boozenews.ca

By Paul Mitchell
http://www.bottleshockthemovie.com/


There are few really good movies about drinks. Sure, there are plenty of teenage angst films where the characters get bombed or where alcohol plays a large part of the humour, but these are not the movies that we need to consider. Sideways was a surprise hit that educated people about wine while it entertained with an interesting story. Cocktail tried to highlight (with mixed results) the bartending business, much like Waiting did with the restaurant trade. Alcohol and drinks were the focus of Swingers, but that movie is a classic for different reasons (“drinks first, questions later”).

I was pleasantly surprised then when I heard about and finally watched Bottle Shock. A great movie that treats the subject of wine with respect, it informs as well as entertains featuring some of the most incredible cinematography in recent years.

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By Paul Mitchell



This past weekend, I was fortunate to enjoy a variety of sauvignon blancs from New Zealand. The small island country has gained a worldwide reputation as producing some of the best in the world, and the sampling I undertook confirmed the reasons why they have deservedly done so. My local Vintages store has built up quite a selection so the three bottles I purchased were a good cross section of price and styles. For your interest, I am pleased to present three incredible examples of sauvignon blanc from New Zealand that represent the best the country has to offer.

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Ranked by Paul Mitchell
(Canadian Wineries Combining Top Scores and Great Prices)

For a change, I thought I would list some great deals on wine available directly from the winery or from your local Canadian retailer. It is good to see a good range of older established wineries along with newer upstarts. The criteria was simply to have a good price (under $15.00 CDN for the most part) combined with a good score (at least an 85)... The results were surprising, but fun. Enjoy!

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By Paul Mitchell

The Belgians, it would seem, are extremely serious when it comes to their alcohol
Traditionally known for being brewers of the highest art, a country full of picturesque monasteries and monks toiling with as much devotion to their craft as to their faith. However, this small western European country has recently demonstrated an equally determined passion when it comes to wine.
A shipment of over 3,000 bottles of sparkling wine from California was destroying in an ongoing crackdown on improperly (and in Europe, illegally) labeled food and drink products. This recent incident is just one salvo in the global battle by authorities to enforce food and drink laws that help regional European brands. The efforts being made with label-of-origin laws and proprietary rights are to protect domestic producers who benefit from worldwide awareness and traditional exclusiveness.

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By Rod Phillips
There's been a lot written recently of the greying of the Canadian population. You know, people aged 60 and older make up a greater proportion of the population than ever before and the trend will continue.
Are there implications for wine? Apparently.
A few months ago, I had an e-mail from a reader concerning alcohol levels in wine. He wrote: "I began tasting wine semi-seriously back in the early 1970s. Red Bordeaux wines averaged around 12 per cent alcohol. My appreciation of wine has continued but ... somewhere along the way, I must have fallen into a black hole (or something) because the alcohol content is now around 13.5 to 14 per cent.
"Personally, while I like the taste of some shiraz and cabernets with 13.5 to 14 per cent alcohol, I would prefer less rather than more. Is this unreasonable? Where's the product line for the growing 55-plus demographic?" Alcohol levels in wine have risen, largely because wines from warm climates have begun to dominate the market. Australia, California, Chile and South Africa have their cool regions, for sure, but overall they are warmer than European wine regions.

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(AKH: I love this....)

WINE makers are given nearly £1 billion a year by Europe's taxpayers and produce vast amounts of wine that no-one wants to buy, a committee of peers said yesterday.
The regime of regulations and subsidies for European wine makers is "unsustainable" and should be reformed, the House of Lords European Union committee urged.
The committee warned that the EU was in danger of importing more wine than it exported and called for reforms to make Europe's vineyards more competitive against wines from South America, Australia and the US.
Lord Sewel, who chaired the inquiry, said producers were "out of touch" with what wine drinkers wanted.
SOURCE: http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=1144822007

By Geoff Cumming
The Portugese province of Alentejo is one of the country's main areas of cork production. Photo /
On midsummer mornings in Portugal's parched interior, the mercury starts at around 30C and keeps rising. Here in the Alentejo, inland from Lisbon, it gets so hot that human activity virtually ceases. As weeks pass with no rain nor respite, locals can do little else but seek shade and wait patiently for the summer to ebb. It's a way of life referred to by other Portuguese as Alentejo time.
These endless plains might well be uninhabited desert were it not for one remarkable specimen: the cork tree. The squat, slow-growing tree can cope with the fine-sand soils and sweltering heat, its umbrella canopy providing shade and sustenance for a thriving undergrowth of herbs and wild flowers and supporting hundreds of species of birds. The result is a surprisingly green landscape studded with small towns - and a cuisine enlivened by rosemary and oregano.

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(AKH: Surprise, surprise! Marketers take another opportunity to pawn shoddy goods off on a susceptible public clamouring for eco-friendly products because it is the latest “feel good” trend Watch for this brand to become a top seller at the LCBO. Marketers know their business well.)

By Gordon Stimmell
French producer Boisset has joined the PET (polyethylene terephthalate) parade. Wolf Blass was first to invade our market with spiffy plastic bottles, and Little Penguin and California producers have really tasty offerings. These plastic vessels look smaller, but hold a full 750 millilitres. It's nice to be able to drop the bottle and it bounces rather than breaks.
Boisset's new brand, called Yellow Jersey after the Tour de France, are wines sourced in the Vin de Pays D'Oc region. Boisset paid huge promotional bucks to the LCBO to launch this new label. While I love pretty packaging and catchy news releases, it's what's inside the bottle that counts.

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By Patrick Gower
The Wither Hills Sauvignon Blanc 2006 has been stripped of a gold medal by New Zealand's biggest wine show after a Weekend Herald inquiry revealed the wine submitted for judging was different from that on shop shelves.
The chief judge of the New Zealand International Wine Show, critic Bob Campbell, made the decision yesterday. "It was a very easy decision because we have got a requirement in our rules that says the entry samples must conform to the wine in the marketplace.
"It has been proven and admitted that this doesn't conform to the majority of wine in the marketplace so therefore we've got no option but to pull the medal and that is exactly what we are doing," he said.
A spokeswoman for Wither Hills chief winemaker and director Brent Marris said last night that he had not been officially notified that he had lost the award and would not comment until he was.
The New Zealand International Wine Show received a sample from the same BR315 batch of the Wither Hills Sauvignon Blanc that was sent to Cuisine magazine.
The magazine denied the wine a coveted five-star rating and top-10 placing after judge Michael Cooper blind-tested it against a bottle from the supermarket and preferred the competition sample. Both wines were sent for testing at the Institute of Environmental Science and Research, which found they had different levels of alcohol, acidity and sugar and were described by a senior scientist as "completely different wines".
There were 2228 cases of BR315 made out of a total production of more than 100,000 cases - essentially giving consumers a 1 in 50 chance of buying the award-winning wine.
Judging for the New Zealand International Wine Show was held in September, with the awards dinner later that month. The competition's regulations state "the wine supplied must be identical to that made available for sale on the New Zealand market".
Organiser Kingsley Wood initially told the Herald they would not be withdrawing the gold because the wine might have technically complied if it was on the market at the time.
Yesterday, Mr Wood confirmed the decision was made by Mr Campbell "end of story".
Mr. Campbell, one of only 250 Masters of Wine in the world, is New Zealand's leading wine educator, an international wine judge and group wine editor of ACP Media magazines.
The silver medal a BR315 sample of the wine won at the Air New Zealand awards is also under scrutiny and is part of continuing investigations by the industry body New Zealand Winegrowers.
The Liquorland Top 100 also awarded the BR315 sample a gold but its organiser, Belinda Jackson, has said she will not be withdrawing the medal because she was satisfied the wine entered in the show was available on the market.
Mr. Marris is the chief judge of both the Air New Zealand and Liquorland competitions.
He has defended his wine, saying that while the batches were "technically different" they had a "flavour consistency" and consumers would not be able to taste the difference.
SOURCE: http://www.nzherald.co.nz