French wine sales aren’t what they were, at least in major destination countries like the UK – or indeed their own domestic market. Yet they continue to be the consumer’s favourite, according to research. The finding comes from bona fide consumer research, carried out by Wine Intelligence in eight leading markets, and aggregated to provide a global snapshot of the preferences of regular wine drinkers.
New Zealand wine drinkers enthusiastically support their local wine industry. Perhaps they’re not as parochial as the French or Australians but New Zealand wine retailers report strong customer loyalty for the local product. “I don’t mind paying a bit more as long as it’s a New Zealand wine” is a common refrain, according to one Auckland retailer.
If critics and consumers don’t enjoy a style of wine, should the industry rethink the way they’re speaking to consumers – or rethink the wine itself? Robert Joseph asks the question.
Champagne is France’s strangest wine. For proof, three paradoxes. One: France is the country which has given the world the notion of terroir. Yet the country’s most prestigious and expensive wine comes from its only single AOC monolith.
There was once a New Yorker magazine cartoon in which a man having breakfast in an featureless hotel ‘buttery’ turns to a diner at another table to enquire "Excuse me, could you settle a bet: is this the Athens Hilton or the Vienna Hilton?". I must confess that I almost had a similar moment of dislocation at the end of May. Was I in the Hong Kong Convention Centre or the Excel Exhibition Centre in London?
I enjoy restaurants that have a concept: design, menu, glassware and staff clothing. Similarly, I like to see a wine list that is intelligently constructed. It needn’t be a Bible with verticals of first growths: 50 wines from various origins, highlighting a selection of grape varieties, can often be more than enough.
Everyone reading this will, I imagine, have their own views on the reaction of the Chinese authorities to the current protests in Tibet -and indeed to the manifestation of most other forms of dissent. They may also have formed a few personal impressions on...
France is walking on its head. On one hand, president Nicolas Sarkozy suggests that Unesco put French gastronomy on its world heritage list, without necessarily understanding that one of our kitchen’s fundamentals is its association with wine; on the other are the anti-alcohol lobbies who don’t miss a chance to blindly apply the most absurd letter of the 1991 Evin Law.
Rain towards the end of the 2008 harvest marred what might otherwise have been the crowning moment to a 12 month turnaround in the South African wine industry. With exports trending at 116% and the South African Rand some 30% weaker than a year ago, the crisis which pummelled producers in 2006 seems distant history.
There are three myths about wine drinking in China and other emerging Asian wine consuming countries, which still circulate among wine circles in Europe and North America: (1) Asians don’t know much about wine, (2) Asian consumers often mix wine with Coke, and (3) Asian fine wine consumers are label drinkers.
