• WHY DO THE FRENCH DRINK LESS WINE?

    par | Mar 28, 2013

    From HUGH SCHOFIELD
    BBC News Magazine in Paris, 26 March 2013

    Does the seemingly perpetual decline in consumption of France’s national drink symbolise a corresponding decline in French civilisation?  The question worries a lot of people — œnophiles, cultural commentators, flag-wavers for French exceptionalism — all of whom have watched with consternation the gradual disappearance of wine from the national dinner table.  Recent figures merely confirm what has been observed for years, that the number of regular drinkers of wine in France is in freefall.

    In 1980 more than half of adults were consuming wine on a near-daily basis.  Today that figure has fallen to 17%.  Meanwhile, the proportion of French people who never drink wine at all has doubled to 38%.

    In 1965, the amount of wine consumed per head of population was 160 litres a year.  In 2010 that had fallen to 57 litres, and will most likely dip to no more than 30 litres in the years ahead. (suite…)

  • CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACTS WINE PRODUCTION WORLDWIDE

    par | Mar 26, 2013

    By Agence France-Presse Tuesday, March 26, 2013 8:01 EDT

    It’s circa 2050 and shoppers are stopping off at Ikea to buy fine wine made in Sweden.  A Nordic fantasy?
    Not according to climate experts who say the Earth’s warming phase is already driving a wave of change through the world of wine.  As new frontiers for grape growing open up, the viability of some traditional production areas is under threat from scorching temperatures and prolonged droughts.  And in between the two extremes, some long-established styles are being transformed.  Some whites once renowned for being light and crisp are getting fatter and more floral while medium-bodied reds are morphing into heavyweight bruisers.

    « Some people are alarmists, I prefer to be an optimist, » says Fernando Zamora, œnology researcher and professor at Rovira i Virgili University in Tarragona, Spain.  « I have no doubt that we will still have vineyards in traditional regions, but we have to think of new strategies.  And we will also have new zones for vineyards.  That’s for sure.  Already in Germany they are making fine red wine where it used to be very difficult.  And in Denmark, now they’ve started making wine. » (suite…)

  • NEW YORKERS AND BORDEAUX: FROM DISDAIN TO DELIGHT

    par | Mar 3, 2013

    By ERIC ASIMOV – The New York Times, Feb 28, 2013

    Not so long ago, quite a few young New York sommeliers might have been seen high-fiving one another as they disparaged the big bully Bordeaux.  In their view, and in the minds of many other young American wine drinkers, Bordeaux was a smug, wealthy, self-satisfied emblem of a bygone era, once the hallowed standard-bearer for great wine but now unfashionable and, worse, irrelevant.

    How quickly things change. No, the Brooklyn vinoscenti have not adopted Bordeaux as an ironic symbol.  But the widespread dismissal of Bordeaux seems to have achieved the result of casting it (still the world’s leading wine region) as an unlikely underdog.  Many who so recently wore their disdain of Bordeaux as a badge of honor are now embracing the region and its wines.

    “I think it’s almost become this Jura-type thing,” said Daniel Johnnes, wine director for Daniel Boulud’s Dinex restaurant group and an importer, referring to a long-ignored region in eastern France that became the darling of the wine vanguard in the last decade. “It was so uncool to drink it, that you’re now cool if you do.” (suite…)