All About Wine And Its Goodness!

The past weekend was yet another one filled with booze.  It’s got to the point now where come Saturday afternoon I feel the need for a drink and I don’t care what it is.

This Saturday I had polished off a bottle of Spanish Wine before 4pm.  The real problem is that I drink a glass of wine like I would a glass of water.  To be honest I think it’s getting a bit of a problem and I know I am going to have to knock it on the head.

When I do my weekly shop on a Friday, I used to just buy one bottle of wine to enjoy over the weekend. Now I buy at least 3 bottles of wine so we can have one a night during the weekend.

Last week the supermarket had offers on Chilean wine and French wine, so I really went for it and got a couple of each.

The problem is if it’s in the house I will drink it and to be honest I’m not fussy about what the drink is. Over Christmas we got given a bottle of Baileys and a bottle of Sambuca.  Over the past couple of weeks, these 2 bottles have been finished off.  I think the problem is that instead of using the shot glasses we use a great big wine glass!

I think the only solution is that I am going to have to stop drinking any alcohol for a while.  It’s going to be tough, but I think it is necessary.

I’m sure the other half will have a moan about this, but I’m sure he will understand why I am doing this.

Having said all that though, I think the ban can come into force at the weekend, so that gives me a few extra nights to finish off any alcohol still at home.   I’m certain I still have a nice litre bottle of gin in the kitchen cupboard, so perhaps I might just have to get a bottle of tonic to go with this!!

The wine market is a funny thing. It is essentially a luxury product and yet millions of bottles are produced each year.A few people’s personal taste can mean life or death for a wine and they can flow in and out of popularity almost weekly. There is one thing that is certain though and that there is a lot of money floating around in this domain, and there has never been a better time to grab a share.

The costs of high class wines have been rising steadily for a good few years now. As better storage facilities and more advanced manufacturing methods produce higher quality wines, so too does the price people are willing to pay for them go up.Sotherby’s Jame Richie who works as the top wine professional there actually said “Prices had risen to nearly unsustainable levels last spring”.  However, now that the recession is upon us, the prices of these exclusive wines are coming within reaching distance. In Jan (2009) there was a decline in prices of around 1.2% according to Liv-Ex 100, the tracking index for the top 100 collectable wines.  This is trend that experts expect to continue for while and can in fact be seen throughout the wine sector, from wine production to the sales of standard shot glasses.

A bottle of Montrachet Domaine Romanee-Conti (1978) very recently got picked up at a Chicago auction for $3,500. That same bottle went up for sale at Sotheby’s a couple of years back for $23,929. This sharp decline means that if you’ve ever wanted to start your own wine collection, either for your own consumption or as an investment, it will soon be the right time.Many professionals in the area think that the market won’t see and upward rise until at least the end of this year. Tableware and drinking accessories are expected to improve as well.

Joss Fowler from Berry Bros and Rudd is a wine investment guru and he has some pearls of wisdom to share. He recommends that a very good bet is, and always has been, a Red Bordeaux as they age beautifully. Also, always go for the best vintage and don’t scrimp on cost, get the best you can possibly. Stay true to this rule and you’ll be filling up your wine racks before too long.

Australia has long been considered a big player in the global wine industry and this has to a large extent been down to its ideal grape growing conditions. However, Fiji and New Zealand have also come onto the scene in recent years and has increased their market share largely as a result of their flexible wine producing policies.

In the news recently was the high-profile contentious issue of wine producers being able to mix together red and white wine, and call the end product rosé. Rosé is normally made by separating the juice from the red grape skins before too much of the red colour can be absorbed into the liquid. However, spurred on by the squeeze of the global recession on wine produces, a number of countries passed a law saying that producers could now sell blended wine (white will a dash of red) under the label of rosé.

Countries such as France, widely considered the finest wine producing country in the world, were not best pleased with this “mutilation” of rosé wine and did not agree for it to be sold in their country, or even be given as wine gifts. However, some countries, including those surrounding Australia have allowed the wine to be produced, and it is certainly paving dividends for their wine producers. A spokesman from the New Zealand alcohol authority defended his country’s move by stating that people are free to consume whichever wine they wish. The companies that produce this blended form of rosé wine do not use any trickery to try and sell it as the traditionally made variety, and there are clear differences in the pricing. The spokesman argued that if people can make milk chocolate in a thousand different ways, why can the same not be done for rosé?

The blending together of some of the most popular wine varieties is another practice that is really taking off in Australasian countries.  In Fiji for example you can buy Sauvignon Blanc mixed with Chardonnay and Merlot blended with Cabernet Sauvignon. Fiji seem to have similar opinions to the wine makers in New Zealand and have said that they are able to blend their wine just as well as a whisky maker might blend two single malts to make a great blended drink. They state that companies all over the world, and in particular Scotland, produce some very fine blended whiskies that not only often taste superior to single malts, but that are also able to sell at more modest prices. Next they will be telling us which tableware we must use when consuming the wine, stated one official.

The natives of Fiji have really taken a liking to this new blended wine, with around 150,000 bottles sold last year alone. When compared to the wine consumption of some of the top bottles in the world, this figure is relatively low, but considering that the population of Fiji is not much more than 750,000, you can see just how successful this wine really is. There are plans to start exporting this fully blended wine very soon and given the fact they are able to undercut many ‘single malt’ wine produces, they are almost certain to do well.