Free Running Wine Blog with Kevin Ecock

Retailer Wine Fairs and Local Wine Writing

2012-02-02T17:30:00.000Z

I met a wine writer this week. He mentioned that he was constantly being approached, and asked by their owners, to write about Ireland's small stores and their wines. The criticism was well founded. He tended to concentrate on nationally available wines and therefore, without meaning to, spent a lot of his precious column inches promoting supermarkets! Without visiting all of the small stores on a regular basis though our well meaning writer couldn't see how anything could be any different. It would certainly be disingenuous to pretend familiarity, or to suggest wines as if he had a feeling for local tastes, so last year he asked far and wide for samples to be sent in to him every now and then. That way he could visit promising leads. Almost nothing came his way. Two or three replies at most. This is understandable. Who wants to give away product with no promise of a benefit in return?

One solution to this difficulty is that local newspapers employ local wine writers. Sounds simple but its not always the case.

Another, and more useful solution is to form loose, local marketing committees with all of your competitors. How much would it cost to run a regional Retailers Wine Fair? Nothing at all. It would pay for itself and I dare any serious national wine writer to ignore it! Pay their basic expenses - train and lunch should do it.

Come Visit Me

Finally, do something. Your Wine Trade Needs You.

It is just not good enough any longer to simply approach wine writers and expect them to either have magic wands or brilliant solutions. They have their own agenda. If you want to use them then slot in and help out. They may be independent and objective but on the whole they are not time rich, independently wealthy or constantly developing bright new ideas. On the contrary these attributes very often apply to the trade they are reporting on and not the other way around!

Don't be Afraid of your Competitors

Lower Alcohol in Wine - Lent's a coming

2012-02-01T17:49:00.000Z

In my December Checkout column I made a number of predictions. One was that reduced alcohol in wine would be a feature of our wine shelves in 2012. I didn't for one minute think that this would arrive as soon as the third week of January! Recently Tesco pushed out a number of new labels at 5.5% vol. The fact that some of these are not technically wine at all* shouldn't take way from the debate as to whether reduced alcohol ie 5.5% is the answer to unacceptably high alcohol ie 13%+! (*The EU won't let you reduce alcohol from a wine to below 9%vol and still call it wine - so these are 'beverages')

Brilliant description of something that cannot be called a wine!

Let's go back to basics. Alcohol in wine is the result of fermentation. Sugar and yeast = alcohol. Warm climates, ripe grapes, healthy vintage, grape type, grape site, clean vineyard, educated winemakers, yeast type, demanding consumers (heaven forbid!), stylistic preferences, fashion and on and on .....All of these have had an affect on why alcohol has risen in wines over the past number of years. I think though that a clean, healthy and scientifically managed vineyard has meant an inevitable rise. No-one really minds so long as the final product has an acceptable balance between all of its elements. This isn't really possible when the increase just keeps going higher and higher .. At some point it's out of whack. That's usually when the final fruits have a raisiny effect (appeal?) or where one glass gets you bombed!

The reverse to all of this is also true. Cool climates give lower sugars leading to lower alcohols. Probably the best examples of these have been fully ripened Riesling grapes out of Germany producing quite brilliant 7.5 to 8% wines. Are these low alcohol? Yes they are. Why then are 5.5% wines needed at all? Indeed if we ignore the technological nature of reducing alcohols in wine why don't we see 9 or 10% wines? These will, after all, be a lot lower than 14% which seem to grace every shelf these days.

Beware of a category that's still trying to work out what price is going to work!

Two wines in Superquinn caught my eye at their French Wine Sale last autumn. They were both naturally 9%vol, from the Loire and had been labelled as being lower in alcohol. These were the two under performers in an otherwise 'better than ever' Annual French Wine Sale. Superquinn Wine Buyer, Richard Moriarty put the poor performance down to the fact that he had highlighted the lower alcohol with a sticker on the bottle. Perhaps the consumer doesn't want high alcohols but equally doesn't want to be told the alcohol is lower than the norm as this sounds a bit like being told to be temperate?

By the by, the two wines in question perform very differently to having a 9%vol. The red was a Merlot/Cabernet and it tasted flat, juicy and very uninteresting as a wine. The white was a Chardonnay Sauvignon blend and had a zing to it that lasted well through the palate. I'd buy the white again but pass on the red.

Superquinn had a very successful Autumn French Wine Sale

Back to Tesco at 5.5%. There's nothing new here. Most Lambrusco's from Italy arrive into Ireland at 5.5%
This allows them to avail of a lower excise taxation band. Back in the 1990's when this wasn't possible, because the taxation bands were different, most Lambrusco's came in at about 7 to 9%vol. The reduction to 5.5% therefore had nothing to do with healthiness or indeed wine balance. It was all to do with being able to sell wine at a very inexpensive price point. Lambrusco's are still here. They retail at about €2.50. They don't sell that much at all.

I haven't tried any of these yet but I have to admit they look the biz.

Tesco's new range include a very odd and frizzante (slightly sparkling) pairing called Sovio. The pair consists of a White Zinfandel (ie pink) and a Chardonnay. Both are light and drink well. These sold recently at €3.00 a bottle. Nothing wrong with that. It's an accurate price. I say odd because most of the rest of the new low alcohol 'wines' sell at a much higher price. With a very low tax rate these 'wines' sell at a higher price than fully taxed wines. Interesting to note at this stage that a pretty good example of a fully sparkling product from South Africa, First Cape Cafe Collection Sparkling, selling at €7.99 is apparently being priced out of the market. When it was launched into Ireland it had high hopes of cleaning up as the lowest priced sparkler around! Price points are shifting beasts. At the time I wrote a blog piece, titled First Cape Low Alcohol Sparklers, about spinning cone technology showing how the alcohol had been reduced.

Two that didn't disappoint - remember these are not wines.

On the subject of pricing Miguel Torres has just added a red wine to his Natureo de-alcoholised range. (The white is a fabulous drink - Muscat and freshly ripened grape tastes). These are just 0.5%vol, so no excise at all! It sells at €6.99. Unless the de-alcoholising process is very, very, expensive it seems that we are being asked to pay a premium for drinking something that tastes like wine, but can't be called wine so that we can all be healthy and well! It really is all a bit wacky. By the by, Torres has a bit of a problem using words other than 'wine' to describe Natureo. One line of their info sheet states that Natureo Red is a wine adapted to today’s social needs and that this is The perfect choice for those who, for a specific reason, have decided to do without alcohol and want to enjoy the pleasure of having a good glass of wine. Then the press release tags an info point to editors: Pleasenote Natureo is a de-alcoholised beverage, so legally it cannot be consideredas wine.

There are other low alcohol/de-alcoholised products out there. Carl Jung comes to mind. Most taste a little like fruit juice. Some don't taste as good as that. As with most things if you can Try Before You Buy then you won't be fooled. If your'e comfortable paying a premium price then enjoy it. It's a category in its infancy and it will grow much bigger this year. Does it have legs? Ah, but then it's not a wine you know!.

Wine Australia hosts Irish Sommeliers - in Australia

2012-02-01T11:41:00.001Z

If the first rule of successful marketing is to be creative then John McDonnell of Wine Australia in Ireland deserves credit for constantly coming up with new ways to get his message across.

Recently John ran a 'Wine Australia Ireland Sommelier Course' and now three participants from that course will travel to Australia in April for two weeks to visit some of it’s wine producers and vineyard regions. Three truly excellent sommeliers can now bring real life experiences back to us and along with themselves for the rest of their careers. Winners all round.

John's press release tells us that:

John Hoade (Beaufield Mews, Dublin), Anke Hartmann (The Cliff House, Waterford) and Damian Corr (The Cellar Restaurant, Dublin) attended a 6 session course. It was hosted once a month by Wine Australia Ireland. The aim of the course was to give guests a greater understanding of the wines, people and regions that make up the Australian wine community.

The winners were selected on the basis of their attendance and participation on the course and on completing a 3 section exam.

On being selected John Hoade said, I am absolutely thrilled about the prospect of going “Down Under”. I am very excited to have the chance to visit the regions and wineries first hand, and to be meeting the winemakers and craftsmen, face to face. I’m really looking forward to sharing the trip with like minded enthusiasts.

Anke Hartmann added, This Wine Australia Sommelier Course has given me a much deeper understanding of the superb range of wines being made in this most diverse country. I am so thrilled to have the wonderful opportunity to meet the people behind it within their environment. A privileged experience to be shared with my guests, colleagues and friends on my return.

The Cliff House 5 * Dining

While Damian Corr pondered, Could Australia be the most diverse wine producing country in the world? From old vines to ancient soils, cool climate to Mediterranean like vineyards, 170 years of tradition yet modern and innovative, its got lots to offer. Wine Australia’s course has re-confirmed for me the quality and diversity of wines produced Down Under. I’m really looking forward to doing more research in April.

The Cellar at The Merrion Hotel : Photo from Good Food Ireland

Wine Australia’s John Mc Donnell, host of the course said, This is the first time we have run this course in Ireland and we have been thrilled with the quality and enthusiasm of the guests who have joined us. Unfortunately we couldn’t take all to Australia, but I’ll be delighted to introduce Anke, John and Damian to the Australian wine community in April.

l-r Christie Schulz, John Hoade, Anke Hartmann, John McDonnell and Damian Corr

Lightweight Bottles and a Brilliant South American Wine Workshop

2012-01-19T13:25:00.000Z

Thanks to Yali for following up on my recent post re 'lightweight' bottles that are not really lightweight at all. They tell me that they now have their bottles down to 335grams. Now that is genuinely lightweight. Well done to them. Yali is a winery that has signed up to Chile's Sustainability Programme. Last year I had the pleasure of interviewing Yali wine maker Alejandro Galaz for Checkout magazine. (Yali wines are widely distributed via the Barry Group, Pallas Foods and Tesco). At the time he told me that, "We (Vina Ventisquero) own our own land and so we can keep production costs low and keep quality levels high." So, even though they have the ability to keep their costs low they still went ahead and reduced their bottle weight. Why bother when light bottles are harder to sell?

Without meaning to mix my wineries I asked this very question earlier this week to Elena Carratero, Director of Corporate Affairs & Sustainability at Santa Rita Estates. Elena was part of a travelling team of experts to a South American Wine Workshop in London hosted by Santa Rita Estates. The workshop was quite brilliant. (The Expert line-up included, Silvio Rostagno CEO Santa Rita Estates, world renowned Brian Croser, Tim Atkin MW, Richard Bampfield MW, Peter Richards MW, Santa Rita Head Winemakers Cecilia Torres and Andres Ilabaca, Carmen Head Winemaker Sebastian Labbe and the ever brilliant Edgardo del Popolo Head Winemaker from Dona Paula in Argentina. Lots and lots more about this in later posts because it really was a genuinely brilliant forum.)

A Happy Pairing: Brian Croser on the left with Silvio Rostagno in London this week

Within this context - ! phew - Elena told me that wine packaging will generally account for 40% of a wines carbon footprint. 40% is a very high number. I had thought that transport from South America would account for at least this amount. Not even close. Elena agrees that reducing bottle weight reduces carbon feet via transport charges but only by a small percentage. If a winery is serious it seems that it needs to go the full hog and have it's bottles made as efficiently as possible, made as light as possible and still keep them as strong as possible.This weekend I reckon I'll weigh a few more bottles. Let's see if we can get down to that 335 grams!

By the by, Santa Rita Estates is the first of the largest wine groups in Chile to achieve certification as a Certified Sustainable Wine of Chile. Not bad for a company farming 4,000 hectares of vines!

When is a bottle Lightweight?

2012-01-16T11:28:00.002Z

I was intrigued by a sticker on Casillera del Diablo bottles that state the following:

So, I weighed three similarly priced bottles. Each bottle had been bottled at source. Each bottle was empty.

Research Result 1 : Los Cardos Cabernet Sauvignon 2010, Mendoza, Argentina

600grams

Research Result 2 : Spy Mountain Sauvignon Blanc 2011 : Marlborough, New Zealand

450grams

Research Result 3 : Casillera del Diablo Cabernet Sauvignon 2010 : Valle Central Chile

500grams

Now everyone, even the more astute of you, will have noticed that the Casillero bottle carries the sticker. It is by no means the lightest bottle in my tiny sample.

The question posed here is whether it is good enough to use such a sticker to sell a product when all you have done is make the situation better. Surely the idea behind Chile's, and others', Sustainability programmes is not to simply make little improvements here and there but to make the situation as good as possible?

In this instance then, am I being reasonable when I ask whether Concha y Toro could have made the bottle as light as the Spy Mountain bottle or am I being unreasonable as they could have easily left it as heavy as the Los Cardos one?

Fraudulent Research into Benefits of Red Wine?

2012-01-16T10:57:00.000Z

This is interesting. Can there be anything worse than someone stealing the photos from your blog? Well, once I heard my previously published description of a wine being broadcast on the radio by someone else who was supposed to be tasting that very wine live on air!!

A colleague passed a piece from the NY Times along to me this morning. How often do we take a small piece (of a small piece) of published 'research' and use it to 'prove ' a point! All of the time is the answer. How can we possibly know that all we are doing is shovelling someone else's spin along?

I suppose the point is, we may have to do everything (or at least a lot more research) ourselves after all!

US: University suspects fraud by wine researcher

15 January 2012
Issue: 204

A charge of widespread scientific fraud, involving 26 articles published in 11 journals, was levelled by the University of Connecticut last week against Dipak K Das, one of its researchers whose work reported health benefits of red wine, writes Nicholas Wade for The New York Times.

Many of the articles reported positive effects from resveratrol, an ingredient of red wine thought to promote longevity in laboratory animals. The charges, if verified, seem unlikely to affect the field of resveratrol research itself, because Das's work was peripheral to its central principles, several of which are in contention.

"Today I had to look up who he is. His papers are mostly in specialty journals," said David Sinclair, a leading resveratrol expert at the Harvard Medical School. The significance of the case seems more to reflect on the general system of apportioning research money.
Full report on The New York Times site

My own new cool piece of Research involves three empty bottles of wine. One of them has a lovely green sticker on it announcing a Carbon Footprint Reduction. As this has nothing to do with fraud I'll save my results for my next blog - see how easy it is to mix things up without meaning to? This blog will google as wine and fraud and possibly as wine and footprint reduction also! Imagine how much more difficult it must be to do it on purpose and yet that is exactly what is going on all of the time. It's called spin.

Over the weekend a columnist at the Sunday Business Post wrote in its magazine that Minister Roisin Shortall at the Dept of Health was possibly not using the numbers at her disposal to seek the truth as much as she was using them to prove a point. Are the Irish drinking too much wine at home? This was the question posed. I predict that this will soon become THE QUESTION OF THE WINE YEAR and I can guarantee that 'research' will be quoted and bent to suit the prevailing wind ....... I liked the tone of the column in the Biz Post by the way and it does add to the debate by asking relevant questions.

Minister Shortall aksing the Questions: photo from thejournal.ie

I'll be back to this soon, because I feel its really important that we recognise the pitfalls of low price points For now I'll nail my colours to the bottle and say that anyone purposefully engaged in lowering price points below previous lowest price points should also accept responsibility for what this causes in society. This may be happiness. It may be enjoyment and added longevity to our short lives! Aren't these used by the trade as reasons for selling wine in the first place? They may equally be liver damage, Anti Social Behaviour and chronic suburban drunkenness. As I say accept full responsibility and stop picking out the ones that suit. On this note I must also say that I am sick to death with the wine trade asking whether anyone has drunk a bottle of wine with friends and then gone on a rampage through the town? ie we're wine drinkers, not lager heads or vodka fiends ..... that sort of a question is as idiotic as misquoted statistics and fraudulent research.

The Corkscrew is now a Wine Warehouse also!

2012-01-11T19:24:00.000Z

I received an email this week from those impressive people down at The Corkscrew on Chatham Street. It began with the statement, ' Asyou may know, we have a new Warehouse business in the KCR Business Park, Ravensdale Park,Dublin 12 ..'

As it happens I had no idea they had any such thing! I put my ignorance down to Christmas, bolted myself into my trusty wine carrier and headed straight on down. I had to see for myself because the rest of the email detailed a host of very tempting sale items. More on these below. No, I headed down because I had an idea that I'd meet up with Peter Foley.

I knew that Peter had left Cassidy Wines late last year. His son is the Corkscrew and as wonderful as that store is I just could not see Peter heading back behind the counter - not that there wouldn't be room. Peter is probably the best wine sales person I've come across in the last 25 years a lookin'. He's also a restless spirit and I couldn't see him retiring either. So 2+2 equals warehouse? Not really. 2+2 still equals 4.

I'll write up the 'Peter Foley Story' for Checkout magazine soon but he told me today that the warehouse was meant to be a storage facility. It was set up to service the online, wholesale and delivery facilities for the city centre store. As such it's a relatively modest affair. It was 'found' by a number of local businesses before the Christmas who were thrilled to have a 'Wine Warehouse' on their doorstep - one thing led to another (an Irish thing!) and it's now no longer simply a storage warehouse, it's a selling one also.

The wine selection is fantastic and this Friday and Saturday (10.30 to 5.30 tel: 016745731) everything will be reduced by a whopping 23% - that's VAT free for those of us who remembered to charge the new rate from Jan one.

So, the press release is entirely accurate, and worth noting, when it goes on to tell us that,

Pelissero Le Nature was €14.95 now €11.95

This was one of the surprise stars of the Wine Fair is thisblend of Nebbiolo and Barbera from the seiously good winery of GeorigioPelissero.

Maui Sauvignon Blanc: €60 for 6 bottle case (save €17)

Our best selling Kiwi from family owned sustainable vineyards,this is a reappearance of this winning wine and it's now even cheaper.

On my short visit I saw wines with tags as low as €4.50 but I'll tell you I also saw the range of wines from Domaine de la Vougeraie, an eclectic bunch of vintages from Marimar Torres in California, a super range of Portuguese and even odd labels I wasn't supposed to see! Keep your eyes open and bag a real bargain this is a good addition to the wine retail space in Dublin.

Support your Local Wine Merchant and Have a Happy Christmas.

2011-12-21T11:27:00.004Z

As I wandered across a number of independent wine stores recently I was struck by the quality and depth of their wine selections. Every one of them offered excellent value and service, free car parking and expert advice. Despite all of these there is no guarantee that they can survive the extraordinary competition they face from supermarkets who lead on price - and very little else. (I wait with bated breath to see whether below cost selling is in some way brought under control.)

The Silver Granite in Palmerstown, Dublin. A true classic.

Wine Trade Number 1 : Price and commodity come first

Wine Trade Number 2 : Wine and customer come first

I hope that both of these survive simply because Wine Trade Number 1 is not going to go away!

Number 2 is the independent trade with a few on-line stores thrown in. I have nothing against on-line and can strongly recommend www.WineOnline.ie, www.curiouswines.ie and www.rednosewines.ie and www.simplywines.ie and many others. They do, however,lack the one ingredient that separates 'commodity buying' from 'wine buying' - people!

Nice to see an old pal back again - Cousino Macul Antiguas Reservas from Chile

Chat and talk and touchy feely. Let's face it the commodity aspect of selling wine by the supermarkets is highlighting the fact that there are two very distinct wine customers in Ireland today. The first buys wine to drink as a beverage and as a lifestyle choice. In this case wine is fun, enjoyable, accessible and often bought by price, varietal and country of origin.

The second customer type wants all of this and more. He/she wants to know what is being bought, wants to be educated either by the wine, the wine trade or both, appreciates a wide selection of wine types to choose from and understands that style in a wine means a lot more than discriminating according to grape type and climate. These customers are the future for the independent wine trade of Ireland and to be honest have often been allowed to wander away to the local multiple grocer's wine shelves far too easily.

Christmas is here. Grab a bottle of wine from wherever but if you want to go back and have a word or two about what you've bought, and maybe move around and explore your palate and it's unique relationship to the world of wine, then it must be with a wine store where people work, where people can talk back to you with energy, enthusiasm and knowledge, and above all where these same people have actually chosen the wines they are selling!!

Vesevo Greco di Tufa beside Franz Haas - brilliant

Last night at the Athletics Club here in Celbridge I was encouraged by the number of athletes who were asking me for advice as to what to buy over the next few days. Queries ranged from Red Sparkling to up market Sauvignon Blanc (€20+), across to sparkling (other than Prosecco! try Champagne?.....) and away with the fairies (or into the future?) as someone wants to find some new Chinese labels this side of Christmas. Try a Cabernet Gernischt or is that here yet? Must drop down to my local and find out.........

The Gaffer - now I know I'm in the right store!