Tag: Constellation Brands

Vol 2 No. 20…wine tidbits

Here are just a few things TB has observed since the last missive:

BPA’s – no longer a health hazard in wine due to the amount you would have to consume to have a negative health effect, this from the FDA. BUT TB advises those of you who drink from box wine encased in plastic to observe expiration dates, they are there for a reason, and if you see a lot of boxes with them, find another wine merchant as it shows their lack of inventory control and attention to wine products.

Corks – a lab has been able to isolate different phenol’s in corks. IF they can nail this down and why not? They did it with gene’s afterall. It would then be possible for a winemaker to isolate and use corks that would enhance the taste of their wine but also to make that taste more consistent in both the same and subsequent vintages.

Wine Theft – Having lived for nearly 30 years in the S.F. Bay Area, I have visited many of the wine shops around San Francisco, and weeded out the ones that did not meet my expectations. The main one I eliminated was Premier Cru in Oakland, but on the basis of snobbery prior to their arrest on multiple criminal charges that has not been adjudicated yet, but a lot of customer money was lost and will not likely be recovered – they better watch their backs though because one group they preyed on was Chinese wine buyers of Bordeaux futures and California wines for export to China…one never knows.

One I respected was Beltramo’s in Palo Alto, which sadly is going out of business after more than 50 years. Just before the last day theives broke in and stole $55,000 worth of wine in a case similar to last year’s French Laundry winery (not the same perps as they were caught and the wine recovered although the condition will only be known by tasting it). Foe their closing sale the owners had brought their library wines out and put them on display making the theft a ‘piece of cake’. Let’s hope they catch them and throw the proverbial book at them!

WTSO – in No. 19 I talked about www.winetillsoldout.com. I have now made two purchase from them. I wrote to customer service on both issues. The first was on the retail price shown first. I asked this because I was seeing prices well below that. It was explained that they use the one provided by the winery at time of release, but also list the ‘best’ online price, so you can compare. This satisfied me fully! The second was on a delivery problem that I won’t mention because they handled it ethically and I don’t want anyone to get the idea and try to get wine for free. I will only say it was a slipup that they stood up for and offered me a full refund or more of the same order. That was very responsible and I don’t know many online companies that would do the same. The point is: if you have a complaint write to them immediately. I was amazed at how fast they responded allowing us to resolve the problem to my, the customer’s satisfaction.

Meiomi Pinot Noir – originally, it was an extremely good value and available at Costco and other retailers who stocked it after tasting it and noting the quality. I wasn’t aware of this but it was owned by the Wagner family who makes Caymus, Conundrum, and other brands. This is from the Wine Spectator and is shocking but not surprising to me:

“Aiming to become an even bigger player in the California wine business, Joe Wagner has agreed to sell his Meiomi brand to Constellation Brands for $315 million. The 33-year-old Wagner told Shanken News Daily that he’s selling Meiomi—one of the U.S. wine market’s hottest brands—because the deal will give him the liquidity necessary to become a much larger landowner. Wagner says he hopes to amass 2,000-3,000 acres of California vineyards over the next five years.

“Constellation is paying a hefty price for Meiomi. Wagner told SND, a sister publication of Wine Spectator, that the deal price was roughly a 24 times multiple against the brand’s present and future earnings.

In striking the deal, Constellation adds a brand whose recent performance has been nothing short of astonishing. Wagner developed Meiomi in 2006 while he was a winemaker at Caymus, which is headed by his father, Chuck, and the wine was released in 2009. In 2010, the brand sold 90,000 cases. Last year, the California wine brand won Impact “Hot Brand” honors after advancing by 41 percent to 550,000 cases and was named Wine Brand Of The Year by Impact sister publication Market Watch magazine. Wagner told SND that Meiomi, which retails for around $25 a 750-ml., is on pace to sell more than 700,000 cases in 2015.

In other words, it went from a limited production wine to a mega under Constellation which nobody even heard of (unless you were a wino who drank Wild Irish Rose), and only gained ‘credibility’ by buying the Mondavi brand then going on a shopping spree which has made them one of the top three wine companies in the world. Wagner noted that “no vineyards were included in the sale.” It’s cheaper now…and now YOU, the consumer know why. What next? Boost production to 1 million cases to compete with Fred Franzia’s ‘Two Buck Chuck’? For those not aware his company is Bronco Wines, which owns 40,000 acres of vineyards in California, and bottles as Charles Shaw (an interesting story in itself), and is sold almost (?) exclusively through Trader Joe’s. For the record, Franzia is a convicted felon for using inferior grapes and bottling them as varietals. He didn’t go to jail but instead paid a several million dollar fine (the prosecutor said not sending him to prison like the others involved was the biggest mistake of his career…why didn’t he? Franzia convinced him that the town where it is located, Ceres, Ca., would suffer economic disaster without him). Oh, and about those 40k acres: the longest rows of any winery. Why? So the ‘tractor’, not hand pickers, doesn’t have to waste time turning around, but note you get unripe grapes, stems, and an occasional poor rodent in the mix, but hey at $2.99 or so, who cares? Not the people, mostly seniors, that drink it. There have been efforts made to elect him to the California Winemakers Hall of Fame, which will lose all credibility if it does and shame those who deserve it. Franzia is not a winemaker, but he isa a marketing genius whose only  claim to fame is getting rich…but isn’t that what Constellation Brands as done off Mondavi’s reputation? Wonder what’s in the Woodbridge these days?

Last week I attended a telecast with the Wagner Family at Total Wines, discussing their brands followed by a tasting of their full line, sans Meiomi obviously and all were great.

Sorry for the rant, but TB is about people with passion who make REAL contributions to the wine industry and are not in it merely to enrich themselves or use their fortunes to bid up Napa Valley land (and other places..including Bordeaux), to make small lots of wine with a flying winemaker, get a 90 point rating and sell it at absurd prices due to the small volume. That is wine snobbery at its worst. Not saying these wines aren’t good, just ridiculously priced!

If you are still with TB…thanks for reading…I know I feel better now!

TB

Vol.2 No. 5…Bordeaux wine and wine in a box

Seems like an unlikely pair doesn’t it? Well, the connection is sketchy but the unthinkable is happening. Perhaps not so unthinkable when fraud abounds (in Padova, Italy, 9,000 bottles of fake Moet & Chandon champagne were uncovered in a shed where they were being produced…I kid you not!

In Vol. 2 No.1, TB wrote on some books he had been reading. One of them, Vino Business, by Isabella Saporta, showed just how greedy  Chateaux owners, thanks to the Chinese were among other things, forcing out smaller owners by changing regulations that were expensive to conform to…how about having a large parking lot??? But the main thing is the number of them that are owned by global conglomerates who will do anything to increase production especially now that they can bypass the chain and sell directly to the Chinese…who needs England and America…after all, they won’t pay the obscene prices for cru wines.

Not only that but they, who have claimed the exceptional ‘terroir’ of the Bordeaux appellations found a way to increase production by merely acquiring ‘adjacent’ properties – wait…isn’t that inferior wine? Not if you blend it…called assemblage. If the harvest is done in August or September, and the first tasting by the ‘eggspurts’ are in March (Parker is always the first and alone followed the next week by the rest of the critics. But wait: the wine is still in barrels awaiting the final blend. Parker loves his wines powerful…tannic, monster wines, while the Europeans prefer more balanced structured wines…a problem: simply take the samples from new barrels for Parker and the more mellow wines from used or neutral barrels…problem solved! Whatever it takes to get a 90+ score! Now do you see why TB says, never buy a wine on rating…especially a Bordeaux!

The above is simply a matter of preference. What is more significant is that not only are they forcing their less affluent owners out…by placing their men in charge of the INAO and the appellations, they are maximizing by over-spraying of pesticides and herbicides which is done by helicopter or mindless men driving tractors to the very edge of the property. Despite complaints by residents it persists. A local lab examined bottles of wine from every classified cru and guess what? They ALL contained chemicals, including some on the banned list! …and you, dear consumer are paying for that in your wine. A trade-off of either health benefits or health hazards, but in Bordeaux you can have both! Note that also, as mentioned in Saporta’s book, this extends to Champagne…quel horror! Pesticide Black List

Now, in closing, the mundane: we have all heard how great ‘wine in a box’ is  and how it saves money (bottles and shipping), resulting in lower prices to the consumer. Sadly, there is no way of knowing if you are actually saving money or getting lesser quality mass-produced wine. But that is a small point when you figure if you open a bottle of wine, even with a Vac-u-Vin, it keeps for two days at most. But next time you buy it notice the expiration date…yes, an expiration date on wine! Be sure to buy well ahead of it and due to the plastic liners which ‘could’ contain BPA or other chemicals that could contaminate the wine. So IF you choose to buy wine in a box, make sure you are well within the expiration date (and if the retailer is putting the expiring stuff to the front buy elsewhere, and remember that BIG box which is cheaper per liter may not be the best value since you can’t drink it all within a week…unless you are with friends…and do you really want to serve them box wine? Note this is not an issue of oxidation as the bag creates a vacuum, just a health safety issue…possibly. Not trying to create a scare like the one on arsenic levels in wine, just make you aware.

TB

©Copyright 2016 TBOW, all rights reserved.

 

 

Vol. 2 No.3 Bigger is better in Wine

…or is it? Got you there because you thought TB had caved to the big guys. Bigger is decidedly not better. For instance, who is the largest wine company in the world? Who owns the most vineyard land in California? Will China (biggest country) become the biggest wine consumer and/or producer? What is the fastest growing price segment of American wines?

Most definitely, TB does not have the answer to these questions or many others but he can shed a little light.

Who (i.e. which corporation) is the largest wine company in the world?

If you said Gallo, you would be wrong but they are in second place. Also, they are not just the producers of Hearty Burgundy and other inexpensive but good quality for the price) American wine but have diversified into premium wines. Years ago they were the largest in California and had the largest intra-state trucking company (to move the wine of course!). But they are number two to Constellation Brands.

However, there are big changes going on in the wine industry, just as in brewing. In 2014, the U.S. became the biggest wine consuming nation overtaking France. Late last year, AmBev which owns Budweiser and is the largest brewing company in the world, began an acquisition of number two SABMiller for $108 BILLION. How could the U.S. and EU allow this to happen? All TB knows is that if the deal didn’t go through – for any reason – there was a breakup clause of $5 BILLION. Now ask this: would anyone in their right mind risk $5 billion when there are huge anti-trust questions? To TB, the answer is NO! The gears must have been greased with the EU…but what about the U.S.? It appears that the only concession that must be made is that they can’t sell BOTH Miller and Bud in the same bars. Big deal! Not sure if that applies to their super premium brand, Stella Artois.

According to Wikipedia, the third largest wine company is the Castel Group, which was started by a wine negotiant in Bordeaux.  They own 17 chateaux – none of which you have probably heard of the best being a Bordeaux Superior. Why haven’t you heard of the names? Because most are sold in…CHINA!!! More interestingly, they own a large 1,400 hectares in Algeria, and 1,600 in Tunisia, and Morocco. Those produced 640 million bottles, most sold, and I presume, bottled in France without disclosing it is not French wine – something that is finally becoming an issue there. Later, they added a distribution network by purchasing Nicolas, a wine merchant you can find all over Paris and other large French cities. TB adds this because they also have 25% share of SABMiller – South Africa that is creating some issues with the SAB/AmBev merger…probably will be worked out amicably…with Castel the winner.

But now lets shift to the fastest growing company that you probably have never heard of: Treasury Wine Estates, an Australian Company that has its U.S. headquarters right in Napa, California. Diageo was a big wine company, one of the largest but sold off their wine division to TWE, an Australian Company. In addition, Pernod Ricard, which went on a buying spree in 2014 purchasing Kendall Jackson, Stags’ Leap Winery (don’t confuse with Stag’s Leap Cellars that won the Judgement of Paris tasting that brought California wines to the fore), and makes one of TB’s favorite wines, Petite Sirah – nothing compares to it.

Other California wineries are Acacia, Blossom Hill, Sterling, Beaulieu,and most notably Beringer Estates, which they purchased from Foster’s who also got out of the wine business to focus on beer. In Australia, and New Zealand they have numerous holdings including Penfold’s, Rosemount, Rawson’s Retreat, and more. They also own Gabbiano of Italy.  https://www.tweglobal.com/brands

Think of the beer,wine and spirits game as a game of Monopoly, because that is what it has become, and in the process created an oligarchy, much the way the tobacco companies created barriers to entry through having multiple brands…same as beer.

The big lever today however is China. China, with its love of Chateau Lafite Rothschild, which even at $1,000 a bottle often mix with tea or coke as they do not like tannins. That however, is changing…rapidly…as wealth rises and just as in the U.S., the newbies want to show their worldliness and thus are shifting to wines. Their two largest wineries, Changyu and Great Wall, produced mediocre wines – at best, but the quality is increasing. Here is where TWE comes in. First, they are known in China and trusted and have found ways around the labyrinth of Chinese regulations, which can change as often as daily…or even hourly. Note their copyright laws do not protect the person who came up with the name, but the one who filed first in China…even if the real company has been doing so for years. Generally it is a Chinese filer so he has an edge immediately, and like the scam lawyers in the U.S. who search for old, obscure patents to extort money from major corporations to avoid being sued for patent infringement.

Just last week, TWE announced that demand and shipments to China are way above projections. This company, which KKR and attempted to takeover, yet the man behind it fought them off and won, has two advantages in China: first, proximity: no wine producer is closer to China which dramatically reduces transportation costs; and ssecond, they are a trusted name in China. So for the first time since buying Mondavi stock, and Chalone Group, while discarding Mario Andretti Winery, TB bought some of the stock on Monday.

First, let TB make this clear…he is in no way recommending the stock…just looked like a good buy to him.  It trades in Australia as TWE, and is only available in the U.S. on the Amex pink sheets, symbol TSRYY. It had gone nowhere but shortly before the announcement of the increased demand from China went from $3 to over $6 then settled back to that number which is where TB bought it. It is HIGHLY speculative, but could be a ‘four bagger’ as Peter Lynch used to say.

Finally, what is happening in the beer, wine, and spirits industry is huge transfers of ownership. It went from accumulation to disgorgement (to borrow a wine term). Look at the recent changes: Bordeaux’s main market has shifted to China, decimating sales to England and the U.S., which had been the main market; U.S. overtaking France in wine consumption; corporations doing what they always do: rush into the next new thing and then when it doesn’t produce the results they want, dumping it, as Coca-Cola did with Sterling (now part of TWE), or when they let New York wine company, Taylor, file for bankruptcy, unwilling to wait for the new vitis vinifera wines they had planted to produce.

That is why TB firmly believes in smaller individually or family owned wineries where passion still exists unfettered by the bottom line and therefore producing the highest quality wines. That’s what TB’s talking about…and all about!

 

 

 

Vol. 1 No. 31…Wineries of the Quebecois

One of the first things that strikes you when you get to Canada these days is how expensive things are. That is because like us they use a $ sign for prices. In the investment business, $ is reserved for the Greenback, and Canadian is labelled C$. Otherwise it would be a mess trading currencies.

But the good news is there is a 30% discount on the Canadian Dollar. When TB was a teenager he remembers it at a 6% premium. We stayed at the beautiful Frontenac Hotel in Quebec. Old, charming, and we were put in one of the newly refurbished rooms…it was huge! Quebec feels so French, and it is quaint. Highly recommended and there are some very nice restaurants on the main street of Old Quebec near the Parliament and the hotel.

Driving back, we re-entered the U.S. in New York and then went over to (note ‘to’ not ‘over), Niagara Falls on the U.S. side. We took the Maid-o-the-Mist for an up close and personal view of the falls. Spectacular…and WET! From there we high-tailed it to the Canadian side via the Rainbow Bridge to find our hotel, the Marriott Fallsview, closest to the falls and our 9th floor room was perfect. For about $30 more (Canadian), we could have upgraded but we felt that was the best height to see the falls, and it was. A beautiful light show at night as both of the falls changed color. Leaving our drapes open we could see them from the bed, or we could have chosen the in-room Jacuzzi! Adding to the pleasure is a restaurant right next door to the hotel, The Keg. Don’t let the name fool you, it sure did me, but it was a very nice, not too expensive restaurant on the 5th floor of the hotel next to ours. It had the second best view of the falls…after our room of course!

The next day, we left Niagara and quickly found ourselves surrounded by vineyards…very nice ones too. The area is Niagara-on-the-Lake, home to more than thirty wineries. Our server the day before had recommended the Colaneri Estate Winery and it happened to be our first stop…and what a stop it was. We turned off the highway and a couple hundred yards down the road took a driveway to the left. At the head was what appeared to be an entire Tuscan Villa…beautiful! So now, not only were the wines good, but the estate was impressive…very!!!The Colaneri family came over from Italy (near Rome). There are two sons who now run the business and amazingly they married two sisters.

They make 18 different wines: 11 whites and 7 reds. How do you make red wine when it never gets much above 70 degrees? They pick the grapes at their peak, then move them to a huge building that has wire crates. This provides airflow to the grapes and allows them to ripen further. It is an Italian process known as ‘Rapasso’. I tasted all of them and they are amazing. Colaneri makes three ice wines (Cab Franc, Vidal, and Riesling, all between 9.2-10.8% alcohol, and 200-250 grams residual sugar!). Also amazing is the fact that it took six years to build the Villa so far and it will take another six to complete! Now that’s passion and dedication…and as I said to my tasting room guide, “looks like the old saying, ‘if you want to make a small fortune in the wine business, start with a large fortune.'” With a straight face he said, “no, start with a huge one!”

From there we drove to the best known winery in the area, Inniskillin, famous for it’s Ice Wine. I tasted them all and they are amazing wines…they are the model to shoot for by the other wineries, and also the most expensive. Actually, though, buying at the winery in Canadian dollars put them way below the price in the U.S., ranging from $42-80. One is a sparkling Cab Franc, one a Riesling, and the make two Vidal’s, one of which (and my favorite) aged in wood for 30 years! By the way, those prices are for 375ml bottles, not the standard 750ml, but they are worth every penny.

While there I heard that Inniskillin was sold and is now owned by Jackson-Triggs, who makes very nice ice wines at a fraction of the cost of Inniskillin. It is easily obtained in the U.S. Researching the comment however, when I returned home, I found that they had operated under the same owner, which explains the common quality, but following a series of mergers both were sold to…drumroll please…one of the largest wine producers in the world, Constellation Wines. Constellation has been hard at work buying up some of the best estates. Who are they? They were nobody until the purchased Robert Mondavi in 2004 (the peak of Mondavi nearly coinciding with the release of the documentary, Mondovino. Constellation’s only wine was Richard’s Wild Irish Rose – most frequently found on skid row. If it was in a liquor store, certainly not a wine shop, it would be on the bottom shelf. So Constellation bought respectability, and to this writer at least, Mondavi – first visited by this writer in 1969, and the only winery I ever assembled a vertical selection of cabs from (1966-2000). I sold one case at auction, and the other donated to the University of Nevada, Reno where it topped their wine auction. Mondovino did no favors for the Mondavi (hmmm was the name translated ‘World of Wine” or Mondavi versus the wine world? Just asking!

From there we drove to the picturesque town of Niagara-on-the-Lake where we had lunch. There are several good restaurants there and if you don’t stop, you will regret it as there is a huge void from there on.

After lunch we stumbled on Stratus a very modern looking industrial type building, with an uber-modern tasting room. Here, as in all the wineries we visited, the staff knew their wines – unlike so many U.S. wineries. It seemed that most of them, if not all, had been working there for years. I should add that I asked at every winery I visited if they used organic (or are organic-certified), sustainable, or biodynamic methods and virtually all practiced sustainable farming (as did most of the ones in New York!), which puts them ahead of California, and sadly, light years ahead of Bordeaux where toxic chemicals are employed, even in the classified wineries and worse, lab testing has shown residual elements in wine tested from every winery!

Every aspect of being environmentally-friendly was employed, and beautifully I might add. Not only were the vines treated with as few natural fertilizers, etc., but the entire building was built with recycled wood and steel products, and even more impressive, even their tractors were run on bio-diesel! Stratus is Leeds-certified as sustainable. Their wines showed this attention to detail. They produce a full range of wines from the usual suspects to their Stratus Red, a blend of the Bordeaux grapes (Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Petit Verdot, Malbec -seldom used in Bordeaux now, plus Tannat from Southwest France). A stunning, well-made wine with very complex flavors and big enough to hold up, and improve, for many years.

In addition, their whites include Stratus White (Chardonnay, Semillon, Sauvignon Blanc, Gewurtztraminer, and Viognier). If the blend sounds like a ‘mouthful’ that’s because it is, bursting with flavors and nuances. Their ice wine (Viognier/Semillon) was very good, less on the sweet side with just 12 grams residual sugar, 14.3% alcohol (!), but the star of the show for me was their 2012 Botrytis Affected Semillon – wow! If you have never tasted a Botrytis wine you are in for a pleasant surprise. Only in years with the right moisture conditions late in the season does it exist. Amazing fruit bursts forth and this one, aged for more than a year in French Oak (60% new), is a keeper.

Next stop was Cave Spring Winery located in town in Lincoln, Ontario. That is the tasting room with the vineyards and winery a short distance away. They make a full range of white’s and reds, including sparklers and ice wines. I particularly enjoyed their Riesling, bursting with fruit flavors…tutti fruiti, comes to mind but not that cloying sweetness!

The last winery we visited is off the beaten path but Karen MacNeil mentioned it in The Wine Bible. I was there for one thing: their Gamay, which she says is the first really good one made outside Europe…that is a huge comment, pinot lovers as this Burgundian grape is off that style. Not a true Burgundy but soft in the mouth and a good every day wine.

From there, we began to wend our way home again, crossing into the U.S. over the bridge to Detroit from Windsor, Ontario on the Ambassador International Bridge. This aging bridge will soon be replaced by the Gordie Howe International Bridge, named after the hockey great of the Detroit Red Wings.

By the time we reached home we had driven over 4,700 miles in just under three weeks, we stopped along the way in Evanston, Illinois to stay with our friends then up to Wisconsin for the incredible tasting dinner at the Union House restaurant (see Vol. 1, No. 24). We never had to use an umbrella on the entire trip, but when we crossed the Mississipi into Minnesota, we had torrential rains for the final hour and a half home. Lucky, not only that we experienced the full beauty of the changing of the colors to Fall.

TB

©Copyright 2015 TBOW, all rights reserved.

 

 

 

Vol. 1 No. 26 …not what I want to write about!

…BUT, I must. This website is about a passion for wine: winemakers, wine shops, wine enthusiasts, and of course, TB.

I read a blog yesterday that bothered me. Won’t go into who it was, but it was praising someone who runs completely counter to what we are about here. I will continue to read the blog because it is of interest to me, but have stopped reading another one that says you should never pay more than $20 for a bottle of wine, and developed a rating system (although the writer/author admits he has never taken a wine course, never participated in a wine tasting, which he is critical of, and to TB’s way of thinking is comparing apples to oranges – or should I say ‘wine’ to ‘plonk’).

While there are many good wines at less than $20, and some ‘passable’ ones (but lacking character), below $10, that is not what we are about here. Instead, we are about learning more about wine by trying new wines and most importantly, trusting your own palette as you are your own best wine judge. If you don’t like it, so what if Parker or some other wine writer gives it a 90? To do otherwise makes you a wine snob, not an aficionado.

The last three updates have been on, in order of appearance:

  1. the buyout of SAB Miller by ImBev, creating a global monopoly in Beer, and the corporate giants that are absorbing smaller, high quality wineries, which will ultimately result in lowering the quality of the wine due to the emphasis on ‘the bottom line’. The top three of these are Constellation Brands (virtually unheard of and with no quality label before acquiring Mondavi), Gallo, which is another of the top three globally, and Bronco Wines, maker of Two-Buck Chuck;
  2. a book, Tangled Vines by Frances Dinkelspiel, which covers the dark side of the wine ‘industry’ (don’t you hate that word?), and also the first California wines which were in Los Angeles in the 1800’s; and
  3. Dr. Konstantin Frank and the winery bearing his name. A true innovator, as was his friend Andre Tcheleschieff (the great California legend who trained so many well-known winemakers), and who collaborated with Doctor Frank.

TB hasn’t said boycott the brands of those big wine companies (although he did suggest doing so with the breweries), especially Two-Buck Chuck. Instead, he took a positive approach: drink your ‘Chuck’ or other inexpensive wine during the week but experiment on the weekends with at least one new, quality wine.

So what made TB feel the urge to crusade today? the blog mentioned at the top of this edition which was about a wine event to be held in January, the Unified Wine and Grape Industry Symposium, the largest wine industry trade show in the U.S. Bet you won’t see a lot of the small wineries represented there, and if you do it will be to keep their presence known, perhaps looking for a buyer?

Now to the meat: the blogger noted that Fred Franzia, CEO of Bronco Wine Company will be the keynote speaker. Franzia is a super-salesman and innovator, having bought Charles Shaw, and turning it into Two-Buck Chuck with the help of Trader Joe’s (no relation to Trader Bill but along with Trader Vic part of the inspiration for his pseudonym). This winery produces 20 million cases (240 million bottles!) a year and has produce over 6 billion, yes billion bottles since inception in the 1970’s. It no longer sells for $2 but more like the $4-5 range, but Franzia has said “never pay more than $10 for a bottle of wine”. Is the fact that he didn’t say $5 a warning of a price hike ahead? Time will tell…always does.

The blogger had visited Bronco’s operations in Napa (distribution center), Lodi (some vineyards of the 40,000 total in their portfolio), and Ceres in the San Joaquin Valley where the bulk of the grapes come from. He commented on the cleanliness and attention to detail. That however, is disputed at http://www.snopes.com/business/market/shawwine.asp

In addition, as I pointed out to the blogger, Franzia was convicted of a felony for blending inferior grapes with zinfandel and others, resulting in a huge fine of $4 million, but allowing Franzia (no longer associated with the box wine company of the same name), to not go to prison as several others did. Don’t just trust Snopes on this, Tangled Vines, talks about it in length including comments by the investigator and the prosecutor.

Having the distribution center in Napa, Bronco called it Napa Valley wine, until the AVA objected but they can still say, Napa, California. Does that sound like a high quality wine to you?…or one that is out to make money on volume? Sadly, I find people, mostly seniors, that only drink, Two-Buck Chuck. As reported everywhere: good wine is forcing out bad all over the world. That, however, does not mean all wines are high quality, just no serious defects, i.e. you get what you pay for.

To TB, despite all the efforts by those truly interested in making high quality wine, not simply making money, these wines thrive but people are reaching ‘up’ according to a wine industry study which saw the most growth in sales in the $10-20 range instead of stagnating in the <$10 range.

Now let’s look at the profit: Gallo Hearty Burgundy, once a darling the late Robert Lawrence Balzer, the pioneer wine writer, who seemed to equate it with the best California Cabs, in his reviews, is sold in magnums, 1.5 liters, instead of the normal 750 ml bottles. The price of a magnum is considerably less than two bottles of TBC. Also, there are wines sold by the gallon or in boxes of 2 liters or more, that are as good or better and cheaper.

Trader Joe’s acts as distributor and retailer (except in New York which prohibits it). This may have been the impetus for Total Wines to do likewise. A normal discount to a distributor is 30%, so Trader Joe’s is making a nice profit, as Total does with its ‘bin’ wines where it too buys direct from the winery resulting in profits of 30% or more, while making small profits on high quality wines – which are actually the best value to you, the consumer. Keep that in mind when you are looking for ‘bargains’.

Now let’s look at this from an environmental standpoint. The San Joaquin aquifer is the second largest in the U.S. Believe or not in climate change, that aquifer has been largely depleted by well-drilling by farmers, largely grape growers in an area that was and is not a natural agricultural area (oldies like TB will recall the 1986 book, Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner, and last revised in 1993, one of the first ‘green’ books, as was the documentary movie, The Sea Around Us by Rachel Carson written in 1951, and we didn’t learn from that either).

The depletion by wells deeper than the height of the Empire State Building, is causing the land to sink, and arsenic levels to rise; not a good combination. In fact, there has been at least one class-action lawsuit over arsenic levels in wine from the valley. To TB’s knowledge, all have been dismissed as the levels, while high were not serious in wine do to the low consumption relative to water. The valley is very heavy in Almond trees and grape production, both of which consume large amounts of water, and in the case of wine, for what? To enrich the winery owners?

That is now off TB’s chest so he will get back to the New York and California wine pieces discussed far too long ago.

Best,

TB

©Copyright 2015 TBOW, all rights reserved.

 

 

Vol. 1 No. 23 something wine and beer are increasingly having in common (adding mea culpa)

Mea Culpa: TB had details of the SAB/Miller – AB ImBev were wrong and have been corrected. In the same sectionit was Heineken, not Stella Artois that purchased 50% of Lagunitas Brewing. Mea maxima culpa.

Also note that TB welcomes your comments both positive and negative – just make them constructive.

The Management aka TB

First, let me make it clear that TB favors small wineries, especially family wineries. That is not to say that bigger ones are bad but the more people who become involved, the less the passion, and passion is a key element in doing everything to make a remarkable wine. What TB loathes is corporate ownership of wineries. You cannot run a winery like a typical division of a corporation, yet it is done all the time and there are different time horizons: longer term for a family owned winery; short-term for a corporation. In addition to wineries, I find similar comparisons with small wine shops (these focus mainly on wine although they may carry hard liquor too), and the chains which can be as big as Beverages & More, and Total Wines.

A new concern is online wine sellers. Why? Because they may be clearing out someones stale inventory and thus able to sell it at a low price, yet because they bought it at a distress price, make a very large profit…and don’t forget shipping costs! But the important thing is they sell either on a rating (with so many out there far too many are getting 90 ratings and even if it is deserved you might not like it). Remember, you are your own best wine critic! What Robert Parker or Trader Bill thinks is irrelevant…unless you are speculating in wine, something else TB loathes as it drives the cost up to you, the consumer.

Now I will give you three examples of family-owned contrasted to corporate-owned:

Taylor Wine Company, one of the oldest in the U.S. and located in Hammondsport, New York. Originally it used native American grapes such as Catawba and Concord. When other growers had success by bringing in the vinifera grapes from Europe, eventually they decided to do likewise. Then they were bought out by Coca-Cola, who apparently didn’t understand the lead time between planting new vines and getting the production from them to be profitable. In the end, Coke filed bankruptcy for the winery, one with a very long tradition even if you didn’t care for the style.

Robert Mondavi Winery, founded in 1966, became the benchmark for large producer California wines until it was surpassed by…yep…smaller family-owned vineyards. In addition to the joint venture on Opus with Baron Phillipe Rothschild, they began partnering and buying out old family owned wineries in Italy with great reputations for quality. Ironically, the film Mondovino showed them in a bad light, having deviated from their roots. Produced in 2004, it was about the time the Mondavi empire peaked and eventually was bought out by a corporation, Constellation Brands, now a powerhouse but before that famous for one wine My Wild Irish Rose…need TB say more?

TB is not gloating about what happened to Mondavi since it was the first winery he visited the year he and his wife were married, 1969. TB had a vertical collection of their Cabernet Sauvignon from inception, 1966, with at least two bottles from each year (the 1966 was purchased for $4.50!). After the sale, interest was lost and one vertical case was donated to the University of Nevada for an auction, and later the other sold at a Butterfield auction. Because of the corporate ownership, TB has not purchased a bottle from the winery since.

Lastly, what the title of the blog is about. How many of you remember the original Samuel Adams? A true craft beer, but IT grew until it and Yuengling became the two biggest selling craft beers in America…if you can still call them that…TB can’t, not at 4 million barrels a year each! Same goes for Stella Artois one of TB’s favorite’s and now available on tap in most restaurants and bars in America. Is that what a true beer drinker wants to see? By the way, if you want to read what one bar owner has to say about them go to Open letter to Sam Adams

Now to the point: do you recall when Miller Brewing was sold to SAB (Stella Artois), and later Anheuser-Busch was bought by the Dutch company AmBev? Frankly, I never cared much for either Miller or Bud, but they were very popular among the masses and that is what counts, right? Well, if you own the company it is.

A couple of months ago it was announced that Heineken bought a 50% interest in Lagunitas brewery, a beer TB thoroughly enjoyed and still likes, however, several people have said, and TB felt, that it doesn’t taste as good as it once did. Furthermore. both Heineken and Beck’s suffered when they began bottling in the U.S. and thus increased production. Big production will do that. But the big issue now is the AB ImBev – SAB/Miller buyout for $106 billion, yes, billion! In addition, the breakup premium is $3 billion, meaning if, for any reason, the deal doesn’t go through, AB ImBev is out that much! This smells to me like there is something assuring them that it will go through despite them being the #1 and #2 beer producers in the world. Some legislators here have voiced concerns or even dissent, but it is the EU that will decide. What this means for consumers should it happen, and TB will bet it does, is control over beer prices globally, something the Sherman-Antitrust Act was supposed to prevent and the EU has fined some of the large U.S. tech companies for their practices, yet here are two in their own backyard and hardly a peep.

This is what TB does not want to see in the wine industry, Gallo, and Franzia Wines (two-buck Chuck), have a huge monopoly on wines but not on premium wines. Fred Franzia says “never pay more than $10 for a bottle of wine.” Are we to take it that the price may go to somewhere above the $5 it is already at?

A local fellow blogger doesn’t believe you should pay more than $20 for a wine, and despite his self-admission that he has never taken a wine class, he rates them and then deducts for every dollar above ten. By that test, wouldn’t everyone buy a Chevy rather than a Porsche? TB’s just sayin’…

So here is what TB thinks: the aforementioned blogger is correct that people can not drink a $25, $30, or more every night of the week. So buy something cheap to drink during the week that you like. But be adventuresome on weekends and try some better wines…preferably with the help of a small wine shop that is knowledgeable and listens to what you like in a wine.

There is very little bad wine being sold today as good wine is forcing it out and people are becoming more aware of what they like. France, converted something like three million gallons of wine into ethanol last year. Why? Because they couldn’t sell it, obviously. There is a message there. TB’s message to you is if everyone tried to consume $10 wine, or even up to $20 and would never pay more, there would still be plenty of wine around, but the wines of character would be gone. At least you could just go and pick up any bottle as they would all taste the same. Fine…that is, if you don’t want a really good bottle of wine.

Perhaps it is like the younger generation: they have recording artists they love but they don’t pay for the music. See the similarity?

Off to have a glass of good wine…

TB

©Copyright 2015 TBOW, all rights reserved.