The Latest…
My most recent columns and articles:
In BLOOMBERG NEWS:
Wines Targeting Women Are Long on Legs, Short on Flavor
May 14, 2012 – Freud struggled to find an answer to the question “What does a woman want?” Ninety-odd years later, some in the wine industry think they know.
Really?
According to the new “girly-wine” brand marketers, we want to be skinny, to toss our hair playfully like ponies as we pick our bottles to match moods, not foods. We also crave an easy-sipping flavor profile with a naughty edge of sweetness.
High-heeled shoes star in our fantasies. Well, maybe they got that one right. But aren’t Canadian wine maker Strut’s labels featuring photos of long, shapely, perfect legs emerging from short skirts a guy fantasy?
Just looking at them makes me want to forget about drinking and head for the gym….
In BLOOMBERG MARKETS:
May, 2012 – Importer and restaurateur Paulo Kin Yee Pong has been foment- ing change in Hong Kong’s rapidly evolving wine world for more than a decade, since he was 24. Now 35, he recently launched another innovative venture: regionally themed wine shops named Bordeaux Etc and Champagne Etc that are one more indication of what a sophisticated wine destination this city has become.
“The Etc stands for my idea of what a wine store should do: endear, tease, cultivate,” Pong said when I stopped by his high-rise office in November. In a hand-tailored dark suit and black- rimmed glasses, Pong was getting ready for the December opening of the shops. Afternoons were spent on-site, tweaking architectural plans, checking plastering and choosing which wines from his own extensive collection he would add to the inventory….
In SOMMELIER JOURNAL:
Parker’s legacy will endure
April 15, 2012 – Now that Robert Parker, long considered the world’s wine guru, is approaching retirement age—he’ll be 65 in July—it’s an appropriate time to assess what his legacy is likely to be.
The industry has changed dramatically since Parker launched his newsletter The Wine Advocate in 1978. And since 2005, when my critical biography of him, The Emperor of Wine,was published, he has spun off many of the regions whose wines he once regularly reviewed—and influenced—to his new hires: Antonio Galloni; Neal Martin; Lisa Perrotti-Brown, MW; David Schildknecht; Mark Squires; and the controversial Jay Miller, who recently stepped down. Only Bordeaux and the Rhône Valley remain completely under his sway. At the WineFuture 2011 conference in Hong Kong last November, Parker himself acknowledged that he was not as influential as he was a decade ago. Which aspects of his influence will endure…?
In DRINKS BUSINESS HONG KONG:
April, 2012 (DBHK)– As auction gavels now bang down record prices for top Burgundies, it’s worth pondering just where California’s sought-after bottles fit in today’s volatile wine auction scene. Any chance they could become the next hot category?
After perusing sale catalogues and canvassing collectors and auction directors, it’s clear that the secondary market for Californian wine is more complicated and divided than one might think. And so far, with only a few exceptions, it is firmly centred in the US, and especially at auctions held in California….
In ZESTERDAILY:
Elin McCoy’s Wine of the Week: 2011 Wrath Ex Anima Sauvignon Blanc
May 21, 2012 – Just before dinner, I open wine samples that have recently arrived, hunting for something impressive. All too often the California Sauvignon Blancs seem ho-hum, with none of the snappy flavors that make the varietal fabulous with seafood. This classic 2011 Wrath Ex Anima Sauvignon Blanc is one of the exceptions. With herbal aromas, tart gooseberry fruit, flinty minerality and plenty of structure, it’s like New Zealand meets the Loire Valley in the same bottle. And it was great with a stir-fry of shrimp and bok choy.
Michael Thomas and his family bought the 72-acre San Saba vineyard in Monterey County back in late 2007 and have rapidly transformed its viticulture. The estate is just below the Santa Lucia Highlands, where cool morning fog rolls in from the Pacific. Add in little rainfall and a very long growing season, and you have the conditions to make a ripe Sauvignon Blanc that still has zing and balance. Like other wines in Wrath’s Ex Anima line, it’s neither fermented nor aged in oak….
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