Word: grapes
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...awash in the stuff. In 2004 worldwide production hit its highest level in 20 years, almost 300 million hectoliters, or 15% more than the previous year. The glut is hurting producers everywhere, particularly in Australia, which has surplus wine stocks that exceed a year's worth of exports. Many grape growers there simply let this year's crop rot on the vine rather than harvest...
...wine glut's impact is worldwide. In California some wineries have gone bankrupt, including the Legacy Estate Group that owned prestigious brands, including Arrowood, Byron and Freemark Abbey. (The group was sold last month to Kendall-Jackson.) In South Africa grape prices have dropped about 30% this year, prompting a hunt by producers for new markets. In the Friuli region of northern Italy, which specializes in Pinot Grigio and other whites, winemakers' cellars are filling with unsold bottles...
...other South American wine-producing country achieve that level of international acceptance, and if so, which one? The answer may[an error occurred while processing this directive] be Uruguay. The reason is that the country has a niche virtually all to itself, and that's Tannat - an obscure grape originally grown in southwestern France, and brought to Uruguay in 1870. If you're a winemaker, having a little-known but delicious varietal up your sleeve is no bad thing, given the constant pressure to satisfy consumers' ever more fickle palates. Historically, Tannat has not been held in great esteem...
...walked around the wineries and slowed up their production. At Provenance Vineyard, we tasted the same wine from different barrels and learned that French oak really does taste different from American oak (it's less oaky). I got winemaker Tom Rinaldi to let me taste Petit Verdot, a blending grape used in tiny quantities for its dark color. It tastes a lot like wine...
...used refractometers to test the sugar content of grapes at Sterling before we picked them. At Acacia, we tasted every wine grape I've ever heard of. Then the head winemaker showed us their alternative pest-control system: a falconer. Besides learning that falcons scare starlings away from grapes by swooping down at 200 m.p.h., we learned that falconers are just about as geeky as you might have thought. At Beaulieu Vineyard, we used pipettes, beakers and a calculator to make our own blend of red wine, which was then bottled with storeworthy labels featuring our names. They were like...