A couple of stories stuck out for me in my wine blog reading over the past couple of days. The first one was from my friends across the pond at Decanter who posted a slightly snarky entry about Disney pulling the plug on their Ratatouille wine. No, Mr. Lechmere, I’m sure the California Wine Institute would have been equally opposed to California wine being in the Ratatouille bottle.

I have to say I was very surprised to see this brand emerge and was only going to buy the wine for it’s potential resale value on eBay. Whoever put the kibosh to this at Disney is to be commended. I think the potential damage to the Disney/Pixar brand would have been immense if this wine made it into Costco. A very good call from my perspective.

The other story that had me thinking was a post over at the Wine Direct Shipping Compliance blog. They site some pending legislation in Ohio that would limit households in that state to, “…twenty-four cases of nine-liter bottles of wine in one year.” Huh? Is that 24 Salmanazars or 24 cases of one-liter bottles?

Whatever the proper interpretation of this law is it’s clear that legislators in Ohio are not wine lovers. With similar legislation pending in other states it’s becoming clear that the forces against the free distribution of wine are starting to restrict the freedoms gained a couple years back. A very bad turn of events in my view.

Call me a “wine libertarian” but why can’t we just pay our taxes and enjoy whatever wine we want without any more government meddling?

Although some readers may think I’m just a wine blogger now, I actually do record and release podcasts from time to time. It’s been spotty this year but this didn’t deter some listeners from nominating the show for a Podcast Award in the Food & Drink category. I’m honored to be among good company with my friends from Grape Radio also on the ballot with along with eight other drinks podcasts (coffee seems the most represented).

Thanks to whoever sent the nominations in and if you like the podcast, your vote would also be appreciated.

Reader Sorin from Edmonton, Canada sent me a couple videos he has recently made but this one really impressed me as a great wine hack worthy of Lifehacker. Let us know what you think in the comments but have you ever seen anyone do this? No, me neither

Open A Bottle Of Wine Without Corkscrew - The funniest videos clips are here

Several weeks back I proposed a standardized wine rating scale for the wine blogosphere which generated a bit of discussion. Since then I’ve been thinking about how to implement this scale here and have decided to start rating all wines on the following scale with half-stars added for a bit more granularity:

Rating: Flawed, Not Recommended
Rating: Average
Rating: Very good, Recommended
Rating: Delicious, A Wine of Distinction
Rating: Outstanding, A Classic Wine

Note that this is an overall reflection of a wine’s quality and value as having a second scale for value seems too complicated.

It’s great to see other Wine 2.0 sites support this proposal (thanks, Philip, and great Facebook app!) and I expect others to follow. For devotees of the 100-point scale, I will also include that score in all reviews for the foreseeable future along with this 5-star rating.

I know this is somewhat of a contentious issue but I’m hoping some other wine bloggers join me by adopting the 5-star scale (I have noticed Andy begin to use this scale recently). Perhaps we might have some standardization in the wine blog world that seems to exist in the established wine press.

Since my return from Spain I’ve missed having fino sherry as an option for an aperitif or enjoying with dinner. It really matches nicely with seafood where it’s citrus and salty character evokes the sea. But since fino is the product of an interesting biological process where flor yeast grows on top of the wine to protect it from oxidation, getting a fresh bottle is important.

Luckily the sherry houses stamp codes on the back-label to assure the savvy customer of it’s freshness and I’m sure retailers use these codes to rotate their stock. Since fino has about a year of life in the bottle before decline, I set out to find one in a few local stores here in the Twin Cities suburbs (south of the river, for locals).

What I found was that all the bottles of fino on hand were at least one year from bottling with a few nearly three years of age. Not good if you want to develop a following for this unique and versatile wine that depends on freshness. So I’ll have to venture down to Minneapolis and St. Paul to check out the stock at a few of the better wine stores in my search for fresh fino; stay tuned for my tasting notes.

To decode the bottling date, look on the back label for a code which starts with “L” and has a series of numbers. There are a couple of variations with either the bottling date and year in 2 digits at the end or the year in one digit at the beginning followed by the bottling date.

Here are a couple examples:

• Osborne: L18406 = bottled in 2006 on the 184th day, or July 3rd.
• Emilio Lustau: L5165 = bottled in 2005 on the 165th day, or June 14th.

Hat tip to the Wine Lover’s Page for a good article on this subject and whoever keeps the Wikipedia page on fino. For a great overview on sherry, check out Ryan’s “101″ post over at Catavino.

Editors note: This is a cross-post of my “weekly” post over at Jeff Lefevere’s Good Grape blog. Since I’ve been silent there for a while, expect some more frequent posts some of which I’ll cross-post here.

It’s been a while since I posted here at Good Grape so I thought I would get back into action with a meaty topic I think a lot about in my day job as a wine marketer.

How has wine marketing changed in the era of consumer generated content?

At one end of the spectrum is the ground-breaking work by Hugh MacLeod harnessing the power of social media to reposition Stormhoek as a “social object.” You can check out Hugh’s account of his campaign by viewing a 25 minute video of a talk recorded at the PSFK Conference in London last month.

What is most interesting about Hugh’s story is how simply — and almost by accident — he implemented a global marketing campaign in a very fragmented and traditional industry. Like a lot of wine brands, Stormhoek is a volume play where critic’s scores, aggressive sales practices and shelf-talkers are the standard marketing approach. So what did Hugh and Company do? They engaged the blogosphere and started a global conversation about their brand. The result was more than doubling sales in less than 2 years for an investment of about £20,000 (approx. $41,000 USD).

The other end of the spectrum is where 99% of the wine industry is at the moment with their heads in the sand about the internet and little clue about social media. They live in fear someone uneducated consumer will bad mouth their wine on one of the new Wine 2.0 sites such as Cork’d. This level of spin control and anxiety is understandable given the subjective subject of wine tasting where a $2 Chardonnay could be judged superior to a $40 Chardonnay.

But I have three words of advice for winery owners - Join the conversation!

We have seen a few brave wineries start blogging and engage the growing wine blogosphere. Although the jury is still out on their efforts, I know wine has been sold and word of mouth has resulted in new customers.

Don’t have a tasting room? Use your blog to create a “virtual porch.”

Have a limited marketing budget? Spend some time reading and responding to wine bloggers and they will say some good things about your wine and drive traffic to your blog.

The theme of this week’s Wine Industry Technology Symposium underscores the urgency of wineries adopting new online marketing strategies. My favorite quote was from wine podcast superstar Gary Vaynerchuk from Winelibrary.com who said in his talk to , “Embrace your website as your business.” Amen, brother; I hope a few wineries there got the message.

So the bottom line is that wineries who are not part of the social media conversation are doomed to let consumers determine their word of mouth. Like any online endeavor there are trolls but if you engage and extend the conversation you are more likely to encourage partisan customers to come to your aid. If you do nothing, you are likely to suffer in “Google Hell” for some time.

All it takes is a bit of time and focus. The rest — like what Stormhoek has done — could be history.

The second wine tasted on my visit with Cameron Hughes in late May. This one is more in line with what you would expect in an Aussie Shiraz; rich, bold and powerful. One for the cellar.

Cameron Hughes, Lot 42, Shiraz Barossa Valley, “75 year Old Vines” 2005 ($18/sample)

Dark purple in color with blackberry, white pepper and fennel aromas. Rich and bold in the mouth with blackberry jam, mint and licorice flavors finishing with firm tannins. I’d lay this one down for a few years to let the tannins soften a bit or decant for 2-3 hours before serving. Another stunning value.

14.5% ABV
Stelvin closure
Score: 89

Buy this wine online

Being the “wine guy” with family and friends, I’m often asked about the best values. In fact, part of the reason I started this blog and podcast was to share these tips. Although I find great values to write about here quite often, what I encountered with the following wine falls into the “extreme value” category.

The reviews that follow are from a podcast I recorded with Cameron Hughes the last time I was in San Francisco. We covered his approach, sourcing practices and business model for over an hour; about 40 minutes of which was recorded. As fate would have it, this is the first podcast recording to inexplicably vanish since I started doing this almost 3 years ago. It’s really a shame, but Cam has agreed to re-record for an upcoming show in the next week or two. But I’m posting these reviews now because I don’t think there will be any wine left in two weeks time.

Cameron Hughes is a négociant who specializes in bringing the best value for money to wine lovers. He does this by finding the best juice available — increasingly from outside of the U.S. — and blending and bottling under his label. He keeps his costs low by only selling online or through Costco stores here in the U.S. who take a much lower markup than other wine retailers. The result are some stunning wines at prices that make you wonder what he’s thinking. For example, the wine here could stand up to a $50 Shiraz and hold it’s own; Cam sells it for $20. When I asked him about his pricing practices, he smiled and said, “I’m making friends…”; then he opened this wine for us to taste.

Cameron Hughes, Lot 38, Shiraz, Barossa Valley, “100 year Old Vines” 2005 ($20/sample)

Very dark purple in color with aromas of blackberry, mocha, licorice and spice. Jammy and rich in the mouth with blackberry fruit and black pepper flavors finishing with moderately firm, but well integrated, tannins and good acidity. This is a big wine but it has massive fruit to balance the alcohol and a concentration that seems to only come from old vines. I’m going to let my bottles rest for a year or two before enjoying but it’s drinking very well right now.

15% ABV
Stelvin closure
Score: 92

I would suggest you buy this wine sooner rather than later as only 500 cases were released yesterday. Visit Cameron Hughes online to order (no Costco for this one).

Lots of exciting news is coming from our favorite monthly virtual tasting known as Wine Blogging Wednesday.

First off, a great summary of WBW 35 was posted by Michelle and Kevin over at My Wine Education. About 100 wines were written about by over 40 bloggers. Another great turnout; great job, guys!

Founder Lenn Thompson has announced the theme for the third anniversary of WBW as “Let’s Get Naked.” No, we are not going to taste in the nude (but I guess that’s open to personal preference), but sample unoaked Chardonnay. Since my preference is for high acid, fruit-driven Chardonnay this is again perfect for my palate. Join us on August 8th to see what everyone has picked up to try.

And finally, Lenn has formally announced our new WBW community site. This came out of an IM discussion Lenn and I had several months back to make it easy to keep tabs on everything Wine Blogging Wednesday. I’m also pleased to be included in the charter group of advisors who will help manage the schedule and grow the event to a wider audience. One of the features of this new site is a community blog where anyone can sign up and post their tasting notes. So if you have ever wanted to participate, but don’t have a blog, now is your chance.

I’m looking forward to helping WBW grow over the next year. Thanks to Lenn for his original idea and leadership here.

Much has been written about the recent California State Fair Wine Competition where Franzia’s Charles Shaw Chardonnay was named a double-gold metal winner. How can a wine that sells for $2-4 at Trader Joe’s markets across the U.S. best the top wines from California that often sell for more per bottle than Charles Shaw Chardonnay sells by the case?

The answer is it is not possible. What I think happened was one of a few things that I haven’t seen anyone write about.

Batch Variation

Charles Shaw is made in industrial quantities from inexpensive grapes grown in California’s Central Valley. They have also been known to buy wine on the bulk market to bolster their blend as the market allows. My guess is the bottles judged at the California State Fair came from a vastly better batch than what I, and other wine podcasters, have tasted.

Palate Fatigue

I’m not sure who the judges were for this event, but I expect they were all well qualified to distinguish thin, flabby wine from truly complex and interesting wine. Given the hundreds of wines sampled at the competition I would expect some palate fatigue might have contributed to this result.

Random Chance

The blind format for tasting is absolutely the best way for wine to be judged as it takes away all the preconceptions one might have for a given wine. But one of the artifacts of this approach is the line-up of wines can affect the tasters perception. So I think the most likely cause for Charles Shaw Chardonnay winning double-gold (the equivalent of a 98 score) is the wines tasted immediately before the Shaw. Since many California Chardonnay falls into the over-oaked, buttery category, a fruit-forward, little to no oak wine might appear “better” due to the contrast in styles.

But I could be wrong here and Shaw Chardonnay could be one of the best values available on the U.S. market today.

The last time I tried this wine I left unimpressed but I will pick up a bottle and put it into a blind tasting along with some of the best that California has to offer. It will be interesting to see if my judgement in Minnesota lines up with a Judgement in California. As with all wine tasting, your mileage may vary.