High Country wineries form Boone Area Wine Trail

The mountains of northwestern North Carolina hope to become the Southeast's next hot destination for wine lovers. The Watauga Tourism Development Authority has helped develop the Boone Area Wine Trail to attract more visitors to the high country vineyards around Boone and Banner Elk. A former winemaking researcher at Appalachian State University, Richard Wolfe, says some high-level elevation locales are comparable with successful European viticulture climates.

The tourism authority's website includes an interactive map to steer visitors along a scenic route past the Grandfather Vineyard and Winery, the Banner Elk Winery and Inn and the 1861 Farmhouse Restaurant and Winery. The wineries are producing a variety of wines, including Chardonnay, Pinot Gris, Pinot Noir.

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French wine consumption drops by three billion bottles

Researchers fear the culture of wine drinking is being lost in France, with younger generations less likely to savour a bottle over food and more prone to drink simply for pleasure. They are also less aware of its cultural significance to France. Just 16.5 per cent of the French population are now regular wine drinkers, according to research from the ESC Pau research centre and Toulouse 1 Capitole University/ Regular consumption over meals has been replaced by the French drinking wine occasionally rather than frequently, often on nights out. This has occurred within the last two generations, according to researchers Pascal Poutet and Thierry Lorey.

In a study in the International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business, the pair looked at successive generations and their approach to wine drinking, dividing the demographic into four groups.
The oldest was those over 65 years who had lived through the Second World War, followed by those between 40 and 65 who lived through a period of growth and worldwide development. Those 30 to 40 - “Generation X”, who grew up through the French crisis of the 1990s, were next, followed by those under 30 - the internet generation. “Each successive generation represents a general increase in libertarian attitudes and irreverence towards institutions”, says Dr Poutet.

While all agreed on the value and ’bon homie’ of drinking wine, it was the over 65s who most linked it with French heritage and were more likely to drink it daily and share the experience. The middle groups are much more occasional drinkers and drink more socially with friends rather than family, and social status is a factor in their wine consumption. But for the under-30s, wine consumption is very much the exception rather than the rule.

Dr Poutet said: “There is a dual gap between the three generations, older, middle-aged, younger - on the one hand, the consumption frequency gap (from a daily wine consumption to a festive one, and then exceptional), on the other, the pleasure gap (evolution from a genuine pleasure towards a more ostentatious pleasure, more difficult to perceive for the younger generation).”The younger generations may still take pride in French wine but have little awareness of its cultural place in French history, he said.

He explained: “The generational analysis of the representations of wine in France does seem to be appropriate to explain the deep changes that wine has undergone in the last 60 years. “It is precisely the progressive loss of the identity, sacred and imaginary representations of wine (nation, region, lesser importance of the transmission of the culture of wine by the father within the family, etc) over three generations that explains France’s global consumption attitudes, and especially the steep decline in the volumes of wine consumed.”

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Wineries leverage technology to reach consumers

The digital revolution is spreading across the wine world — whether the industry is ready or not. More than 450 wine-related applications are now available on the iPhone and other mobile devices — more than six times the number that existed only 18 months ago, according to a recent survey.

Last year, people on Facebook, Twitter and other social media had 14 million online conversations about wine, providing recommendations, reviewing vintages and suggesting the best wineries to visit, said Paul Mabray, chief strategy officer for VinTank, a Napa consulting firm.

Social media and mobile technology, which have garnered widespread coverage for playing a key role in the Arab uprisings, are now quietly usurping the wine industry’s traditional marketing powers and fueling a revolt among the hordes of casual wine drinkers.

“As an industry, we can no longer ignore digital,” Mabray said. “We now live in a Google economy.”Mabray and others are pushing wineries to develop strategies that incorporate the widening arsenal of digital tools such as social media, data management and company-wide integration of workflow technology.

Some wine executives, such as John Jordan at Jordan Vineyard & Winery in Healdsburg, are already more than two years into implementing their digital strategies. “It’s a constantly evolving, messy thing,” said Jordan, the winery’s chief executive officer. “But technology makes it possible for a company to really become customer centric.”

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Oregon wine grape crop growth comes late with cool spring weather

Winemakers around the state are coping with another late growing season as persistently cool spring weather delays the growth of the grape crop, The Oregonian reported.

Oregon's $1.4 billion wine industry has grown to more than 400 commercial wineries where managers try to balance the effects of weather that can range from cool and wet to hot and dry in short order.

At Seven of Hearts winery in Carlton, owner Byron Dooley said the cool early spring has set him back about two weeks from where he would like to be. If he's jittery, it's because the conditions are reminiscent of last year, when only an extended burst of sun at harvest in early October saved a wholesale washout.

"I always remind myself that it's not what happens in June but what happens in October that's most crucial," Dooley said. "But 2010 was the most white-knuckled vintage I've been through. I would love not to have to do that all again."

A late start to the growing season makes it difficult to ever fully catch up. And when it does heat up under summer sunshine, unseasonable heat spikes can flood grapes with too much sugar, resulting in flabby, unbalanced wines.

If the harvest is delayed too long, autumn rains can threaten a crop that needs a long hanging time on the vine to develop the right mix of acids and sugars. The timing is always tricky, but key to any successful harvest, winemakers say.

"In my mind, wines from later vintages are always better than wines from earlier vintages," said Sam Tannahill, Oregon Wine Board chairman and a partner in Rex Hill Vineyards and A to Z Wineworks in Newberg. "Later vintages, of course, require longer hang time, which then introduces rain into the equation."

A couple of days of sunshine that recently broke through the otherwise gray days of the waning spring sparked activity at many vineyards. "We're seeing two to three inches growth on warm days right now," said Harry Peterson-Nedry, founder and winemaker at Chehalem winery in Newberg. "It's pretty stunning to watch."

Winemakers and vineyard managers around the state say they are feeling more optimistic than they were a few weeks ago. "We were saying, we're really late," said Mark Wisnovsky, an owner of Valley View Winery in Jacksonville. "Now, we're just late."

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Bordeaux hoofs it into Asia

AT CHATEAU Latour in Pauillac, horses plough the vineyards just as they did in the 14th century, when vines were first grown on the estate. But this is a recent return to tradition at Latour, one of the five renowned ''Premier Grand Crus'' of Bordeaux, and it's based on sound commercial considerations rather than sentimentality.

Fine-wine prices have surged because of an explosion of interest from China and other Asian countries in recent years. Unable to increase production - land is limited and there can be only one harvest a year - Bordeaux's leading producers focus relentlessly on quality. The reintroduction of horses is part of that drive for quality - they plough with more precision than tractors and do far less damage to the soil and vines, some of which are 100 years old.

Prices plummeted in the wake of the Lehman Brothers collapse in 2008 but the setback was short-lived. Last year, top-end bordeaux outperformed not just equities, but gold and crude oil, too, according to Liv-ex, which tracks the prices of the top-five Bordeaux chateaus. Its Fine Wine 50 Index rose by 57 per cent last year, far outstripping gold (up 35 per cent), crude oil (20 per cent) and the FTSE 100 (11 per cent).

China last year overtook Britain and Germany to become the leading export market by value for Bordeaux wines. And the Chinese are not just buying bordeaux by the bottle and case but by the vineyard, too - earlier this year, Cofco, the huge Chinese state-owned conglomerate and owner of the Great Wall wine brand, bought a 20-hectare estate, Chateau de Viaud. It is unlikely to be the last such deal. Last month, a single bottle of 1961 Chateau Latour sold to a Chinese buyer for £135,000 ($A208,113) at auction in Hong Kong, more than three times the expected price.

Robert Parker, the world's most influential wine critic, has warned of a speculative bubble in bordeaux prices and that the region, which he has done much to promote, is in danger of pricing itself out of the European market as it chases wealthy Asian buyers. Not everyone agrees: ''There is no bordeaux bubble,'' says Sam Gleave of Bordeaux Index. ''People are drinking as much as ever.''

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