The year 2008 will be remembered by wine lovers as the year prices came back down to earth but now that they have, can we afford them?
Unfortunately, it took a pesky recession to start the downward trend in prices in all categories, across the spectrum, and shows no signs of recovery. The future for high-end, high-priced wines looks bleak as consumers trade down to more affordable wines.
Here are some predictions for 2009:
- The era of the big wine conglomerate is over. The mega wine-booze companies will have to parcel off individual wineries as profits plummet and consumers demand more for less. This is a good thing. The more independence there is, the better for all of us.
- I am not hopeful for the Canadian wine industry this year, especially in Niagara where a dreadful growing season left many growers with grapes that withered on the vine. The red wines from 2008 will be a struggle for most wineries with riesling, sparkling wines and icewine about the only bright spots. My one wish is that the LCBO takes its monopolistic head out of the sand and allows Ontario wineries better access to the consumer.
- It is my hope, as it is every year, that consumers keep discovering the ultimate pleasure of riesling wines. Whether it's dry, sweet, semi-sweet or from Canada, Germany or Australia, no other grape offers the pleasure that a well-made riesling can provide.
- Grape varietals that will be in high demand are malbec for red wine lovers, Canadian pinot blanc for white wine lovers and red-grape icewines for dessert wine lovers.
- Wine tourism in both the Okanagan and Niagara will explode this year. With gas prices dropping and the U.S. dollar getting stronger visitors from south of the border as well as Canadians looking to stay close to home this summer will find what many of us already know -- our own wine country is the perfect place to unwind with good food, good wine and spectacular scenary.
- I enjoyed many a good wine in 2008 -- Opus One 1994 on an outdoor patio in Calgary, E&E Black Pepper Shiraz 2004 during my first virtual tasting, Wolf Blass Platinum Label 2005 while golfing with PGA tour player Stephen Ames. But, I must narrow it down to just one for my wine pick of the year. So here it is:
- Jacob's Creek Steingarten Riesling Barossa 2006 -- When picking wines of the year, it helps to have some fond memories to go with the wine. It doesn't get any better than a secluded white sand beach on the shores of Kangaroo Island, Australia, fresh-caught and grilled King George Whiting fish, and frosty glasses of this mostly single-vineyard riesling from Jacob's Creek. Steingarten is one fine drop of wine with distinctive aromas and flavours of fresh citrus mingling with minerals, smoke, hazelnuts, and a hint that it will develop petrol if cellared properly.
Enjoy!
The Genetically Modified Wine Debate (Billy)
Nevertheless, non-GM winemaking has survived as long as people have had grapes and feet. GM wines will probably be great for the business (even the local and small commercial vinyards). But I think that the "soul" of the wine and winemaking will be lost with this transition. Of course, the foot-pressed wine lovers probably had similar laments regarding the advent of winepress technology.
In 100 years, we - or our children - will probably be all drinking GM wine or toasting the "quaintness" of the historic non-GM vinyards ("How DID they survive?" we'll muse).
posted by Billy @ 9:18 PM | permalink| CreativeCommons
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Growers, wineries given more time to solve issues
Ontario grape growers and wineries have been given more time by Queen's Park to come up with a plan to solve a host of challenges facing the wine industry.
The Wine Council of Ontario and the Grape Growers of Ontario were directed in November by the province to devise a long-term blueprint for the sector by the end of February or face changes imposed by the Ontario government.
St. Catharines MPP Jim Bradley said the two sides are making progress and have asked for more time to finalize their report to the government.
"The government is inclined to do that," said Bradley, who is head of the province's wine secretariat.
"I guess if there was no progress we'd be in a different position. But both (sides) seem to indicate there's been some significant progress."
The order from Premier Dalton McGuinty's chief of staff came last fall after a $4-million bailout the province gave to grape growers in October to deal with a heavy surplus of wine grapes. Four-thousand tonnes of grapes grown in 2008 ended up on the ground because there was no buyer.
Problems in the wine industry range from more retail channels needed to sell Ontario wines to changing the grape price structure to altering rules for Cellared in Canada wines, which are made from up to 70 per cent foreign wine content.
Neither side wished to comment on the specifics of ongoing meetings on Thursday.
"We are making progress, but we're still trying to get a plan worked out so we're still in the midst of it," said Bill George, a Beamsville grape grower and chairman of the Grape Growers of Ontario.
George said the two sides are hoping to have a plan put together by April.
Hillary Dawson, president of the Wine Council of Ontario, said the two sides have had five meetings and several work sessions. Talks are going well, she said.
"We've got to get it right for our industry," Dawson said.
"It's a complicated industry and we've got to invest the time we need to make sure that we all understand and appreciate our viewpoints and that any solutions we come up with are sustainable."
But George conceded the process has been a difficult one. Some growers and wineries may not be satisfied with the outcome, he said.
"Both sides are realizing they have to make compromises and it's always tough to make compromises. It's challenging, but we're getting there."
George said the government was aware that all of the sector's issues could not be solved by the end of this month, and simply wanted to see progress.
"They wanted to see that both sides were willing to tackle the problems and solve the issues and they were satisfied with that."
Bradley said the government will give the industry the time it needs to come up with a plan.
All Olympic wines should be VQA
Something isn't right in Niagara's grape and wine industry when a major player is saying there aren't enough grapes to make quality VQA wines at a time when Niagara growers had to dump 4,000 tonnes of grapes on the ground because they had no buyer.
That is a major discrepancy.
That there was a major grape surplus last year is no secret. The province granted $4 million to the growers to help cushion the blow. But while the growers and the wineries make strides towards a long-term plan for the industry -- a condition placed on them by Premier Dalton McGuinty when he gave them the bailout -- one of the largest wineries in the province is saying it doesn't have enough grapes to make all of its official Olympic wines VQA wines.
The Olympic wines are coming from Niagara and British Columbia labels owned by Constellation, which includes Jackson-Triggs and Inniskillin.
The company made headlines last week when it announced its next bottling of Jackson Triggs Esprit Chardonnay and Merlot will be VQA, the only assurance consumers have that the product in the bottle was made from 100 per cent Ontario grapes.
That is great news.
However, Esprit Shiraz and Esprit Sauvignon Blanc will likely remain blended wines, containing up to 70 per cent imported grapes, but sold as cellared in Canada wines.
That news, not so much.
At the Olympics, we put our best athletes forward to compete with the best the world has to offer. In that spirit, we should expect the same from our wineries. If a bottle of wine is going to be sold as an official Olympic wine of Canada, it should be a bottle of VQA wine. Thus it will not only support our athletes (for every $10.95 bottle of Esprit sold, $1.25 goes toward the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games and the Canadian Olympic team), but it will also support our struggling grape and wine industry.
Plain and simple, if there aren't enough grapes of a particular varietal to make a VQA Esprit, then that wine doesn't become an Esprit.
At the same time, as a major player in the industry, Constellation should seek out some of the many Niagara growers seeking a partnership for their crop with the intent of putting those grapes into a VQA wine supporting our Olympics.
That any cellared in Canada wines are being used to support Canada's Olympic effort is shameful, particularly at a difficult time when Niagara grape growers could use the same kind of support.
HALIFAX, N.S. — It's not Napa. It's not even the Okanagan or Niagara.
With roughly 162 hectares of grapes under cultivation, Nova Scotia's Annapolis Valley is in its infancy when it comes to wine production.
But size is proving no impediment to a growing number of visitors who are discovering the charms of the area's boutique wineries. Growers and promoters, meanwhile, are awakening to its potential as a tourism destination.
"If visitors have the least interest in wine they will seek you out," says Susan Corkum of Sainte Famille wines in Falmouth, N.S., one of the first vineyards to become a stop on local wine tours.
"They want to try the wines. They want to know how we make them and understand the whole process."
Sainte Famille, which boasts the oldest commercially producing Marechal Foch vines in the province, was among the first to develop a family-focused harvest wine festival that is drawing increasing numbers of local and international visitors 17 years later.
"We tour the vineyards, sample the grapes, walk through the cellars. There's live music, harvest fest food and grape-stomping contests," says Corkum.
The Nova Scotia Winery Association, which represents a growing list of local producers, has since launched a month-long harvest festival and has even begun extending the wine lovers experience into winter with an annual celebration of Nova Scotia's award-winning icewines.
Sommeliers Sean Buckland and Mark DeWolfe were among the first to jump into the fray in 2004 by starting their own wine tour business, which they've since sold to Ambassatours Gray Line. Buckland remains on as a consultant.
The tour can be a small, intimate affair in a nine-passenger van or a corporate day out on a bus that seats 55.
"We begin with what we call our smell game, giving guests a variety of different scents like citrus or vanilla to help prepare them for the wine experience," says Buckland.
"The idea is these are an isolated sort of a warm up as they will find these elements in the more complex nose of the wines."
The tour might also involve a stop at a local artisanal cheese maker or lunch with paired local wines at Domaine de Grand Pre's Le Caveau or chef Michael Howell's Tempest restaurant in Wolfville, about an hour's drive northwest from Halifax.
Buckland is upbeat about the local industry's future.
"I really think that the Annapolis Valley will become the next Niagara of Canada," he says.
Tourism officials in Nova Scotia are also developing their own understanding of the valley's wine lure potential.
Bob Book, director of development for Nova Scotia Tourism, says the government and industry have just joined forces to form a wine strategy committee.
"I'm excited because I think there's potential for this to become a value-added experience for people who come to Nova Scotia," he says.
"People don't really think of Nova Scotia as a winemaking or a wine region. A lot of what we have to do is to really educate consumers to experience wineries here."
Book says part of the strategy is to put local wines forward in Nova Scotia Liquor Corp. outlets and to have local chefs present them on their restaurant wine lists.
For vintners like Corkum, the focus on wine tourism has meant visitors from Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii and Russia at Sainte Famille over the years.
"I think to myself, 'How do they find me?' because I certainly don't send out brochures. It's all by word of mouth," she says with a laugh.
"People who have been here before are coming back to pick up wine."
Italy's wine export volumes drop in 2008: industry
MILAN (Reuters Life!) – Export of wine from Italy, a major producer in Europe, fell in volume last year under strong competitive pressure with traditional European markets taking the biggest hits, the industry body said this week.
Wine export volumes dropped 7 percent to 17.8 million hectoliters in 2008, but its value edged up 2 percent to 3.6 billion euros ($4.57 billion), Unione Italiana Vini (UIV) said in a statement.
"We are closing a difficult year, but our product has managed to hold on to the positions gained in the past," UIV Chairman Andrea Sartori said in the statement.
Sartori said growing competition from the United States, Argentina, Chile and South Africa hit not only Italian wine makers but their French rivals and other European producers.
"The challenge for this and coming years will be ... to be ever more competitive, improving an average quality of our products and boosting communication about the value of Italian wine," Sartori said.
Exports to Germany, the biggest consumer of Italian wine in terms of volume, dropped 10 percent to 5.6 million hectoliters, while exports to France and Austria plunged 27 percent and 26 percent respectively, UIV said.
Sales of Italian wine on the U.S. market, its biggest export destination in terms of value and the third-largest in volume, fell 4 percent to 800 million euros. Sales volumes eased 2 percent, UIV said.
Italian wine reputation in the United States, one of the world's biggest wine markets, was hit last year by investigations into authenticity of premium red wines made by some producers from Montalcino and Montepulciano in Tuscany.
On the bright side, Italian wine sales to Russia jumped 36 percent in volume and 12 percent in value last year, with Russia become the 12th biggest market for Italian wine.
Italian wine export to Hong Kong, seen as a gateway to greater China, soared 29 percent and sales on the United Arab Emirates market saw an explosive 50 percent growth in volume and more than doubled in value, UIV said.
(Reporting by Svetlana Kovalyova, editing by Paul Casciato)
($1=.7881 Euro)
by Cathy Fisher
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| shearing arms/blades |
In a presentation that preceded a tour of the pruner's abilities in the vineyards, Morikawa emphasized how the pruner's goal is to help growers with today's most critical concern: labor. "The writing is on the wall," he said. "We need to do something not only about the cost of labor, but most importantly the availability of labor." Morikawa noted that the pruner does not intend to replace labor, but to exist as another choice when needed, such as when service and construction industries are actively recruiting workers from the same labor pool.
The Intelligent Pruner provides the look and quality of a hand crew and can function day or night, with
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| the whole rig |
Based on one acre of 726 vines, all the vines can be robotically pruned in about 4 hours (moving at a little over 8 feet a minute, spending about 20 seconds on each vine, and 1.5 seconds per cut). Morikawa stated that the pruner will save 40 to 50 percent over the cost of hand labor, with a fairly rapid payback within 2.5 seasons (working 18 to 20 hours a day over 12 to 13 weeks per season). The cost of robotic pruning calculates out to about $.17 per vine vs. $.35 per vine for manual pruning ($124 vs. $254 per acre). The cost of the pruner will be about $150,000.
The pruner works by scanning an entire vine as the machine's small hydraulic shears approach it. Multiple photos are taken from which a very accurate 3-D image is constructed. From here, pruning rules (based on how the grower wants to prune) are applied and the vines are then pruned. "It's a similar process that a human goes through," said Morikawa. "The entire cordon is considered, looking at cane position, thickness, how many buds there are, etc." Different "rules" can also be applied based on the grape variety and goals for quality and yield.
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| A row that has just been pruned by the robotic pruner (with a row not yet pruned, to the right). |
Morikawa emphasized that funding for the project has come mainly from those in the wine and grape industries since they are the ones most eager to put the pruner's technology to use. He added that Vision Robotics Corp. is currently seeking investment units of $125,000 from 20 investors, who will receive tax benefits, a discount on their first purchase, as well as other purchasing rights.
For more information, visit www.visionrobotics.com
