Scottish Wine at last?

A vineyard has been planted in Perth and is due to give its first vintage in 2010. Jokes about global warming seem inappropriate this year but as anyone who has spent a winter in Burgundy will know, it's not the winter but the summer that's important. So here's to a blistering Perthshire 2010 vintage!

Brand New Red Bicyclette

What is it with bicycles? Various wineries and co-ops in the South of France are being prosecuted by the French authorities for selling cheap Pinot Noir, that wasn't, to Gallo for its 'Red Bicyclette' brand. One might have thought Gallo should have been able to smell and taste the difference but, as one wag has already pointed out, probably the overwhelming aroma was that of a nice fat, high margin...

Make Mine A Swimming Pool - continued

Making derogatory remarks about lager has - of course - prompted a 'friend' to point out that you can bathe in red wine too. At Kanagawa in Japan there is a health resort where bathing in red wine is said to be a rejuvenation treatment for the body. Well perhaps, but the last time this writer so much as trod grapes for half an hour it took two months for the legs to tone down from bright pink to pallid white. If it had been total immersion there would need to be a racial type created. Closer inspection of the spa does reveal - doubtless to the relief of passport authorities everywhere - that there is quite a lot of water with it - so it is more of a dark rosé colour. Just enough probably to put you in the pink..

The Tractor Factor in New Zealand

Grove Mill, the world's first Carbon Zero winery, has modified a tractor to run on vine prunings, which as a tractor is often going six hours a day they consider well worth the cost. Although we had visions of this new tractor looking rather like Stephenson's rocket it turns out that the vine prunings undergo gasification first and the result can then be used as fuel. But the real pity is that those steaks grilled over the vine cuttings will loose that unique tangy flavour that is so delicious... Still, perhaps that's progress, perhaps not.

Make Mine A Swimming Pool

Word reaches us from Starkenberg in Austria that a health spa is offering a recuperative break where the spa's bathing pools are filled up with - er beer. Apparently bathing in beer has health benefits such as improving skin tone and blood circulation. Pure prejudice leads us to suggest that this must be the proper use for lager and is for certain miles better than drinking the stuff...

PET Beaujolais Nouveau in Japan

Japan has for some years now been Beaujolais Nouveau's largest market but recessionary pressure and declining sales has led to what the trade will doubtless call 'packaging innovation'. Many retailers are to sell Nouveau in PET plastic bottles, which are both cheaper and -allegedly- more environmentally friendly than glass. It is certainly true that nobody is looking to buy Beaujolais Nouveau to 'lay down' so part of the objection to plastic bottles is immediately overcome. As the largest Burgundy negociant supplied the USA with Beaujolais Nouveau in plastic last year, we are left wondering whether this light, fruity and easy to appreciate wine might be the forerunner for a major packaging change for other wines. If Australia and New Zealand can champion the screw- cap perhaps France will be the PET champion? At least if we are selling our Beaujolais Nouveau next year in PET you'll know they are!

Wine (not just Guinness) is good for you

At the World Wine Symposium in Italy Jean-Robert Pitte, ex President of the Sorbonne University, lamented the fact that the French state did not separate alcohol from wine. That sounds rather like being able to get alcohol out of the wine but being unable to get the wine out of alcohol. This is entirely logical and nor should they be separate. Where he does have more force is when he pointed out that L'Association Nationale de Protection contre l'Alcool et les Addictions (French quangos seem to have even longer names than British ones) has an annual budget of 66m Euros and 1,400 employees! What on earth do they all do? We trust they don't drink at lunchtime.. Yet Dr NK Yong, a Singapore wine enthusiast, seems rather to hope they do - "anyone who tells you wine is not good for you is lying. If the politicians don't understand this, you should change the politicians." This has rather more impact when you realise that Dr Yong is 80 years young.