London International Wine Fair

I went along to the London International Wine Fair a week or so ago. This is one of the really big shows, attracting exhibitors from pretty much everywhere with a commercial wine sector.
I like to go and see whats available.

We offer a quite diverse range on our websites (euromarque wines and personalised wine labels) but its always good to if anything else would work for us. lots of good wine but as we are in the gift/promotions market, we are limited by the general publics perception of a countries wine industry.
would you give a Thai Shiraz as a present? No, didn’t think so, but I tasted a nice one.

This year there were about 25,000 wines being pushed, most of which could be sampled. Sorry, did I say it was trade only? Got you really interested for moment , but you lot will just have buy your wine.
I sampled a fair few, perhaps 50 to 60, and yes I spat. More that that and my taste buds loose their edge.

I suppose the thing that struck me must was the number of ‘minor’ countries that were there.
Brazil has been a regular for a while, but the climate works against them. Moldova was back but still too focused on Russian tastes rather than concentrating on making good wines.
Turkey was there in force, and the improvements in the last 6 to 7 years are staggering. Particularly in the use of indigenous grapes. I was particularly impressed with the wines from Cappodicia in central Anatolia. Good hearty reds that will great with tomato or olive oil based meals.
Israeli wine has now targeted the fine wine sector. the high altitude wines from the Golan benefit from lots of sunshine but only moderate heat. Though I think making (nice) ice wine by putting your grapes in the freezer is cheating!

Georgia, one of the claimants for the birth of wine making, had a good range at the show, including some medal winners. Their grapes were even harder to pronounce than the turkish ones, but worth the effort.
I never tried the samples from Malta or Cyprus purely due to bias from previous holidays. But I’m told that they have some good quality producers now.

The most unusual wine was one made from pomegranates. Yep -no grapes involved. No idea why they do it but it works. Its very dry and smells just like pomegranates. since its a super food maybe drinking it does you good!

probably the only country i didn’t see was england. stop sniggering, English sparkling wine is developing a great reputation. Its only real problem is that it often costs as much as champagne.

Carbon Footprint of wine

The New York Times has recently had an interesting article on carbon footprint of bottles of wine.

They compared the total carbon dioxide emissions of a bottle of wine shipped to New York from the Loire Valley in France and a bottle shipped to New York from the Napa Valley in California.

The result? The bottle of wine sent from California produces much more carbon dioxide.

Here’s how they worked it out.

At the cultivation level, there’s very little difference, 210 grams of carbon dioxide per bottle in the Loire Valley, and 214g in the Napa Valley. This is the energy used in managing the vineyard and growing the grapes.

The fermentation process, which naturally produces carbon dioxide, is the same for both regions: 109g of carbon dioxide per bottle. (No, stopping wine making will not save the planet!)

The production process in the winery was also the same in carbon terms at 132g.

In the “Containers” category, however, the Napa Valley loses out, mainly because the quality wooden barrels that most wineries use to age their wines are transported from France; the comparison is Loire Valley 473g and Napa Valley 633g.

Really big difference is in the shipping.

Sending a bottle of wine from California to New York produces 1,426g of carbon dioxide, because the wine is transported overland by lorry. The Loire Valley bottle obviously travels mainly en masse by sea, so produces only 447g of carbon dioxide.

The total is 1,371g of carbon dioxide to ship a bottle of wine from the Loire Valley to New York, 2,514g to send a bottle of wine from California to New York, nearly double.

Obviously anyone in NYC who is thinking green should drink French wine, or at least European wine. Expect an ad campaign from the French any time now. Californians should stick with the local offerings.

Anyone know the maths for wines coming to the UK market? Its probably a bit trickier. For instance our personalised champagne travels by lorry via the channel ports, so more road than sea. Our Bordeaux also travels by road and sea, but this time the ferry is Bordeaux to Portsmouth, so more sea than road.

Personalised wedding labels

We have now added an extra set of personalised wine labels for weddings onto our website www.personalisedwinelabels.co.uk. They are quite varied, so there should be something for all tastes.

There are also additional personalised champagne labels for weddings, probably a more popular gift.

We have also added a label for a thank you gift to the bridesmaids.

Music makes wine taste better!

Its amazing what researchers chose to look at.

A carried out by Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh for the Chilean wine company Montes, suggests that choosing the right background soundtrack could be crucial to getting the most out of specific styles of wine.

Professor Adrian North, who led the research, explained that when a powerful piece of music such as O Fortuna from Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana is played, a wine like Montes Alpha Cabernet Sauvignon is perceived as being 60% richer and more robust than when no music is heard.

Similarly, a style like Montes Alpha Chardonnay seems 40% bolder and fresher when accompanied by pop music.

A total of 250 adults were recruited on a university campus and offered a free glass of wine in return for answering questions about its taste. They drank the wine in one of five rooms, each of which played a different style of music – or no music – and were then asked to rate the wine’s taste according to set parameters.

‘It is widely acknowledged within the scientific community that music affects behaviour,’ said North. ‘However, this is the first time it has been scientifically proven that music can affect perception in other senses and change the way wine tastes.’

The research is based on the theory of cognitive priming, which holds that particular styles of music stimulate, or prime, certain parts of the brain. When wine is tasted, these areas are already active and have a corresponding effect on our perceptions of taste.

Montes founder and winemaker Aurelio Montes already uses music in the production process, playing monastic chants to his maturing casks of wine in his Feng Shui-optimised barrel room. Sounds weird, but he makes really good wine and is also a very nice bloke.

Now the company is investigating the possibility of adding music recommendations to its back labels.

Montes’ recommended wine and music matches
Cabernet Sauvignon: All Along The Watchtower (Jimi Hendrix), Honky Tonk Woman (Rolling Stones), Live And Let Die (Paul McCartney and Wings), Won’t Get Fooled Again (The Who)
Chardonnay: Atomic (Blondie), Rock DJ (Robbie Williams), What’s Love Got To Do With It (Tina Turner), Spinning Around (Kylie Minogue)
Syrah: Nessun Dorma (Puccini), Orinoco Flow (Enya), Chariots Of Fire (Vangelis), Canon (Johann Pachelbel)
Merlot: Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay (Otis Redding), Easy (Lionel Ritchie), Over The Rainbow (Eva Cassidy), Heartbeats (Jose Gonzalez)

The one thing that stands on from this for me, is that wine isn’t a drink for youngsters. Most of these tracks are so old! Perhaps this says more about the age of the researchers than about the wine.

Perhaps we should offer personalised labels that include appropriate lyrics. so you can sing alone as you drink. I eagerly await the inevitable follow up studies as researchers try to scrounge drinks from other producers.

My guesses for matches are: personalised champagne and light Viennese waltzes, claret and chamber music, shiraz and heavy metal.

Personalised Wine Labels for Engagements

Engagement presents are difficult things nowadays.
The couple will probably have had their own home together for a few years and may well have a couple of children. So they will have most of the gifts that were traditionally given for engagements and weddings. All the jokey birthday and Christmas stuff isn’t quite right for a more ’serious’ occasion such as an engagement.

So what do you get them?

Well, Personalised Wine Labels have just launched a specific engagement range on labels for personalised champagne and personalised wine. So now the gift choice is easy, a bottle of quality champagne or wine with a unique label.

You can have the couples names or any message you like. And you Know they’ll appreciate the gift because everyone loves to be given a bottle.

The new range is in addition to our existing general congratulations and any occasions ranges

We

will be adding some categories in the next few weeks, but add a comment on any others that you would like to see.

We will be

We will be adding some categories in the next few weeks, but add a comment on any others that you would like to see.

New wine label category added

We have just added a new category on www.personalisedwinelabels.co.uk, labels for any occasion or none!

These are for when giving a bottle with your message is just a good idea. It also covers the huge range of occasions that we haven’t thought of yet! Please take at look at the new personalised wine labels , I think you’ll find them quite eye catching.

If you think there is category that should be added please put it in a comment on this blog

The Wine World in 2058

Berry Bros. & Rudd, one of the top wine merchants in the country, have produced a report looking at the future of wine.
A GLIMPSE INTO THE WORLD OF WINE IN 2058 is produced by 4 Masters of Wine and a raft of other experts. This is intended as a serious piece of futurology but contains some very radical, or possibly barmy, ideas.

Volume Wine
In the world of volume wine, Berrys believes there are two specific areas set for significant change by 2058:
new producers and climate change.

a). New Horizons
Already the world’s sixth largest wine producer, China is predicted to be the world’s leading producer of volume wine by 2058.
Berrys believes Cabernets and Chardonnays of real promise will be made. With the right soil, low labour costs and soaring domestic demand, China is apparently the future.

b)The changing climate
If global warming persists, many non-traditional wine producing countries given the chance to become real contenders.
Countries which are currently small-scale producers may become more significant. Much of Eastern Europe sits on the same latitude as some of France’s top wine producing regions, so countries like Ukraine, Moldova, Croatia, Slovenia and Poland could become major players, if they can attract investment.
Berrys believes Canada could also grow in importance. Southern Ontario and Southern British Columbia are already home to several large areas of vines, and Berrys predicts it could start to rival its American neighbour by 2058.

In the past year or two, Australia has suffered from very severe droughts, leading to vineyard irrigation being temporarily banned. If this trend continues, supplies of inexpensive Australian wine may soon be a thing of the past. By 2058, Berrys predicts Australia will be too hot and dry to support large areas of vines. It will no longer be known for volume wine and will become a niche producer, concentrating on hand-crafted, terroir-driven, fine wine.

2. BIG BRAND BOOZE
In 2006 Foster’s started sourcing wine for their popular Lindemans brand from South Africa and Chile.
The Berrys’ experts commented: “By 2058, big brand wine could be grape or blend specific, rather than from a particular country. Grapes will be gathered from all over the world and blended to suit consumers’ tastes.”
Consumers may recognise wine brands (and the flavours associated with them) in the same way they do spirit brands such as Smirnoff. Rather than ordering a glass of Australian Shiraz or Californian Merlot, it could be commonplace to ask for a ‘Lindemans Light’, ‘Waitrose White’ or ‘Rosemount Red’. Grapes will be genetically modified to change a wine’s taste and producers will add artificial flavourings to create a style wanted by consumers.”

Floating Vines
Satisfying this growing consumer demand will need wholesale changes in production methods.
By 2058, Berrys predicts vast industrial vineyards could house genetically-modified grape varieties resistant to disease, and genetically altered yeast will improve fermentation and help produce wines with lower alcohol levels.
An increased focus on low calorie lifestyles could entice producers to reduce calorific and alcohol content by modifying the grapes’ genetic structure.
Since vineyards typically take up huge areas of land, Berrys believes genetically modified vines could be grown hydroponically in vast off-shore floating vineyards.

Lightening the load
In 50 years’ time, Berrys believes wine is unlikely to be sold in glass bottles. Using glass will be unrealistic due to costs, waste, and environmental impact of wine. Even with lightweight bottles, Berrys believes the cost and environmental impact of shipping pre-bottled wine around the world will be too high. So we’re likely to see ‘wine tankers’ crossing our oceans. Bulk shipments of wine could arrive, before being put into plastic or reinforced cardboard containers in a bid to reduce environmental emissions and create a domestic bottling industry. This would make things a bit tricky for personalised labels!

Fine Wine
Berrys believes China has all the essential ingredients to make fine wine to rival the best of Bordeaux.
While most Chinese current wines seem alien to Western palates (ie horrid), a new breed of Chinese winemaker, backed by foreign investment and technical advice, is already trying to change that reputation.

The Indian wine industry is likely to challenge the supremacy of traditional winemaking countries as well.
High local demand and aggressive promotion from the government means more and more ambitious Indians are turning to fine wine as a mark of social standing. Berrys believes India will soon be taken seriously as a fine wine-growing nation.

Rising global demand for fine wines – both for investment and for drinking – and limited availability of First Growth wines from top châteaux means prices will continue to rise inexorably over the next 50 years until fine wine becomes the preserve of the very rich.
Simon Staples, Fine Wine Sales Director at Berry Bros. & Rudd believes: “If values increase by 15% per annum, as they have been doing recently, a case of 2005 Ch. Lafite-Rothschild, currently available for £9,200, could be worth just shy of £10 million by 2058.” Seems a better investment than a house at the moment!

British Bubbly
I blogged about this in April, but you may not have believed me. Thanks in part to warmer temperatures (2007 was the second warmest year in the UK in 356 years) more and more English land is becoming suitable for wine production. There are currently 1,000 vineyards in England across Kent, Hampshire, Essex and Sussex and production in 2006 was just over 3.3 million bottles. Berrys believes, the amount of English farmland devoted to wine production may rival that of France by 2058 .
French Champagne producers such as Louis Roederer have been looking at the chalky soil of the South Downs with interest, believing it offers them a great opportunity to produce sparkling wines similar to Champagne itself.
Recent international blind-tasting competitions even saw some English sparkling wines triumphing over the best Champagnes.
Berrys’ experts commented, “If British growers get support from British drinkers and are able to compete on price they may be able to compete with Champagne.”

Quality control
Berrys believes, if you order a bottle of 2005 Ch. Margaux in 2058 that is corked, it’s unlikely you’ll get the chance to taste it as top restaurants introduce innovative measures to ensure customers receive nothing but the best.
Recent developments in biotechnology have shown honeybees have a finely developed sense of smell. Honeybees trained to recognise particular odours, such as corked wine, and associate that smell with food. When they detect a corked bottle, a trained honeybee’s reaction will be easily picked up by a small detector.
By 2058, every sommelier could have their own personal bee!!

New Personalised Labels.

We have just added a whole batch of new labels on www.personalisedwinelabels.co.uk. The congratulations wine labels section has had 8 new additions, 4 for personalised wine/ personalised port and 4 for personalised champagne / personalised sparkling wine.

In the next few weeks we will be adding some brand new categories to the site, as well as more labels to the existing categories.

If there are any categories that you would like us to add, please add a comment to this blog