International panel picks Bulgaria's best

Photo provided

Bulgarian wines don't take up a lot of space in most shops, but the ancient Eastern European nation has a fairly strong wine industry.

Bacchus, the Bulgarian wine and gourmet culture magazine, convened an international panel of wine experts to rate the country's wines. Emil Koralov, Bacchus special projects director and one of the originators of the competition, said “These top 10 wines, as rated yesterday, are the best, according to us, at the moment. Ultimately, dégustation is a subjective process.”

Of the three white wines and one dessert wine that made it into the top 20, none figured in the top 10.

“Bulgaria is still a red wine country,” said Bacchus wine editor Julia Kostadinova. “We hope that that will change for next year.”

She noted that for most of the international members of the jury, the evaluations were their first experience with Bulgarian wine. Their consensus was that Bulgaria winemakers would do well to emphasise the native grape varieties such as Melnik, mavrud and rubin -- the reds -- or dimyat and misket, the whites.

Here are the top 10, in alphabetical order, selected from among more than 250 wines sampled from Oct. 15, 2007, to Oct. 15 this year:

• Enira Reserva 2006 (Bessa Valley)
• Maxxima Private Reserva 2003 (Maxxima Cellars)
• Nobile Rubin 2006 (Logodaj)
• Question Mark 2007 (Katarzyna Estate)
• Roto 2006 (Terra Tangra)
• Santa Sarah Privat 2006 (Santa Sarah)
• Solitaire Elenovo merlot 2006 (Domaine Boyar)
• Terra Tangra Cuvee 2006 (Terra Tangra)
• Terra Tangra Grand Reserva 2006 (Terra Tangra)
• Vinissimo American Barrel 2006 (Rachev & Son)

According to the Sofia Echo, Bulgaria's capital city English-language newspaper, the roots of the nation's wines can be traced back in history to ancient Thrace and the Greek god of wine Dionysus.

"The territory occupied by Bulgaria today was one of the regions where many wine traditions were founded during this period of the Hellenistic world. The cultured vine is said to have first been grown in Central Asia. The earliest traces of its origin within what is now Bulgaria go back 3,000 years."

You can get the full story here.

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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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Iffy NZ wine being sold anyway

There are certain phrases in the Latin language that translate well internationally. Perhaps the most common is "Caveat emptor," or "Buyer beware."

That certainly is the watchword for a New Zealand wine that is being sold with no real notice to domestic consumers after being rejected by European buyers because of its high metal content.

The wine is made by the Te Kairanga winery of Martinborough, New Zealand. Its 4,000-case shipment of 2006 pinot noir, bottled under the Rosecreek house brand name for a German market group, was rejected for having a copper content that exceeded European standards. Te Kairanga subsequently has made a deal with two New Zealand supermarket chains to sell the wine with no mention of the rejection.

Stuff.co.nz quoted Te Kairanga's technical director, Tony Pritchard, as saying in defense of his company's decision:

"This was purely and simply an error that occurred in the cellars, but while it might be above the German standard it is completely safe in terms of consumption."

Prichard was named technical director late last year, after the affected batch had been bottled.

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A celebri-quote: Thomas Jefferson

• Thomas Jefferson, regarded as America's first true wine expert, had specific thoughts about buying wine. This one comes from one of his letters, a copy of which was found by historians working at his Virginia home at Monticello:

"Don't go to the middleman. Go straight to the manufacturer. He will always give you the right product.

"The middleman is going to take advantage of you."

[See prior posting on wine research at Monticello.]

[Go here for more Celebri-Quotes.]

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Tom Jefferson, our first wine guy

From National Public Radio's "Weekend Edition":

"Thomas Jefferson was the nation's third president, our first ambassador to France, an inventor and master gardener. He may also have been America's first wine connoisseur — something historians are learning more about as they renovate Jefferson's wine cellar.

"It's been hot in central Virginia this summer, but historians at Monticello have kept cool in the wine cellar, trying to figure out how it would have looked when Jefferson lived there.

" 'This two-layer thick, iron-strapped, fortified, double-locked door is a good indication of the value of what was being housed in here," says architectural historian Justin Sarafin, who was inspecting a door as thousands of visitors trooped by overhead. He says the 220-square-foot room contained a commodity Jefferson treasured."

NPR continues with a fascinating look at TJ -- seen in this drawing that accompanied a story on the Appelation America online site. Go here to read the complete NPR story.

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Palin's international connections

Her detractors say GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin has no experience in international matters. One product from a boutique Chilean winery might be pointed to by her supporters as evidence of her international reach.

It's called Palin Syrah. The actual pronunciation is pah-leen, referring to the ball in a Chilean-style hockey game.

We know such plays on names are all part of the ephemeral thing that is politics, and reading any significance into them is about as useful as, well, as putting lipstick on a pig, as some current poltical hacks would say.

Nevertheless, Fox News thought it important enough to have a reporter for its election news Web site check out the political and business implications of such a wine being available to American consumers.

The bottom line, says Fox, is that San Franciscans are so left-wing they hate anything remotely resembling a Republican in name, wine or anything else, so Palin Syrah is being shunned even though it sold well before anyone outside her state knew of Sarah Palin. And, meanwhile, in the Republican stronghold of Texas, the wine is selling like mad.

If you must read the whole story, just click here.

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Ballet in the Sonoma Valley vineyards

William M. Dowd photos and video

SANTA ROSA, CA -- The grape harvest on the five Russian River Valley ranches supplying grapes to the winemakers at Sonoma-Cutrer wrapped up several weeks early this year, a testament to a good growing season.

But it also was a testament to good old-fashioned manpower.

Under the watchful eye of Javier Torres (right), the senior vineyard manager his colleagues refer to as "The Marlboro Man" because of his attire, 12-man crews made their way through the grape fields, wielding nothing more than a curved cutting knife and a lot of plastic boxes to take down an astounding one ton of grapes every 15 minutes.

"They're really amazing to watch," David Perata, Sonoma-Cutrer general manager, told me during a final-day harvest tour of the 1,100-acre complex. "They make it look effortless, but it's quite a skill to be able to work that fast that long, and without damaging the fruit.

"They work in 12-man teams -- eight to do the cutting, one to drive the tractor and three or so to handle the collection baskets, take care of any other tasks that need doing. Some of them have worked together for quite a while, so they make it a smooth operation."

It is difficult to envision the precision and speed the harvest workers use to get the delicate little chardonnay grapes from vine to the washing and sorting station. This video gives a taste of that speed:



This is the last year the scene at Sonoma-Cutrer will be seen only by employees and invited guests. The company, which is owned by beverage industry giant Brown-Forman of Louisville, KY, is targeting a spring 2009 opening for visitors. At that point, visitors will get to see the actual work depending on what season it is -- pruning, planting, harvesting, trimming back the vines at the end of the season ... whatever is going on is at the six vineyards is what tourists will see as they are taken through the complex on special motorized carts.

Sonoma-Cutrer, which had been a "white house" until producing a pinot noir harvest four years ago, is best known for wines created under winemaker Terry Adams (right), such as its Russian River Ranches cuvée crafted from several estate vineyards, and its Les Pierres and the Cutrer chardonnays.

They're a bit different than a lot of other Sonoma County appelation wines, since the various ranches into which the complex is divided provide a variety of soils virtually side by side. The Cutrer vineyard, located about a dozen miles from the Pacific Ocean, is planted on what once was an ocean floor.

At one time before grapes became the money crop, it was a hops operation. The triple-towered hop kiln barn seen below is what remains of that era.



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Aussies produce first California cabs

Two Hands Wines, the Australian Shiraz specialist, has released the first wines from its new California venture, Two Hands Napa.

They are "Charlie's Patch" and "Some Days Are Diamonds," a pair of 2005 Cabernet Sauvignons. Both were made in very small quantities and will be marketed in select states by Terlato Wines International.

"As with any new region, we are on a steep learning curve," said Michael Twelftree, who owns Two Hands with partner Richard Mintz. "I have always been drawn to the texture and purity of Napa Valley Cabernet and I'm excited to be able to put the Two Hands name behind wine that Richard and I truly believe in."

The wines are made at the Outpost winery on Howell Mountain by winemaker Thomas Rivers Brown. The grapes are grown in elevated vineyards.

The 2005 "Charlie's Patch" carries a suggested retail price $120. Only 5,400 bottles were made. The 2005 "Some Days Are Diamonds" will retail at $45. Only 4,200 bottles were made.

Two Hands is best known for its Garden Series made up of Bella's, Lily's, Samantha's, Sophie's, Harry & Edward's and Max's. It also produces the Picture Series, the new Single Vineyard Series, and the Flagships, a Shiraz, a Cabernet Sauvignon and a Grenache named, respectively, Ares, Aphrodite and Aerope.

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Historic CA winery gets back to its roots

Concannon Vineyards in Livermore, CA, marked its 125th anniversary over the weekend by unveiling its new winemaking facility, part of a $30 million renovation project.

Showing that everything old is new again, Concannon recently purchased a new European-built basket press that works the same way as the winery's original 19th century European-built basket press. It walked away from the original press several decades ago, but now has brought its successor on line.

Concannon is owned by The Wine Group LLC, which purchased it in 2002 and is getting the company back to its roots.

"Although the Concannon Estate is one of the most advanced solar-powered, organically farmed operations in the world, we view it as a rediscovery of the past vs. a winery of the future," said David Kent, CEO of The Wine Group LLC.

In addition to the basket press, the cask room has been restored so Concannon's Petite Sirah, America's first, can be crafted the same as when the 1961 vintage wine made its debut in 1964. The room is home to 16 giant French oak casks, each holding the equivalent of 15,000 bottles of wine.

Concannon is located in the Livermore Valley east of the San Francisco Bay Area. Its winemaker is Adam Richardson (above), a Rhône-style specialist with winemaking experience in both Australia and Australia. The former Royal Australian Navy officer previously worked at the Rancho Zabaco and MacMurray Ranch wineries in California. Prior to moving to the U.S. in 1998, he worked for d’Arenberg, Oakridge Estate, Normans, and Miranda wineries in Australia.

Other renovations that have been done under The Wine Group:

• Improving the 200 acres of preserved vineyard land surrounding the winery. These vineyards were the first in the Livermore Valley to be placed under a permanent conservation easement, and are among the last few acres of their kind in the Bay Area that have not been paved over.

• A return to traditional methods of farming and crafting of grapes for Concannon's flagship wine, the Concannon Vineyard Heritage Petite Sirah. A demonstration vineyard planted with different varieties will complete the new landscape plan.

• The restoration of the historic 1883 Concannon family home, extensions to the estate's system of stone walls, patios and arbors, and the doubling in size of its park-like setting. Last year the old Victorian house, complete with mature palm trees, was moved from a now-busy traffic intersection to a new location deeper within the estate. The new front lawn has become the summer home for the Livermore Shakespeare Festival.

The final phase of the estate's redevelopment, a complete renovation of the tasting room and hospitality center, will begin early next year.

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