Category Archives: popular culture

We Don’t Talk About Abruzzo … But We Should!

March 29, 2022 By in emerging wine regions, Italian wine, popular culture, wine 1 Comment

The thing about Bruno, a character in the Disney film Encanto, is that everyone talks about not talking about him. Or at least that’s the gist of the wildly popular song “We Don’t Talk About Bruno.”

The Abruzzo Syndrome

For a long time this situation kind of applied to Abruzzo, the under-appreciated Italian region you reach by flying to Rome and driving east over the Apennine mountains to the Adriatic. My well-worn 1998 Knopf Guide to Italy, for example, devotes more than 500 colorful pages to tourist Italy, but gives poor Abruzzo precisely 2 pages of text.

The Abruzzo syndrome, as illustrated by the Knopf guide treatment, is that the Itay is full of the best of the best of tourist sights and attractions. Abruzzo’s natural beauty and modest charm is undeniable, but it struggles for the spotlight that is focused elsewhere.

Sue and I can appreciate this situation from our experience living in Bologna some years ago. For the most part foreign visitors only knew Bologna from changing trains at the station or attending conferences at the big convention center outside of town. Bologna was a place you passed through on your way to somewhere else. Abruzzo’s location makes it ever less of a destination point.

Abruzzo Wine Syndrome

The Abruzzo syndrome plagued the region’s wines, too. Take the usually-generous Burton Anderson’s Wine Atlas of Italy, for example. Anderson gives 3 pages out of 300 to Abruzzo in my 1990 edition of this classic volume, disappointed by what he saw as a lack of interest in quality.

… the growing of grapes in abundance as just another fruit crop still offers more attractive prospects than does the making of premium wine. The shame of it is that the Abruzzi’s sunny hills could make outstanding wines, not only from the native Montepulciano but from many other noble vines.

A few producers stubbornly swam against the tide — Anderson cites Edoardo Valentini in particular — but it was a difficult task given the region’s lack-luster reputation. Abruzzo’s reputation was nothing much to talk about even though the potential was clear.

Abruzzo Fast Forward

Fast forward to 2022. Sue and I hadn’t talked much about Abruzzo over the years, but an unexpected invitation to visit later this year was enough to make us circle back to see how Abruzzo has changed and it is clear that the region is getting some of the respect it was previously denied.

Travel and Leisure magazine, for example, named Abruzzo to its list of the 50 best places to travel in 2022.  Abruzzo has changed, as the article suggests, but perhaps travelers have changed, too, and now appreciate local charm and character more than before. Here’s an excerpt from the article.

Stretching from the heart of the Apennines to the Adriatic Sea on the peninsula’s southeastern side, Abruzzo, Italy has long been one of the country’s most overlooked destinations despite its unspoiled villages, picturesque Trabocchi Coast, and stunning natural escapes. Over the past few years, however, it has gone from a sleepy underdog to an ambitious harbinger of slow travel, sustainable gastronomy, and conscious hospitality.

Reality vs Reputation

Reality has moved faster than reputation on the wine front, too. Abruzzo is still noteworthy for the quantity of wine it produces. Abruzzo ranked #5 among Italian wine regions in 2020 for volume of production. Veneto and Apulia topped the table followed by Emili-Romagna and Sicily. Abruzzo was followed by Piedmonte and Tuscany. But quantity is no longer the only game in town.

My battered copy of Slow Wine Guide 2014, for example, highlighted the growing number of premium producers who were able to meet the guide’s high standards.

It is a mistake to speak about the Abruzzo as an emerging winegrowing region. Consistent quality has now become more general, no longer the prerogative of a handful of historic cellars plowing the furrow of tradition, but also a characteristic of the work of both small wineries and large cooperatives.  … All in all, the Abruzzo wine world is in good health, working the land more sustainably than in the past and affording consumer enjoyment with very reasonably priced labels.

Clearly Abruzzo has turned a corner, a fact underlined by the evaluation I found in my copy of the Gambero Rosso 2019 guide to Italian wines. “Abruzzo’s wine industry is in many ways a kind of microcosm of the nation as a whole,” the analysis begins, “… leaving behind an age in which it was dominated by large quantities of generic bulk wine used outside of the region.”

Slowly Then Suddenly

The wines today (and the people who make them) are a better reflection of the remarkable diversity found within the region. “And they won’t cost you an arm and a leg either,” the report suggests, “(it’s not a coincidence that once again a number of Tre Bicchieri come at a price that would allow for daily consumption).”

Slowly — and then suddenly — Abruzzo is a topic of conversation. Just last week, for example, the region was highlighted in two news stories. The Drinks Business reported that Italy’s National Wine Committee and Agricultural Ministry agreed to consolidate the central Italian region’s wines under a single IGT (Indicazione Geografica Tipica), Terre d’Abruzzo. IGT wines are an important category where innovation is encouraged and the new designation will raise Abruzzo’s visibility. The hope is that Terre d’Abruzzo  IGT will do for Abruzzo was “Terre Siciliane” did for Sicilian wine identity when the designation was introduced a few years ago.

Meanwhile, New York Times wine critic Eric Asimov featured two indigenous Abruzzo wine grape varieties in his column on “Ten Grapes Worth Knowing Better.”  Pecorino and Trebbiano d”Abruzzese — and recommended Abruzzo producers — made the list of wines worth discovering.

So apparently we are talking about Abruzzo now for the quality, value, and character of its wines. And it is good to keep the conversation going because it will take some time for Abruzzo’s reputation to catch up to reality. And it will not be easy to get attention in the crowded market for Italian wines, where famous names abound.

Wine on the Nile: Wine Goes to the Movies (and TV)

March 15, 2022 By in popular culture, wine, wine education, wine markets 2 Comments

One of my pet peeves is wine’s lack of impact in popular culture. Celebrity chefs get lots of traction — even fictional cartoon rodent chefs (have you seen the Disney film Ratatouille?). Celebrity winemakers? Not so much.

Wine shouldn’t try to simply imitate food, of course, Watching Michel Rolland micro-oxygenate a tank of Merlot will never be as much fun as watching Julia Child throw together a pot of Boeuf Bourguignon.  If we want to reach potential newbie wine drinkers, I think wine needs to go where they are and to connect in as many ways as possible.

Wine is so often an afterthought. I bemoaned the fact that wine had no particular pride of place in Stanley Tucci’s hit television series Searching for Italy, for example. A wasted opportunity for sure!

Bordeaux on the Nile?

So I am pleased to see the efforts that Bordeaux producer Chateau Malartic-Lagravière, which is working very hard to position its fine wine where it can be seen and appreciated by a diverse audience.  The white wine, for example, appears in the second season of the Netflix series Emily in Paris.  And the red wine is featured in the recently released big-budget 20th Century Studio version of Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile.

Why Death on the Nile? A press release suggests that the Bonnie family that owns the Chateau connects with the film’s chief protagonist, fellow Belgian countryman Hercule Poirot. Perhaps. But I have to think the luxury setting in which the film’s action unfolds is an appealing frame for a luxury Bordeaux wine.

Consumers need a nudge to put wine on their minds and I congratulate Chateau Malartic-Lagravière for taking the initiative.  Product placement, however, is just one element of a potential initiative to connect wine culture with the interests and lifestyles of today’s consumers.

Wine First, Please!

Sue and I have been impressed for the early efforts of a group producing a public television series called Wine First, for example. The idea, I think, is that when most people go to a restaurant they pick their meals first and then choose a wine. But when YOU dine out, I’ll bet, at least some of you study the wine list first, choose the wine you want, and they pick food to go with it. Wine First.

The series format takes a wine first approach. The hosts visit a wine region (the Mosel, for example), stopping at three wineries to choose wines that captures the essence of each place — plus a regional food ingredient. A local restaurant chef is then challenged to prepare dishes that will highlight the wines — the wines are the star. The local wine producers evaluate the imaginative pairings that result and render a wine first verdict. Sue and I really enjoyed the programs and hope the multinational series comes back for a second season.

So far so good. But there is a lot more work to be done to get wine more clearly on the radar of the next consumer generation. In the meantime, remember that it is not telling the world how wine tastes (or is made) that will be the key to future growth. What’s important is how it makes you feel.

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I thought you might enjoy viewing the trailer for Death on the Nile.

Wine and the Trouble with Halloween

October 26, 2021 By in popular culture, wine, wine markets 3 Comments

Everyone knows that wine consumption is at least in part occasion-driven. Although some of my friends insist that they don’t really need a reason to pop a cork, for many consumers the act of drinking is closely tied to occasions of one sort or another.

Thus, for example, wine sales here in the US typically peak during November and December when a series of holiday occasions roll by starting with Thanksgiving and ending around New Year. Wine sales and festive occasions are a perfect pairing.

The Trouble with Halloween? 

But what about Halloween? The spooky holiday that we celebrate on October 31 is a favorite festive occasion for lots of people who decorate, dress-up, and generally go a bit wild. Over on the food side of the aisle, Halloween is really embraced with lots of special products and offerings. Take a look at the listings for the Food Network this week and you will see many variations on the Halloween theme.

It would be great if wine could jump on the Halloween bandwagon somehow. It has been done, of course. I vaguely remember Dracula-themed Romanian wines showing up on some grocery shelves this time of the year, but not a lot more. And then there is Hallowine, a spiced sweet apple wine from Wisconsin that I found on the internet. That’s the spirit! But you have to admit that Halloween is for the most part a missed opportunity for wine.

The trouble with Halloween is what to drink with it — and what sort of hook would draw consumers into enjoying wine as part of this unique occasion? I really haven’t thought of this before now and I admit that my first thought was Aperol Spritz. The color is seasonally festive and a bit of bitterness is very nice. Yes, I think an Aperol Spritz would work for adult Trick or Treat.

Halloween Haunts the Beer Aisle

I may not be giving the potential Halloween market much thought, but it is clear that some others are thinking hard about it. We recently received samples of two fruit-flavored Hefeweizen beers from German producer Schõfferhofer, for example (a Passion Fruit version is also available). The Pomegranate beer is blood red and the Grapefruit beer — a 50-50 blend of fruit juice and hefeweizen — is pumpkin orange — or at least that’s how I would describe them at Halloween. The sweet/tart fruity flavors are strong and I admit reminded me a bit of the puckery trick or treat candies (think Starburst or Twizzlers) that we also received.

A beer to sip while you munch through the inevitable surplus of trick-or-treat candy left-over after the kids have gone home? Interesting idea — and good response to an under-served occasion. I wonder what would happen if you mixed the two beers together in a sort of witches brew? I’ll bet the color would be great — a little like an Aperol Spritz!

So how was the beer? Well, it certainly delivered on the sweet/tart promise. I liked the Grapefruit better than the Pomegranate. Sue wasn’t keen on either one — not really a fruit drink and not really beer, she said. Kinda a Franken-brew, I guess. But fun for Halloween and food for thought when it comes to addressing this under-served occasion.

The Devil Made Me Do It

Concha y Toro, the important Chilean wine producer, has also taken aim at the Halloween market this year with promotions for its popular Casillero del Diablo Cabernet Sauvignon and Carmenere.  Google translates Casillero del Diablo as “Devil’s Locker,” but I prefer Devil’s Den because it has a nice haunted house feeling to it.

The wines are good and, at about $12 per bottle, have a price point that drives a stake through the heart of the market (I’m trying to get into the Halloween spirit here). The popular Chilean-born actor Pedro Pascal stars in a commercial you might have seen for the wines that features a suitably devilish twist. I admit that I don’t really understand the video, but it is hard not to like the wines and to enjoy their warmth during the Halloween season.

But What Really Scares Me …

I appreciate the creative leveraging of the Devil’s Den theme, but I think Concha y Toro can tell an even scarier story for Halloween. Ghosts and goblins are frightening, for sure, but do you know what scares me even more? Climate change!  And that’s where CyT is a sort of wine industry ghost-buster.

Concha y Toro recently became the wine world’s largest Certified B Corp, an indication of its commitment to a set of values and practices that embraces the environmental cause. Each of CyT’s operations in Chile, Argentina, and the U.S. is now a Certified B Corp. Outstanding.

Fetzer Vineyards, the California producer that is an important part of the CyT family, was recently re-certified with an even higher score, making it one of the highest-rated Certified B Corps of its size. A very high score for environmental efforts is noteworthy.

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So can we make Halloween into a wine occasion on the scale of Thanksgiving and New Year? Maybe not, but I think there is a creative challenge here to find ways to bring wine more directly into the spooky picture. Trick or treat?

Memo to CNN: Searching for Italian Wine?

March 9, 2021 By in Italian wine, popular culture, wine, wine tourism 12 Comments

Dear CNN,

Sue and I have been watching the CNN original series “Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy.” Tucci visits six Italian regions, talks with the people, enjoys the food, and tells some stories. Maybe it is because of the pandemic, but there is something very satisfying about following Tucci on his journey. You might want to check it out.

Tucci starts his Giro d’Italia in Naples and then moves on to Rome, Bologna, Milan, Tuscany, and Sicily. The title suggests that he is “Searching for Italy.” Will he find it? Not if he thinks that Italy is a single thing with a single cuisine, because that Italy has never existed. But if he is willing to accept that Italy is its regions — and I am sure he is — then he’ll be fine and so will we.

Searching for Italian Wine

The chapter on Italy in my book Around the World in Eighty Wines is a Tucci-esque search for Italian wine. My quest to find one wine that can represent all of Italy’s wines comes tantalizingly close to success at one point, but ultimately I realize that Italian wine is impossible. There are only the wines of Italy’s regions. No wonder the Italian wine map is perhaps the most complicated in the world.

So it seems to me that Searching for Italian Wine would make a great series for the same reasons that Tucci’s program is so popular. But what would a program about Italy’s wines be like? Walking though beautiful vineyards is great and makes good video, but you can only do that so often before it gets a bit old. Ditto for visiting cellars, inspecting barrels and tanks, and wondering at the majesty of shiny new pneumatic presses and speedy bottling lines.

Watching wine being made isn’t as interesting as watching food being made for some reason (perhaps because it takes so long) and in any case Tucci’s producers seem to realize that there’s a limit to how many times they can show onions being diced or pasta being rolled and cut.  So instead they show the hustle and bustle of markets — that never gets old to me — and focus on real people, who they are, what they do, and how they define and are defined by the local products and food. That’s a model that works every time, if you don’t lose sight of your goal.

Searching for Italy and Its Wines

This leads me to my main point, which is that Tucci’s Searching for Italy could be the perfect Italian wine show if it just brought wine more fully into the frame (note: I write this before the Tuscany episode has been aired). Wine shows up all the time in Searching for Italy, but it is just something the people drink with the food, never an important element of the story. Wine in Italy is so much more.

The Bologna episode is a case in point. Yes, the Prosciutto, Mortadella, and Parmigiano Reggiano cheese are amazing. We were fortunate to enjoy them almost every day when I taught at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies Bologna Center a few years ago. Our apartment was on a little alley called Via Pescherie Vecchie in the heart of the heart of the famous central market area. It is an inescapable element of the city’s life so naturally it was on Tucci’s Bologna itinerary. Here’s a video of a visit to this street to give you a sense of the place.

So what do  you drink with these intensely local products? Well, wine of course, but there is a particular local wine that we think is magical. It is called Pignoletto and it is so local that I doubt you will easily find it anywhere else. As I wrote ten years ago after a return visit to our old neighborhood …

Pignoletto is a dry white wine grown only in the hills outside of Bologna. “Lively, crisp, aromatic” is how Jancis Robinson describes it in her Guide to Wine Grapes. Pignoletto is distinctly Bolognese — grown there, made there and I think that every last drop of it is consumed there, too, since it goes so well with the rich local cuisine (almost as if they evolved together … which I guess they did).  It would be hard to beat the simple meal of salumi, cheese and bread that we had with a bottle of Pignoletto frizzante at Tamburini‘s wine bar in the Bologna central market.

The food and this wine evolved together in Bologna. No wonder they are such a perfect match. And they say something about the importance of place in a footloose world, don’t you think? It would have been easy to include this wine (and some others, too) in the Bologna episode, CNN,  and your viewers would have thanked you for opening this door to Italian wine, food, and culture.

Dear CNN: Who Ya Gonna Call?

So, CNN, you are probably wondering who can help you take Searching for Italy to the next level by adding the magic of wine to the mix? Well, our team here at The Wine Economist stands ready to lend a hand (and pull a few corks) and we have no end of ideas for season 2 in the Veneto, Friuli, Alto Adige, Piemonte, Liguria, Sardinia — and that’s just getting started! Let’s take that Italian map and search for Italy and Italian wine in every corner.

Italy is a mosaic of people, places, wine, food … and wine, too. Let’s work together to tell the story of Italian wine in context, one beautiful region at a time.

Sincerely,

The Wine Economist team

Wine and the Dry January Syndrome

December 22, 2020 By in alcohol, coronavirus, popular culture, wine, wine markets Leave a comment

January is just around the corner and that means Dry January, the month when many people pause to assess their alcohol consumption. If a lot of people have been indulging as much during the covid pandemic as their social media feeds suggest, Dry January could be particularly traumatic this time around.

Not Just January Any More

But it is a mistake to think of the interest in low- and no-alcohol beverages as being strictly seasonal. The  marketing gurus at Heineken beer haven’t invested a fortune promoting Heineken 0.0 because they are looking for a short-term January sales bump. There are lots of reasons for consumers to seek out alcohol-free alternatives and the beer industry, always on the lookout for growing market niches in a fairly stagnant category, has responded with gusto.

If you don’t believe this, take a trip to the beer aisle of your local upscale supermarket. You might be surprised by the number of low/no abv products you find there and the range of styles. When I first explored this question in a Wine Economist column earlier this year I was impressed by a number of German products that had real beer flavor without the abv that usually goes with it.

My favorite among the half-dozen products I tried was Dry Hopped Clausthaler. It ticked the boxes for me: single serving container, affordable price, and it tasted so authentic that I didn’t miss the alcohol.  Very impressive. I’ve got some in the fridge now.

Another appealing product that I stumbled upon is All Out non-alcoholic stout by Athletic Brewing Company. It’s an oatmeal stout and it tastes like an oatmeal stout — very satisfying. Because it is non-alcoholic, the usual nutritional information is provided on the can. Ingredients: Water, malt, oats, wheat, hops, yeast. 90 calories per can. If you like oatmeal stout, you’ll like this, too.

Beer makers have an advantage over wine producers in that they can produce many different batches of beer over the course of the year. Winemakers generally have one shot and that’s it. So seasonal beer products are available and for the winter months Clausthauler made a non-alcoholic holiday beer, Santa Clausthaler (Santa Claus-thaler — get it?) shown above dressed in miniature Santa hats.  It is a 50-50 blend of their non-alcoholic beer with a cranberry cinnamon drink. Interesting! Kinda reminds me of mulled wine.

Fear of Missing Out

My earlier column on Dry January worried that wine was missing out on the low/no abv beverage trend. I know there are good wine products out there, but I don’t see the same investment in this category that the beer industry has made. Every bar or restaurant that I visited (when such visits were possible) had a non-alcoholic beer option available. None had non-alcoholic wine.

So what I am looking for? Single serving container is important. Affordability is important, too. And a non-alcoholic wine needs to remind me of wine as much as the best of these non-alcoholic beers remind me of beer.

A new product that seems like a step in the right direction is called H2/Heart Sonoma Soft Seltzer, which comes in  Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Noir, and Rosé flavors. Although the target is non-alcoholic seltzer, not wine, these carbonated drinks contain de-alcoholized wine and grape juice, too.

Sue and I received samples of the sparkling Pinot and Rosé flavors. Sue thought that the Pinot tasted like Black Cherry soda and didn’t see it as a wine substitute at all. The Rosé tasted like sparkling raspberry lemonade to me and, while I can’t say it especially reminded me of Rosé wine, I think I would be happy with this sparkler in my glass at some future post-covid holiday party. Festive, refreshing, enjoyable.

So clearly some people are hard at work bringing wine to the low/no abv party and that’s a good thing because I think this market niche is only going to grow. I’d like to think that wine can play in this arena because I suspect there are many people like me who sometimes want a high-quality low/no abv option, but would like to stick with wine.

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That’s it for 2020. The Wine Economist will be back in 2021. Happy Holidays to all.

Flashback: Malbec & Maradona

December 1, 2020 By in Argentina, book reviews, popular culture, wine Leave a comment


Diego Maradona was more than just a great football player, the best of his generation by many accounts — the best ever according to some. He and his complicated life meant a great deal more to people in Argentina and around the world, so his recent death at age 60 had greater meaning, too.

This book review from 2012, which links Malbec, Argentina’s signature grape variety, with Diego Maradona, has been getting renewed attention among Wine Economist readers, so I thought I’d re-publish it as a “flashback” column today.

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Ian Mount, The Vineyard at the End of the World: Maverick Winemakers and the Rebirth of Malbec. Norton: 2011.

Malbec and Maradona

One of the most stunningly creative student papers I’ve received in more than 30 years as a college professor was written by a first year student enrolled in my introductory International Political Economy class. We were studying Argentina’s latest financial crisis and she analyzed the situation not just through facts and figures but rather by telling the story of Diego Maradona, the legendary soccer player who achieved great success on the global stage but succumbed to the pressures, stresses and temptations that came with it.

Maradona is always measured against Pele, the Brazilian star who is often proclaimed the greatest soccer player in history, and every talented young Argentinean forward is compared to  him (Messi is only the latest “next Maradona”). But an air of tragedy is unmistakable despite Maradona’s heroic achievements. This same air, my student wrote, hangs over Argentina’s politics and economy, and then she proceeded to analyze Argentina’s political economy history in detail in  terms of the Maradona story. It was, in both conception and execution, a brilliant analysis.

Ian Mount’s new book on Argentinean wine, The Vineyard at the End of the World, is also brilliant and in much the same way. Like my student’s paper, it can be read at several levels. It is, first and foremost, a history of the Argentinean wine industry from its roots with the Spanish explorers to its current spectacular flowering.

Although Argentina has been a major wine producer for literally centuries, it has only arrived on the global stage in the last ten years. Within Argentina its long history is heavy baggage that sometimes weighs it down. For the rest of the world, however, Argentina is a new discovery and the lack of prior experience of and attitudes toward its wines has arguably been an advantage.

Mount fills us in on the history and serious readers will appreciate the added depth this gives to the appreciation of the wines themselves. It also provides an interesting contrast to neighboring Chile and its wines, whose history is perhaps better known. But that’s only the beginning.ce1509cd596b49b050639487b3d03dcc

 Lucky Survivors

Malbec is a second theme, which is understandable because Malbec is king in Argentina right now. Malbec from Argentina has been one of the hottest product categories in the U.S. wine market is the past few years. But today’s Malbec (like Maradona) is a lucky survivor of Argentina’s booms and busts – a lot of Malbec was grubbed up during the market swings and swirls. It makes me appreciate wines (like one of our favorites, Mendel Malbec) that are made from the surviving old vine blocks.

More than anything, however, this is a history of Argentina itself told through wine, making this a book that deserves a very broad readership. Based on my previous research, I knew that Argentina’s politics and economics were reflected in the wine industry, but I didn’t know how much. Come for the Malbec, stay for the politics, economics and personal stories of those who succeeded or failed (or did both) and try to understand the country and people of Argentina.

Significantly, the book ends with a sort of Maradona moment. In terms of wine, Argentina has won the World Cup with Malbec, although the country must share the glory with international consultants (like Paul Hobbs and Michel Rolland) and foreign investors and partners (too numerous to mention). But for all its strengths the industry is still somewhat fragile, struggling to overcome the problems of the domestic wine market that it still depends upon and the domestic economy in which it is embedded.

After decades of “crisis and glory,” Mount sees a  bright future for both Malbec and Argentina. Let’s hope he’s right and the Maradona moment passes.e91c4e409ca6d78d656bc85a82fa6422

Ian Mount’s new book is a valuable addition to any wine enthusiast’s library. Mount provides a strong sense of the land and people of Argentina and the flow of history that connects them. Argentina is unique, as Mount notes early on, in that it is an Old World wine country (in terms of the nature of its wine culture) set in the New World, so that its history is broadly relevant and deeply interesting.

I studied the Argentina industry before going there last year, but Mount taught me things I didn’t know in every chapter. I love Laura Catena’s Vino Argentino for its account of the history of wine in Argentina told through the Catena family story and now I’m glad to also have The Vineyard at the End of the World for its broad sweep and detailed analysis. They are must reading for anyone with an interest in Argentina and its wines.

Wine Innovation: Lessons from Portugal

April 29, 2014 By in brands, popular culture, Portuguese wine, wine markets 1 Comment

Innovation is a hot topic in the wine industry these days. While some wine brands can depend upon their traditional markets, messages and products, many producers find themselves under increasing attack from “the crafts” — craft beer, craft cider and craft spirits.

One advantage that these alcoholic alternatives seem to possess is the heightened ability to adapt, evolve and excite — to innovate in various ways that keep customers coming back to see what’s new.

How wine got in this situation is a long story that I will tell another time and whether wine should even enter the innovation wars is something that is hotly debated. Some new wine products have been criticized as “pop wines” that debase and therefore threaten the whole product category — not a view that I endorse, but I can understand the concern behind it.

So I was very interested in looking at innovation during my visit to Portugal and I found it in many different forms. I thought you might be interested in a little of what I discovered.

Port: No Wine Before Its Time

Port, which is arguably Portugal’s signature wine, is an example of a wine category that is both timeless and highly innovative.  Timeless in the sense that Port wines have in many ways remained much the same for several centuries. White Ports, Ruby Ports, Tawny Ports — in fundamental respects these are the same today as they were 100 or 200 years ago. Almost nothing is as traditional as Port, with its stenciled bottles and historic brands.

This is a plus and also a minus. The plus of course is brand recognition — only Champagne was a stronger brand than Port from a name recognition standpoint. But it’s a minus, too, because that brand, like Sherry, is wrongly associated with one-note sweet wines. Like Rodney Dangerfield, they sometimes don’t get the respect they deserve.

And it is a minus because the traditional Port wine styles are exercises in patience in a very impatient world. Tawny Ports must be held by the maker until they are mature in 10, 20 or even 40 years. That’s a lot of time to wait with the investment time clock running. Vintage Ports need time, too, but this time the buyer is expected to patiently wait for the wine to mature.

Time is Port’s friend because of what they do together in terms of the quality of the final product but, from an economic and market standpoint, time is also an inconvenient enemy and seemed to limit Port’s potential in the postwar years.

The answer to the time problem was an innovation that appeared in 1970, when Taylor Fladgate released their  1965 Late Bottled Vintage (LBV) Port.  LBV has the character of Vintage Port but is ready to drink when released, not 20 years later. It was not quite the Chateau Cash Flow killer app of the wine world, but it certainly breathed new life into the Port market at a moment when this was especially welcome. Some say that LBV saved the Port industry and I think this might be true.

Colorful Port

Red and white are the traditional colors of Port, but recently some makers have innovated to try to get the attention of younger consumers who have as little interest in their notion of grandfather’s Port as they do in their stereotype of granny’s Cream Sherry. Croft Pink Port and Quinta de Noval Black Port are examples of this innovative trend.

Pink Port is made in a Rosé style, with less skin contact and therefore fewer grippy tannins than Ruby Port. The Croft website is fully of cocktail ideas so perhaps this is a Pink Martini killer wine? Richard Hemmings, writing on the JancisRobinson.com website, makes the wine sound like an excellent option for the many Moscato lovers in your life.

97g/l RS, 4.2g/l TA. Raspberry juice, bubblegum, pink apples and fresh strawberries. Sweet and full on the palate, good concentration. Well balanced and smooth, creamy texture with a mouth-watering burst of fruit on the finish. Very good, not massively complex but a worthy product. (RH)

Noval Black is more traditional in style and color, with more of the tannins than the Pink. Less complex than my favorite LBVs, but interesting. I agree with the website’s chocolate pairing suggestions, although I haven’t tried any of the cocktail-type recipes. Here is Hemmings’ take on Noval Black:

Ruby reserve in style, with an average age of 2-3 years old. Aimed at younger consumers, as the flashy website attests! Fruity, jammy, figs and dates. Sweet and supple, with a glacé cherry flavour and a simple, satisfying style. (RH)

Product versus Process Innovation

So far I have focused on product innovation but I haven’t mentioned process innovation and that is a mistake ,as I learned from a winemaker during my stay in Porto.

George Sandeman of the famous Port & Sherry family invited me to taste through the Ferreira line of wines and Ports and of course the Sandeman Ports. How could I resist? Even better, we would be joined by Luis Sottomayor, Porto Ferreira’s award-winning winemaker.

The bottles and glassware filled the big table as we began to taste through the Casa Ferreirinha wines then the Ferreira and Sandeman Ports. The wines were eye-opening. From the most basic wines selling for just a few Euro on up to the super-premium products they were well-balance, distinctive and delicious. Not all the Portuguese wines that make it to the US market have these qualities.

I have a star in my notebook next to the entry for the Casa Ferreirinha Vinha Grande Red 2010, for example. A blend of classic Portuguese grape varieties from two Douro regions, it spent twelve months in second the third use oak. Easy drinking, soft tannins, nice finish, classy, well-made. Cost? About Euro 10. in the home market or $19.99 in the US.

“Delicious” I wrote next to the note for the Casa Ferreirinha Quita Da Leda Red, which comes from an estate vineyard just 1 kilometer from the Spanish border. It is the product of a small winery located within the company’s larger facility. Spectacular wine, special terroir, I wrote. US price is $64.99 and worth it.

As we tasted through the Ports I started to talk about innovation — Pink, Black and so on. Sottomayor stopped me in my tracks. If you want to really understand innovation in Portugal, he said, you have to look beyond new products to the work that is being done to improve the process in the vineyard and the cellar. This is where the real gains are, as seen in the table wines I had just tasted and the Ports I was about to sample.

Taste this LBV, Sottomayor said. The LBVs we make today are of the same quality as the Vintage Ports we made 15 years ago. And the Vintage Ports are that much better, too.  New products are part of the story of Portuguese wine innovation, but improved winegrowing and winemaking are just as important now and probably more important in the long run. Lesson learned!

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I came away from the tasting described above both richer and poorer. Richer because Sottomayor’s lesson about innovation will save me some money — as much as I enjoy Vintage Port and will continue to buy it, I now have LBV centered on my radar screen and it sells for a good deal less.

And poorer? Well, Sandeman and Sottomayor set up a little experiment for me, first letting me taste their 10-year old Tawny Ports and then the 20-year-olds. We like the 20s, George Sandeman said, because you can taste where they’ve been (the 10-year old wines) and also where they are going  (the 40-year old Tawny that I tasted next). The tension between youth and old age makes the 20-year old Tawny particularly interesting, he said.

And I am sad to say that I could taste exactly what he was describing. Sad? Yes, because 20-year old Tawny costs a good deal more than the 10 and for the rest of my life I am going to be paying that extra sum!

Congratulations to George and Luis on the great ratings that their 2011 Vintage Ports have received! And thanks to them and to Joana Pais for their help and hospitality.

Anatomy of Australia’s New Wine Strategy

October 29, 2013 By in Australian wine, Italian wine, popular culture, wine brands 3 Comments

Click on the image to view one of the Restaurant Australia videos.

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In my last column I talked about Australian wine’s plans to re-brand itself on the global market through an integrated food-wine-tourism campaign called “Restaurant Australia.”  Delegates to Savour Australia were treated to four specially produced videos  (click on the image above to see one of them) that introduced the concept and, not coincidentally, also introduced the chefs and purveyors who would be providing some of our (delicious) meals over the next few days.

Beyond Sensory Overload

The audience seemed to pause, slightly stunned, after each video. At first I thought that it was just sensory overload. And it was. The stunning images presented on the big screen with rich surround sound was an intense experience, to be sure. The fact that we experienced it all again later, meeting the chefs, tasting the produce– that was intense too.

But now that I am back home and reflecting on the experience, I think that perhaps we also paused for a different reason. The whole purpose of our gathering was wine. We had journeyed long miles to Adelaide to see and hear Australia tell its wine story. But where’s the wine?

Yes, wine and a winemaker appeared in each video, but they seemed a bit of an add-on rather than the featured element of the message. What would happen if you left out the wine ? Nothing much else would change. Is that the way we want people to think about Australian wine — an afterthought in the grand “Restaurant Australia” concept?

Now There’s Your Problem

Obviously not — and it would be a mistake to judge the marketing campaign by a few introductory videos. But, as I thought about it, I began to recognize that it was related to a bigger problem.

One of the chapters in Extreme Wine is about wine and modern media — I call it Extreme Wine Goes to the Movies — and it concludes in part that wine’s inherent sensuousness seems to be difficult to translate to video. Yes, wine famously unlocks all the physical senses and a few of the mental ones, too. But it is an experience good. Like fly fishing and some other things you might be able to think of, its more fun to do than to watch someone else do.

That’s why there are surprisingly few films where wine plays a really central role. There are a few excellent ones (Sideways fans please put down your pitchforks!) but you’d really expect there to be far more than I found in my research. Food, on the other hand, seems to be something that video can capture very well. Does watching someone drink wine in a movie make you thirsty? Maybe. Does watching a celebrity chef eat a delicious dish make you hungry? You bet it does!

Hungry?

No doubt about it. Wine’s magic is difficult to capture on the silver screen (or that little screen on your tablet or smartphone). That’s why we have Master Chef but not Master Enologist.  There are rock stars in wine, but they don’t generally transcend the wine category the way the foodie celebrities increasingly do.

Wine Porn versus Food Porn

My foodie friends are always taking X-rated “food porn” photos of the the plates they are served at fancy restaurants. But my wino buddies generally don’t bother to snap “wine porn” images of their glasses (although I admit to some G-rated bottle/label shots myself).

Assume that I’m correct about this for a moment (or, better yet, grab a copy of Extreme Wine and read a more detailed account, which uses Sideways to show why really powerful wine films are so rare). Given video’s undeniable importance in communications today, what is wine to do? Well, one answer is to do what Australia wine seems to be doing, which is use what works (the foodie side of the campaign) to drive the message.  They call it “Restaurant Australia,” but I have a better name.

Strongest Brand in the World?

I call it The Italian Way. What region has the strongest generic wine brand? Well, here in the United States I would say that it is Italy (although France can make a claim because of Champagne’s powerful brand). Americans love everything about Italy — the food, the people, the art, the scenery, the food again, and now with the new Fiat 500, even the cars.

Americans love Italian (or sometimes Italian-style) coffee. And they love Italian wine. Just the fact that it’s from Italy gives it an automatic advantage at supermarkets, restaurants and wine shops.

It seems to me that “Restaurant Australia” aims to get Americans to love warm, friendly Australia in the same way that they have always loved warm, friendly Italy. A good idea? Yes. But not easy to do. If it was easy to achieve Italy’s reputation, everyone would do it. But it is worth trying. Australia has authenticity in its favor — it really is warm and friendly and the food and wine you can find there really are great– and that’s worth a lot.

Is it the only way to re-brand Australian wine? No — tune in next week for my report on another approach to this problem.

Restaurant Australia: Re-Branding Australia (and Australian Wine)

October 22, 2013 By in Australian wine, globalization, popular culture, wine brands 1 Comment

Click on the image to see a “Restaurant Australia” video.

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I’m back from Australia, where I spoke at Savour Australia 2013 (click here to view my presentation). The purpose of Savour Australia was to re-launch Brand Australia wine on the global market by bringing together about 700 domestic and international delegates and rolling out an integrated marketing plan that combined Australian food, wine and tourism.

Savour Australia was quite an intense and impressive global gathering and I am still trying to process all my experiences both at the conference and in independent travels (scroll down to see a brief list of extreme wine moments). I’ll be analyzing what I think I’ve learned over the next several weeks.

Food Stars, Porn Stars, Rock Stars

“Restaurant Australia” is the proposed new brand and you can perhaps best appreciate how its elements connect by clicking on the image above and watching the short video that appears. The basic idea is that food and wine have become much more important tourism drivers. Nature (think Grand Canyon) and culture (think Italian Renaissance art and architecture) are still important draws, but increasingly travelers seek out fine wines, great restaurants and cult foodie experiences. Then they become brand ambassadors, spreading the word across the internet and around the world.

This sea change should not come as a surprise. As I wrote in Wine Wars, this is an effect of the growing popularity of foodie television shows and networks, like the insanely popular international Top Chef and Master Chef series and the rise of foodie celebrities such as Jamie Oliver, Nigella Lawson, Anthony Bourdain and so on. Seriously, food stars get more exposure than porn stars and are sometimes more popular than rock stars (“rock star” being the gold standard for pop culture status).

The food’s the thing, don’t you know? The Australians are smart to realize this and to try to recast their image around it.

Shrimp on the Barbie

But they don’t start the process of re-branding with a clean slate (or clean plate, I suppose). For many people here in the United States, Australian cuisine is defined by Crocodile Dundee and Outback Steakhouse. Paul Hogan, the actor who portrayed the famous Crocodile Dundee character in the films, was featured some years ago in an Australian tourist campaign that generated the memorable line “throw another shrimp on the barbie.” Australian food (and culture generally) is warm and generous, if not particularly sophisticated according to this approach. A good image then (and Australians sure are warm and generous), but not especially useful now. The game’s changed.

For better or worse, Outback Steakhouse’s popularity has reinforced this idea of Australian food culture. Outback is a meat and potatoes kind of place, although I see they now also feature grilled chicken “on the barbie.” It’s signature menu item is a “bloomin” deep fried onion appetizer. Tasty, I bet,  but not really haute cuisine.

So the Australians have their work cut out for them and the videos we saw at Savour Australia (and the great food and wine we enjoyed there) suggest that they have both great raw materials to work with and a sophisticated understanding of the story-telling necessary to make their strategy work. Click here to view videos from Savour Australia, including four stunning chef-centered  “Restaurant Australia” themed videos.

Terroirist Revenge Strategy

I’m a big fan of this approach, as I told my Adelaide audience, because it fits very well into the analysis I presented in Wine Wars. I didn’t have Australia in mind when I wrote that book, but its argument fits the great land down under very well. Australian wine has experienced the double-edged sword of globalization and the problems of over-simplified marketing messages (these are the “Curse of the Blue Nun” and the “Miracle of Two Buck Chuck” of the book’s subtitle).

Now, I think, they need to channel their inner terroirists and tell a more sophisticated story that draws upon, to use a catch phrase of the Restaurant Australia campaign, the people, places and produce of their land. (People, place and produce is not a bad definition of terroir).

Will it work? Will “Restaurant Australia” be able to launch Australian wine on a new path? Come back next week for more analysis.

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Australia 2013: Memorable Moments

Herewith a few memorable moments from our trip, some of this will be featured in future Wine Economist columns.

  • A festive wine dinner with Australia’s First Families of Wine, an association of Australian producers who are doing their level best to change the way the world sees Australian wines.
  • A fabulous tasting of Australian wines from the Yalumba Wine Museum (I guarantee you will be jealous when you hear about the wines we sampled).
  • Wine writer and broadcaster Michael Hince and his wife Amanda  invited us to a dinner in Melbourne where they showed off wines from Victoria. It was a really spectacular demonstration. Wow! You can read Michael’s account of the wines and the dinner here.
  • Great hospitality during our time in the Barossa Valley, with memorable visits to Rockford, Torbreck, Hentley Farms and Charles Melton.
  • My wine economics colleague Kym Anderson gave us a memorable tour of his Adelaide Hills region (highlights: Ashton Hills Vineyards for the Rieslings and Pinot Noir and Hahndorf  Hill Winery for Gruner Veltliner and Blaufrankisch) and sent us to Seppeltsfield winery in Barossa, where we happily immersed ourselves in Australian wine history.
  • Tasting and talking with Peter Althaus at his Domaine A winery near historic Richmond, Tasmania (and staying at Tara’s Richmond Farmstay).
  • The fabulous family-style long-table winemaker lunches at Savour Australia. Outstanding food, wine and conversation.
  • Working (not just attending) the Wednesday “Grand Tasting”. Prue and Stephen Henschke let me pour their fabulous wines (including Hill of Grace)  for about 90 minutes so that I could see the conference and the delegates from the other side of the table.  What a treat!

Pawn Star Wine

October 10, 2013 By in extreme wine, popular culture, Shameless Self-Promotion, wine investment Leave a comment


It’s been a busy week so far. My new book Extreme Wine has just been released. Sue and I traveled to Portland, Oregon for the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association trade show where I autographed 75 copies of Extreme Wine in 75 minutes before we ran out of books.

And now Wine-Searcher.com has published my latest column on fine wine investment. Click here to read the article, which is called “Pawn Shop Solutions for Wine Investors.”

My column has an unexpected “hook:” a 2010 episode of the U.S. television show “Pawn Stars” that featured a bottle of 1921 Dom Perignon. You’ll have to read the article to get the whole story, but basically I use this example as a way to talk about how investing in wine is different, in terms of financial economics, from other types of investments. It’s an unlikely approach, but I think it works.

We so often hear about the benefits of wine investments or the problems with it in only a very general way. I’m interested in doing more serious comparative analysis, while keeping the mood light. If you’ve seen the show “Pawn Stars” you know that you can actually learn a lot of history through its often funny “reality TV” stories. My column also comments and reports on some recent trends in wine investment.

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Hope you’ll check out my column. Here’s a photo from the Portland book event. Great to see all of independent booksellers (God bless them!), publishers, authors and volunteers (bless them, too) in Portland.

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