Small dog, loud bark

admin@michwine.com — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 11:42:35 +0100

A funny thing happened on the way to my September column in The Ann Arbor Chronicle.

The column highlighted Spotted Dog Winery, a micro-winery in Saline that successfully markets its kit-made wines through a raft of local retail stores. It recently announced an expansion that will triple its capacity to 3000 cases, in order to meet demand for its wines -- and managed to land admiring press coverage not only on annarbor.com, but a filmed-on-site segment on Detroit's Channel

Competition judging? They say "No, thanks"

admin@michwine.com — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 01:00:00 +0100

So now it's come to this.

Last week, New York wine writers Lenn Thompson and Evan Dawson announced that they would no longer judge at large, medal-awarding wine competitions. They urged fellow journalists to follow suit.

Thompson and Dawson aren't just a couple of basement bloggers grabbing for a headline. Their consumer-oriented wine site, the New York Cork Report, is considered the gold standard by many of us who toil in the backroad vineyards of regional wine jou [...]

Flip-flop 2010: Michigan and California

admin@michwine.com — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 01:00:00 +0100

Michigan growers and winemakers have good reason for cautious optimism about the grapes currently ripening on their vines. An early spring followed by an unusually warm summer have vineyardists across the state reporting bumper crops that are maturing between one and three weeks ahead of usual.

In other words, visions of a potential top vintage, like 2007 or 2005, are starting to dance in their heads.

The numbers at MSU's Enviro-weather -- the go-to website fo [...]

A "What if..." fantasy

admin@michwine.com — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 13:50:42 +0100

I confess to some small satisfaction when voters gave the hook to two of Michigan's most anti-wine consumer officeholders in the state gubernatorial primary earlier this month.

Both losers -- Republican Attorney General Mike Cox and Democratic House Speaker Andy Dillon -- had dined frequently and well at the trough of the Michigan Beer & Wine Wholesalers Association. And both repaid their patrons in kind. Cox squandered hundreds of thousands of dollars in scarce state funds [...]

Wine Competition Live Blog

admin@michwine.com — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 08:13:17 +0100

8:10 AM

Good morning! Please refresh this page to see the latest posts.

It looks like our live chat isn't working, so we'll make do with just blogging for now.

We're getting ready to start this morning's tasting at 8:30.

Right now, Competition Superintendent Chris Cook and Wine Council Program Director Linda Jones are looking very smart -- we have a no-show judge from Indiana, but they'd scheduled an extra judge to rotate in, for the f [...]

Top Ten Reasons to Drink Michigan Wine

admin@michwine.com — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 01:00:00 +0100

Welcome to Regional Wine Week, when wine writers and bloggers nationwide take up arms in support of their local juice.

It's the brainchild of newspaper wine guys Jeff Siegel, who writes for papers in Dallas and Fort Worth, and Dave McIntyre, of The Washington Post. Last year, they jointly started the Drink Local Wine website and recruited wine writers from around the country to participate in the Regional Wine Week project.

Now around here, scribbling about local j [...]

"The Ice Wine Everyone Can Afford"

admin@michwine.com — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 01:00:00 +0100

When it comes to Michigan wine prices, ice wine usually rises to the top.

Last year's trophy-winner for Best Dessert Wine, Brys Estate's 2007 "Dry Ice", weighs in at $70 for a 375ml half-bottle. Black Star Farms' 2007 "A Capella" Riesling Ice Wine -- which Barack Obama serv [...]

Know a good BYO? Great! Now shut up.

admin@michwine.com — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 10:58:15 +0100

Here's a new wine web page we'd never see in Michigan.

On it, you'll find a list of Chicagoland restaurants where diners can BYO, complete with addresses and corkage fees.

That's right. People can actually walk into restaurants in Illinois or New York or
California with a bottle of wine and, if the restaurant concurs,
ask the server to pour it with the meal. It's a practice both consumer and business-friendly, encouraging folks to eat out far more often than [...]

Bad press for wine competitions

admin@michwine.com — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 08:35:29 +0100

People who run wine competitions around the U.S. must wish they never heard the name Robert Hodgson.

{mosimage}Hodgson, a winery owner and retired professor from Cal State University (Humboldt), recently embarked on a new career: statistically debunking the reliability of wine competition medal awards.

Earlier this year, he published a study in the scholarly Journal of Wine Economics (who knew?). He concluded something that many winemakers and critics have lon [...]

Guess who crashed the party?

admin@michwine.com — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 01:00:00 +0100

You don't often see the word "epiphany" in a blog post.

But last Saturday, for the second time in two weeks, I watched group attitudes toward Michigan wine evolve just as notably, if less publicly, than at Harding's Cab Fr [...]

Old Mission's Cape connection

admin@michwine.com — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 01:00:00 +0100

{mosimage}A faint whiff of sour grapes permeated the air after the Michigan Cab Franc Challenge awards ceremony last Thursday.

Unsurprisingly, it seemed to originate near the tables where the southern winemakers were gathered. Their wares had been roundly trounced for bragging rights by their up-north colleagues, both at the Challenge and two weeks earlier, at the Michigan Wine Competition.

"Sure, they can do that in an unusual vintage like 2007," sniffed o [...]

LIVE FROM MI CAB FRANC CHALLENGE

admin@michwine.com — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 17:34:55 +0100

Please refresh periodically for updates. Pictures: Bottles ready to taste. Patrick Fegan of Chicago Wine School.
Importer Jean-Jacques Fertal.

5:35 PM Live from Kalamazoo's Park Club. All six judges are here -- 22 Cab Francs ready to taste!

5:42 PM Judges just told that a total of just [...]

Locavores gone loco

admin@michwine.com — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 07:59:47 +0100

Wearing another hat, wine columnist for the Ann Arbor Chronicle, I've been collecting wine lists from Treetown restaurants.

Scanning these lists for Michigan wines is generally an exercise in serial masochism. With a few wine-country exceptions -- like Traverse City's Trattoria Stella and St. Joseph's Bistro on the Boulevard under lamentably-departed sommelier Marcie Barker -- the results are usually predictable and dispiriting.

Perhaps a half-d [...]

No sparkling trophy? Again?

admin@michwine.com — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 01:00:00 +0100

There's been lots of blowback since the Michigan Wine Competition judges, on a close vote, decided last week not to award a trophy for Best Sparkling Wine -- for the second year running.

{mosimage}A Twitter comment by a winery employee pretty much typifies the industry reaction: "I still have issues with the Michigan wine Comp not awarding a best of class sparkling wine for the SECOND YEAR IN A ROW. Explain someone?"

Respected California writer and wine-wor [...]

MI WINE COMP: Afternoon delights

admin@michwine.com — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 06:21:58 +0100

Please refresh this page periodically to check for new additions.

12:45 PM Judges still talking about the decision not to award a Best of Class Sparkling. California wine writer Dan Berger says it was a mistake -- that the wine we turned down was a great example of a winemaker doing a lot by not trying to put too much yeast or too much aging on a fresh, fruity bubbly. He thinks that's just the sort of wine be ought to be rewarding, that it would send a message to the industry. [...]

MI WINE COMP: Tasting early in the morning

admin@michwine.com — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 06:21:58 +0100

8: 15 AM First tastings supposedly start at 8:30 this morning. I'm judging at a table with Roz Mayberry (D&W Markets), Doug Frost (from Kansas-- both a Master of Wine AND Master Sommelier) and Amanda Danielson (owner of Traverse City's Trattoria Stella, currently studying for her Master Sommelier).

Our table is tasting Semi-Dry Sparkling (4 wines), 2008 Pinot Grigio (8 wines), 2007 Chardonnay (6 wines), and "Dry White" (5 wines). Then we join together w [...]

MI WINE COMP: Record numbers, new Best of Class Ros�

admin@michwine.com — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 01:00:00 +0100

EAST LANSING -- Several bits of news trickled out the evening before the Michigan Wine Competition.

Final total number of entries in the Competition: 395. That's an increase of more than 40 from last year. Superintend [...]

What Chris Cook should say

admin@michwine.com — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 01:00:00 +0100

At 8:30 A.M. on Tuesday, August 4, Michigan Wine Competition Superintendent Chris Cook will stand in front of 24 judges at MSU's Kellogg Center. I'll be among them, and here's what I'd like to hear him say.

{mosimage}"Thank you for agreeing to judge the 32nd Annual Michigan Wine Competition. This room contains some of Michigan's top tasters, plus a number of respected wine professionals and journalists from across North America. All of us have the ability to differentiate e [...]

Wine writing's ethical thicket

admin@michwine.com — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 01:00:00 +0100

Imagine the blow-back if a respected media outlet hired a movie critic with a day job producing studio publicity.

How about a food writer whose primary paycheck comes as executive chef for a restaurant chain? Or a book reviewer who works for a major publishing house?

People would object faster than you could scream "Conflict of Interest!" How can you ask journalists, even those of genuine integrity and good will, to objectively cover the industries they re [...]

Terry Stingley says he's found Michigan's "identity wine"

admin@michwine.com — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 01:00:00 +0100

Napa flaunts its Cabernet Sauvignon. Australia showcases Shiraz; Argentina makes Malbec. And Michigan has its... ?

{mosimage}That sets Terry Stingley's teeth on edge. He says it's time our state created an "identity wine" -- a varietal that leaps to mind wherever wine lovers hear the word "Michigan".

What's more, he thinks he's found it: Cabernet Franc. And he's hard at work on a project to put his boss's name and money where his palate is.

[...]

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