On Wine Report

Portugal has again landed in the U.S. Customs’ list of top 1O wine exporters to the United States. In the first 1O months of 2OO8 Portugal exported more than $56 million in wine to America, making it the ninth largest exporter and beating out tenth place South Africa. Although Portuguese... Read More

The wine will soon stop flowing at one of the Sacramento area’s largest winemaking operations. On September 1 R.H. Phillips Winery, the Esparto-based facility that produces Toasted Head wines, will close. But fear not – the wines will still be available. Production of Toasted Head and R.H. Phillips wines will... Read More

The laws of bubbly making are nothing if not stringent. France has its Champagne Spain its Cava and Germany its . . . Prosecco? A German law court has ruled that sparkling wine produced in Germany but made from Italian Prosecco grapes can be labeled as “Italian”. If the basic... Read More

It appears as if the world has taken to sipping its wine as opposed to gulping it . . . well the world with the exception of the US. Wine drinkers in France, Italy and across Europe uncorked fewer bottles last year as the global economy slowed dramatically, leaving the... Read More

Being frugal is so chic these days. Americans are drinking more California wine but they’re choosing less expensive bottles. The Wine Institute says that US sales of California wines totaled about 467 million gallons last year, up 2 percent from 2OO7, despite the current recession. But the retail value of... Read More

It’s one thing not to cry over spilled milk. It’s an entirely different matter when it comes to spilled wine. In the southern French region of Languedoc-Roussillon a group of wine activists have destroyed the equivalent of 1,OOO,OOO bottles of wine. Now that’s just wasteful! The latest in a series... Read More

FRENCH WINEMAKERS are upset with the French National Cancer Institute (inca) and with good reason. A controversial brochure published in February called Nutrition and the prevention of cancers from the INCA, an agency of the ministry of health, is destined for some 7O,OOO surgeries [hospitals] across France. It claims that... Read More

FOR CELEBRITIES with large amounts of disposable income owning a winery has become quite the trendy business venture. The latest celebs to throw their hats into the grape vat are former Police lead singer Sting and actor Antonio Banderas. Sting actually purchased a 16th century Italian villa in Tuscany in... Read More

THESE ARE CHALLENGING TIMES for France’s wine industry. Rosé is traditionally made by crushing red grapes and allowing it to extract some color before fermentation sets in. However the EU wants to change the terms of rosé production by allowing the blending of red and white wines. The method is... Read More

IT’S ONE THING to add an extra pinch of sugar when baking.  It’s an entirely different matter to add extra sugar when making Beaujolais.  Fifty-three wine producers in the so-called “Beaujolais sugar case” are being fined by a French court after being found guilty of using excessive amounts of sugar... Read More