Sonoma-Cutrer vineyards in Sonoma County, CA.

Fellow wine-and-spirits writer Dan "The Imbiber" Dunn put together this video -- with a brief guest appearance by yours truly -- of the day's labors.

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Canadian barrel price sets record

A barrel of Nota Bene wine from the Black Hills Estate Winery in British Columbia fetched $19,000 at auction.

The wine was sold to an anonymous bidder at the recent "Going Once, Going Twice" wine auction in Penticton, BC, which raised $58,000 for the oenology and viticulture program at Okanagan College.

The $19,000 is believed to be a Canadian record. One barrel is approximately the equivalent of 25 cases, or 300 bottles, of wine. Nota Bene is a blend of 47% cabernet sauvignon, 37% merlot and 16% cabernet franc. It is 14.7% alcohol by volume.

Black Hills was founded in 1996 by Bob and Senka Tennant and Peter and Susan McCarrell who purchased 34 acres south of Oliver, BC. They then imported and planted 36,000 vines from Europe -- cab sauvignon, cab franc, merlot, pinot noir, chardonnay and sauvignon blanc.

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Oregon wine pioneer dead at 69

From the San Jose Mercury News:

Pioneering Oregon winemaker David Lett, widely considered the father of Oregon's thriving pinot noir industry and a major force in winning worldwide respect for (the) state's wines, has died at age 69.

He died, surrounded by family, at his home in Dundee Thursday night from heart failure, said his son, Jason Lett.

Lett was the first to plant the pinot noir grape in Oregon's Willamette Valley, more than four decades ago. His was also the first to plant pinot gris in the United States, his family said. Since then, Oregon's pinot noir industry has boomed, earning a reputation for quality worldwide.

[Go here for the rest of the story.]

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Swanky Bubbles has a swellegant site

If you run a restaurant and champagne bar named Swanky Bubbles, what sort of music would best convey your atmosphere to online visitors?

When I checked out Swanky Bubbles, which has locations in both Philadelphia and nearby Cherry Hill, NJ, I was pleasantly surprised to hear the bouncy voice-over/music-under and vice-versa presentation along with a graphically pleasing Web site. Go here to experience it.

By the way, Swanky Bubbles doesn't limit itself to wines. In fact, it even has a "Journey Through Crown Royal" Canadian whisky tasting scheduled for November.

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Secrets of yeast no longer so

Researchers in South Australia claim to have unlocked the genetic code of wine yeast. That would mean scientists now can develop new strains of yeast to create wines for specific tastes and markets.

Sakkie Pretorius, managing director of the Australian Wine Research Institute, says the institution has decoded the 6,000 genes that make up the genome of a wine yeast.

"Our wines will probably be better shaped for what consumers will like," he said in a statement. "So first of all, it might be that our wines will now out-compete some of the competitors in export markets, and if our wines are improving in terms of quality, it means that maybe the profit margins of some of our producers that are now on the squeeze might . . . become more sustainable."

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A celebri-quote: Dave Peacock

• Dave Peacock is vice president for marketing of Anheuser-Busch, recently published by Belgian brewing giant InBev in a controversial deal. He has to market American products from Budweiser but also has to oversee the company's wine and spirits marketing efforts. Advertising Age thinks there's a problem there, and asked Peacock about it specifically.

Q: "You have been dabbling more in spirits, picking up a number of boutique brands. But in (a recent) speech ... you called wine and liquor "the enemy." You said specifically that you could not be "outromanced by wine" or "outfunned by liquor." Those didn't sound like the words of someone who wants to play in that space."

A: "We started looking at liquor and wine a long time ago because of the emerging macro trends [of wine and liquor gaining share from beer]. And we really did believe we owed it to our shareholders to do this [because of consumer trends increasingly favoring spirits].

"We tested some things in liquor. But we started making the decision back in the first quarter of this year that we were probably going to disentangle that. It didn't work really well at the wholesale level. Those brands are marketed very differently than beer. The category is much more fragmented. And, frankly, we see upside in beer. We've seen beer have a little bit of a resurgence."

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