Jeff Lefevere and I return to review the top wine stories of the past month including tongue-twisting wine names, a disturbing wine manifesto, trends in wine marketing, the stellar 2009 Bordeaux vintage and much more.
Hosts: Tim Elliott and Jeff Lefevere
Topics
- If the wine is hard to pronounce, is it worth more?
- Has wine lost it’s romance?
- The Slow Wine movement
- 2009 Bordeaux: vintage of the century?
- Will drinking too much wine give you cancer?
- Million Dollar Day for WinesTilSoldOut.com
- Wine’s 2011 Report Card
- Moet Hennessy aims for super-premium red wine from China
- Are Americans’ Tastes Changing?
- Wine discounting trends
- Randall Grahm and The State of the Modest Winery
- Follow-up on QR codes from last month
Events
- 2012 New York Wine Expo: March 2-4, New York City
- 2012 World of Pinot Noir Tasting: March 2-3, Shell Beach, CA
- Paso Robles Wine Country’s 2012 Zinfandel Festival, March 17, 2012
- Wine Blogging Wednesday 75, Single Vineyard, March 21st
- Rhone Rangers, San Francisco, March 24-25
- For events near you check out Local Wine Events
Links discussed on the show
- Consumers pay more for tongue-twisting wines
- If the wine is hard to pronounce, is it worth more?
- Wine’s Decline
- Wine: Is The Romance Gone?
- Slow wine: eco-gastronomy creeps to the fermented grape
- Suckling Hails ’09 Bordeaux “Best Ever”
- Consumers urged to count units
- Two glasses of wine a day ‘triples mouth cancer risk’
- WOW: The ‘Woot of Wine’ Just Had A Million-Dollar Day
- The state of the wine market, 2012
- Wine’s 2011 Report Card
- Consumer Wine Trends: Overall Consumption Up
- Moet Hennessy aims for super-premium red wine from China
- The Low Alcohol Craze Goes Overboard
- The debate about high alcohol sometimes verges on insanity
- Are Americans’ Tastes Changing?
- BERGER: A preference toward lower-alcohol wines?
- Wine Discounting Likely to Continue
- Doon to Earth (Redux)
- Wine & The Connected Consumer
Feedback: thismonthinwine@gmail.com
Copyright 2012 Acan Media, Inc. Licensed under Creative Commons.
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Hello Tim and Jeff, great show! Really enjoyed your analysis on all topics. I just wanted to comment on the notion that wine is still mysterious to people in the US. Tim, you made a great point about how in Europe wine is just embedded into culture and that this was passed from one generation to the next – unlike in the US for all the reasons you mentioned. But I think that we have to be careful in thinking that in order to remove the mysteriousness from wine, people have to become educated. Do Americans really have to be educated and informed about wine in order to begin to enjoy it and make it less mysterious? Many of my European friends who enjoy wine on a daily basis have never taken a wine lesson, read a book about wine, or subscribed to any wine magazine or blog. And I don’t think that their parents and grandparents went out and got educated in wine either. They just drink it. It’s second nature because it has always been around them. They know how to appreciate a good bottle of wine, yet none sit at the table and have in depth discussions about terroir, grape varieties or wine regions. A long way to say that in my opinion, the lack of wine education or knowledge is not the main reason why about 150 million adult Americans don’t drink wine. If I was putting together a list, it wouldn’t even make my top three reasons. Keep up the great work with the podcast.
Thanks for your comment, Marco. I agree that education is probably not the number one reason more Americans don’t drink wine but don’t think a wine culture will develop here until wine is destigmatized. Prohibition thinking is still with us and unfortunately too many Americans think wine is for the rich, or special occasions, and not a part of everyday life. And the mixed messages sent by the medical community (wine is good; no, wine is bad; no, it’s good for some people) hasn’t helped. Perhaps attitudes will change but I think it will take generations.
Marco,
You make a good point. As I have stepped back from blogging and started to see the forest again, so to speak, I think you’re right in that wine education is definitely a perceived barrier for US wine consumers. Forthe french they can buy a vin de pays or a vine de table and know what they are getting. Here, marketing has clouded a lot of that for the general consumer.