Hangover-Free Wine Coming?
The Fountain of Youth. The Ark of the Covenant. A perpetual motion machine. If you’re waiting for any of them to be discovered, you’ll be SOL.
No-hangover red wine? That’s a different story.
At least that’s the story told by scientists at the University of Illinois, who have developed a way to “jailbreak” yeast to reduce the toxins in wine (and other fermented foods and drinks) that produce the heretofore inevitable result of an evening of over-indulging.
The secret is the recently developed “genome knife,” an enzyme that allows scientists to genetically engineer yeasts, either increasing some components or decreasing others. Until now, yeasts have been particularly difficult to alter since any change made to one gene in the genome will instantly be reversed by the other, unaltered genes. The genome knife, however, cuts across all genes in the genome.
The implications are greater than just reducing the size and volume of the brass band playing on your brainpan after guzzling too much good Cabernet. For examples, scientists could increase the amount of resveratrol in red wine, adding more of the component shown to reduce cholesterol and improve cardiac health.
One caution: the genome knife is a double-edged blade. Altering one gene in the genome to reduce toxins or increase resveratrol and you might also affect the genes that give wine its distinctive flavor and character. After all, it’s no fun drinking bad wine. Even if it doesn’t give you a hangover.
U.S. Wine Exports Boom in 2014
Recession? What recession?
That, at least, is one takeaway from a recent report indicating that U.S. wine exports—90 percent of which come from California—came close to breaking records for both quantity and dollar value.
According to the San Francisco-based Wine Institute, in 2014 U.S. wine exports totaled 49.2 million cases worth approximately $1.49 billion, not quite as much as the previous year but a 64-percent increase from five years ago. It could have been even better, the Institute suggests, except for the strong dollar vs. other world currencies and the West Coast port slowdown that began last summer.
The 28 countries in the European Union accounted for the largest share of U.S. exports, followed by Canada, Japan, China and Hong Kong. Exports to many European countries were down slightly from 2013 due to the relative weakness of the Euro against the dollar, while those to Japan and China were also down slightly. Exports to other Asian nations, Latin American countries and Canada, however, were higher in 2014 than the year before.
What’s driven the growth of U.S. exports for the third year running (since 2012) is a combination of good luck and savvy marketing. Last year’s weather was near-perfect for grape-growing, vintners said, though California’s ongoing drought will present ever-greater challenges in the future.
Also important is the marketing drive by California vintners and the Wine Institute, which have efforts in more than two-dozen countries with more than a dozen offices worldwide. And don’t forget the ubiquitous social media—Facebook, Twitter, et al—which is being used to promote U.S. wine in some 16 countries.
If Wine Promos Were Really Honest. . .
You’ve all seen those little cards littering the shelves of your favorite wine shop or supermarket. “Shelf talkers,” they’re called, pithy blurbs that purport to give you genuine insight into what that wine you’re thinking of buying might actually taste like.
Most of them, sadly, read like they were dreamed up by graduates of the College of Pompous, Pretentious and Dumb-Assed Wine Writing. You know, “The grapes for this wine were kissed by angels and picked by virgins at the precise moment of the autumnal equinox. Flavors of limpid berries, insipid stone fruit and Hermes leather purses marry triumphantly to create a wine that pairs perfectly with lobster, steak, caviar and foie gras.”
Well, if you ever wondered what truly honest shelf talkers had to say, comedian and social gadfly Jeff Wysacki has your back. These are just a couple of the shelf talkers he had printed up and sneaked into his local liquor store. (You can check out a few more at his website: http://www.pleated-jeans.com/2015/03/03/i-added-some-wine-recommendations-to-the-liquor-store-by-my-house/)
For this bottle of pricy French champagne:
“The celebration of finally signing those divorce papers will taste all more sweeter with this savory champage. Pairs nicely with: ‘Congratulations’ sheet cakes and starting over.”
Or for this bottle of inexpensive red wine:
“Bought this for some underage teens in the parking lot and they seemed to like it. Pairs nicely with: Making an easy $10.”
Or for this bottle of Napa Valley Chardonnay:
“Chardonnay? More like ChardonYAYY. I’m drunk at work and IT FEELS GREAT. Anyone wanna wrestle? NO SARAH I WILL NOT STEP INTO YOUR OFFICE. Pairs nicely with: Unemployment.”
Too bad all advertising isn’t this truthful.
Wine Country Celebs Get Good News, Bad News
It’s good news and bad news for a pair of wine country celebrities.
First, the good news. The 76 bottles of rare and expensive wine stolen in a Christmas Day heist from famed chef Thomas Keller’s tony French Laundry restaurant in the Napa Valley were recovered a little over a month later in. . . wait for it. . . North Carolina.
The stash of wines whose estimated value was more than $300,000 included such iconic brands as Screaming Eagle and Domaine de la Romanee-Conti. They were found in a wine cellar in Greensboro and have since been returned to the Napa Valley, though whether the transporting and month-long absence has harmed the wines has yet to be determined.
Also yet to be determined is the person or persons behind the theft, which took place on a day when the restaurant was closed and no employees were present. Apparently, the wine cellar alarm had not been set either. The circumstances surrounding the robbery have led many to conclude that it was pulled off by someone with inside knowledge of the restaurant’s wine storage practices, as the thief/thieves knew how to gain access and targeted only the best and rarest vintages.
No vintages at all—at least for now—for another wine country celebrity. This one is Food Network’s Guy Fieri, whose proposal to build a winery named after his two sons on seven acres of vineyard land west of Santa Rosa was unanimously turned down by the Sonoma County Board of Zoning Adjustments.
Plans for the Willowside Road winery, to be called Hunt-Ryd (for Hunter and Ryder), called for production of some 10,000 cases of wine per year, plus more than a dozen special events annually. The winery would have been open to the public on weekends and by appointment only during the week. Neighborhood opposition to the winery plans was quick and universal and was cited by at least one zoning board member as reason for the denial.
“Pineapple Express” Brings Some Relief to California Vintners
The “Pineapple Express,” a river of air that flows from near the Hawaiian Islands bringing torrential rains to the West Coast, has given California vintners a glimmer of hope that the state’s severe three-year drought may loosening its grip.
An epic late November-early December storm dumped almost 10 inches of rain on some California locations, causing flooded streets, mudslides, power outages and no shortage of rain-caused accidents on slick roads and freeways. It also bumped up the water levels in the state’s reservoirs, though not by a whole lot, and helped reduce salt levels in the soil that had been built up by years of drought. Even better, many meteorologists believe that the parade of storms signaled a change in the weather pattern that will bring more rain to California in the winter months.
In fact, vintners are luckier than other growers, who have seen the state’s ongoing drought devastate their crops. According to a recent industry survey, only 36 percent of California wine growers report a measurable effect from this year’s drought, though its impacts were felt more severely in the Central Valley, Central Coast and Sierra Foothills.
Even if this winter continues to be wet, California has a long way to go to climb out of the drought. Using satellite data, a NASA study suggests the state needs 11 trillion gallons of rainwater to recover or approximately 18 to 20 inches of rain over the next six months. Average annual California rainfall is 23 inches, so don’t break out the bubbly just yet.
Wineries Expand From Grapes to Truffles
Not content to produce some of the best and sought after grapes in the world, a handful of Sonoma and Napa county vintners are replanting grape vines with oak and filbert trees, hoping to grow the most expensive, exotic tuber in the world—the black Perigord truffle.
Truffles, whose heady, elusive aroma and flavor are prized by upscale restaurants and can fetch up to $1,200 a pound, grow naturally on the roots of a half-dozen or so species of trees, though attempts to grow them commercially have met with limited success.
In Sonoma, Robert Sinskey of Robert Sinskey Vineyards has turned over 1½ acres of vineyard land in the Carneros region to trees whose roots have been inoculated with the truffle fungus. Harvest, if there is anything to harvest, may begin as soon as winter of next year.
In Napa, vintner Larry Turley has planted more than 2,000 truffle-inoculated hazelnut trees on his vineyard land; after seven years they have yet to yield an actual truffle, though it can take up to 10 years for trees to produce. In the Napa Valley’s Stag’s Leap District, Todd and Trevor Traina of Hermosa Vineyards have replaced two-plus acres of Cabernet Sauvignon vines with truffle trees.
Why would successful vintners in some of the world’s premier wine-producing regions try their hand at the iffy business of growing truffles? Well, there is the challenge. Also the potential reward. Truffles are the world’s priciest legal crop and can be five or more times more profitable than the same acre of grapes. Think about that next time you pour a glass of Napa Valley Cabernet.