Forum: News and lifestyle

Drunken animals: they like alcohol too

In some case drunken animals have eaten fruit or bamboo that has fermented but often they thieve alcohol and drink it and become really dangerous

By Donatella Cinelli Colombini, Brunello, Casato Prime Donne

The Drinks Business tells us about 12 episodes of drunken animals, some are funny and some area really horrific for those involved.

There are some Canadian birds that get tipsy eating frozen and fermented berries. The authorities who act in the safeguard of animals have been forced to capture them and lock them up to get over the hangover and stopping them from flying dangerously

Francis Bacon is a Vietnamese pig who finds his way into the Conquering Hero pub in West Norwood to thieve pints of beer and other delicacies. Its owners Vicky and Ian Taylor-Ross noticed that he is sociable like a dog but he does have an extraordinary nose. What a shame to not use it for truffles! In Australia wild pigs thieve beer cans on a camping site. They break them with their teeth and drink the contents. The tourists’ comments are hilarious, with pigs running after cows, swimming in the river and then fortunately, falling soundly asleep. More than scared the campers seem to be angry because of the theft of the beer.

Then there is a squirrel that eats fermented apples and jumps o the snow without going straight. The video has gone viral and has been seen more than 5 million times.

Fine wines: what will happen in 2017

The Drinks Business foresees the future for fine wines in 2017 and Wine Searcher reveals the most sought after: Mouton, Lafite and Margaux

By Donatella Cinelli Colombini, Brunello, Casato Prime Donne

For fine wines the present trends will be reinforced during 2017

1) Auctions: prices of wines for investment will grow again after years of stagnation, a favourable moment for the First Growth or rather the Bordeaux Premier crus while the Burgundy wines will be mined by the Italian wines and by Champagne.

2) The Super Tuscans and the bottles from Piedmont emerge from the obscurity created by the Bolgheri wines

3) Cabernet and other Californian wines will gain market share.

4) The Bordeaux from 2015 will obtain great approval from the critics but their commercial success depends a lot upon the prices.

5) Finally it seems that the run-up of the prices of the wines from Burgundy has ended.  Romané Conti has accomplished sales that blow your mind in 2016, but in the future this growth will slow down.

6) Prestigious Champagnes will become a must for the main wineries, at the rhythm of two per brand.

Italian wines and the world's most powerful people

Donald Trump is a teetotaller but he does make wine and on election night toasted with Amarone. Italian wines on presidential tables

Di Donatella Cinelli Colombini, Orcia Doc, Cenerentola

Let’s begin with a recent example: on the morning of November 9th, when Donald Trump’s victory as President of the US is sure, his friend Flavio Briatore rapidly sends to the Trump Tower three magnums of Amarone with personalized labels with a note saying «Dear Donald, we did it >>. This is quite strange as Trump proclaims to be a teetotaller even though he owns since 2011 a winery in Charlottesville, in Virginia run by his son Eric Donald. In truth buying it at an auction Trump said to the previous owner Patricia Kluge,

<<You have a great nose for wine, I do not>>. This agreement was born more from an investment point of view rather than from a love of wine <<This place has a mortgage for 28 million dollars and I bought it for 6,2 million. It is a Trump-deal>> he said, but as usual he has put his name on the labels. Another of his mania is that of branding everything: water, tea, chocolate……..everything labelled Donald Trump.

Emerging wine regions around the world

Okanagan, Tasmania, Corsica, England, Georgia, Michigan these are the emerging regions and the new frontiers for great wines

By Donatella Cinelli Colombini, Orcia, Fattoria del Colle

In the wine world there are the great classics: Burgundy, Barolo, Brunello, Champagne …. and the novelties such as Oregon or Etna. Among the emerging regions some do get welcomed into the Olympus such as Bolgheri, Napa Valley and others go out of fashion. The authoritative US magazine “Wine Enthusiast” publishes an article by its editors that talks of the 6 emerging wine regions around the world.
Some are confirmations and others are surprises.

Okanagan, in Canada, is a confirmation, and in the last few years has climbed the world rating lists for wine tourism. It is a beautiful area in British Columbia, at 150 km from the border with the US.

During the past 25 years the wineries have gone from 17 to 270 and the grow Syrah, Cabernet, Merlot, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Gris and Blanc on soil very different in altitude and composition. Recently I have tasted a Riesling, clearly inspired, openly admitted by the producer, to the Rhine version of this wine. Clean, technically perfect, but still lacking the complex and intriguing minerality that is found in vineyards that are hundreds of years old.

Wine Spectator TOP 100, the best wines in 2016

Let us discover together the TOP 100 Wine Spectator 2016 wines, and in third position we find the winery owned by Robert Parker from Wine Advocate, that is correct, the eternal WS rival

By Donatella Cinelli Colombini, Chianti Superiore, Fattoria del Colle

Here are the top 10 of the most coveted list in the world, the one by Wine Spectator TOP 100 of the year

1) Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley 2013 Lewis

2) Chardonnay Dundee Hills Evenstad Reserve 2014 di Domaine Serene

3) Pinot Noir Ribbon Ridge 2014 di Beaux Frères

4) Barsac 2013 di Château Climens

5) Barbaresco Asili Riserva 2011 dei Produttori del Barbaresco

6) Monte Bello 2012 di Ridge Vineyards

7) Machete 2014 di Orin Swift California

8) Tignanello 2013 di Antinori

9) Pessac-Léognan Blanc 2013 di Château Smith-Haut-Lafitte,

10) Old Vine Zinfandel Russian River Valley 2014 di Hartford Family California

Let’s see close up the three wines on the podium.

First and king among the Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley 2013 Lewis is a bottle that cannot be forgotten: an elegant Burgonet bottle with a simple round yellow crest with inside a Block capital “L”. Wine Searcher indicates the price at 495 Dollars, only one store selling, with just one bottle available <<#1 Wine of The Year 2016 Wine Spectator! Not cheap but not many out there!>>  There’s a rarity for you! This wine cannot be found! The surprises are not finished: just to prove that the certainty that certain people have regarding the fact the only big companies get reviews by the great American wine press, Lewis is a family with 3 members –Randy, Debby and Dennis-that do everything manually in their winery in  Napa Valley bought in 1992.

Only 108.000 bottles per year of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Syrah, Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc.  Randy was a car racer, he once raced in Formula 3 in Europe. His wife Debby is a genius in marketing and comes from the wine world. Dennis the son also loves sport, and before arriving in the Lewis winery worked in personnel for large companies.

The tour of the winery lasts an hour and includes w tasting of 4 wines, it costs 40 dollars. A small enterprise that concentrates on quality but is still incredibly artisanal.

Bolt CEO for Champagne Mumm

A revolutionary turning point:  Mumm chooses as its testimonial an athlete, the fastest man ever: Usain Bolt. Surprising choice which might even be risky

By Donatella Cinelli Colombini, Brunello, Casato Prime Donne

Don’t be hasty: CEO means « Chief entertainment officer » and not CEO Chief Executive Officer. This is a typical game in French style. At Mumm they want Bolt as a testimonial nota s a chief executive officer. This news arrived in November: the Jamaican Usain Bolt, the fastest man ever, has been chosen as symbol for the Mumm Champagne. The first video shows Bolt that carries out the sabrage on a bottle of Champagne using one of his Olympic gold medals. It’s difficult to know which it is; he has 9 of them, and has been on the top step of the medium for three consecutive editions, and each edition for two or three races.

The publicity is multimedia and wishes to push Mumm consumers towards a more intimate rapport with the brand using also internet and devises

This is the only way to show the campaign in France where publicity regarding alcoholic beverages is prohibited on TV and at the cinema. The objective is of course to intercept Bolt fans but also to confirm the connection between Mumm and wining moments in the life of the consumer, in an association with a practically unbeatable man. For Mumm this is a strategic message: for years we have been used to seeing its magnums on the Formula1 for racing cars podium, held by winning pilots.

The "after Parker" in Australia, and among wine critics

There are those who celebrate wine after Parker with great joy, and then there are those who continue being influenced by the great Robert, but today all ratings are worth less than before

By Donatella Cinelli Colombini

After Parker the  “The Drinks Business” portal, always very attentive to what is happening in the wine and beer worlds , published an interview given to Master of Wine Chris Hancock (Robert Oatley Vineyards in  New South Wales in Australia) . He is known as Mr Chardonnay because he spread this variety down under at the beginning of ht 1980’s. This article stimulates some thought.

The sentence that hit me was << We have just about lost all of the jammy, alcoholic, heavy, dead skin Shirazes that are Parker pleasing palate killers, which is an hallelujah moment. Instead, we’re moving towards lighter, brighter more interesting wines from quality producers>>

So in Australia too there is a change in direction, and after affirming itself with big monumental wines characterized by exaggerated amounts of pulp, wood and alcohol, and in so giving the impression that these out to be chewed rather than drunk, they are  now looking for an identity through a careful attention to the vines.

Barolo's Vietti winery sold: the importance of wine myths

The sale of the Vietti winery has surprised experts and wine lovers all over the world. What would happen if en even more famous winery changed owner?

By Donatella Cinelli Colombini, Brunello, Casato Prime Donne

Everything began in March 2015 when the winery Gigi Rosso sold a 9 hectare property with woodland for truffles and 5 hectares of Vineyard among which the Airone Vineyard one of the most beautiful in Serralunga d’Alba. The declared amount of 7 million Euros seems sufficient to put off every neighbour; instead one comes forward and buys. It is Roberto Conterno owner of the cantina Giacomo Conterno.

This price makes the cost of vineyards all over the Langhe increase and it seems to block the market because those selling ask for astronomical amounts. A worrying subject that often I have been asked about during meetings with Piedmont producers <<these prices are absurd, much superior to the revenue of the vineyards, how can we grow in this situation? >>

in July 2016 the Poderi Luigi Einaudi, estate founded in 1897 in Dogliani announces the acquisition of 9 hectares of vineyards among which 4 of Barolo. The amount has not been divulged but rumours say around 6 million Euro.

Practically at the same time another bomb, that shakes wine lovers and experts all over the world and increases again quotations: the Vietti winery for 60 or maybe 70 million Euro.

Dom Pérignon

Is it right for a wine to have a different testimonial than the producer or wine maker?  Christoph Waltz the actor binds his name to Dom Pérignon P2 By Donatella Cinelli Colombini, Fattoria del Colle, Orcia DOC, Cenerentola [caption id="attachment_11682" align="alignleft" width="300"] Champagne Dom Pèrignon[/caption] Generally wine producers associate their face to the wine, in other words they become the first testimonials of the wines they produce. In some cases the symbiosis man-wine is so perfect such as for the Baroness Philippine de Rothschild with her extraordinary charm like a theatre actress and because she is the descendant of one of the richest and...

Don't miss Wine2wine, December 6th and 7th in Verona!

Once again the Italian women in wine -Le Donne del Vino- are protagonists at Wine2wine the most important Italian wine forum dedicated to wine business

By Donatella Cinelli Colombini, Montalcino, Casato Prime Donne

Two days dedicated to communicating and marketing wine, dozens of mini-conventions where the speakers must summarize their information into a few minutes. This Wine2wine, a forum where it is possible to buy the instruments to make ones enterprise more competitive in an era when the places where wines are consumed are further and further away from where they are produced and in the last 20 years internation exchanges have doubled.

Which are the new trends and which foreign markets are growing? How should wineries set up their web marketing strategy and advertising while the decision of which wines to buy depends more and more on the social media?

These are the two fundamental questions to which  Wine2wine 2016 will reply by examining in depth dedicated to digital communication, to Germany and Sweden. The German Giant is the second importer of Italian wines and will be illustrated by Hermann Pilz editor of Weinwirtschaft one of the major specialized magazines.