Stanford Wine Collection

Little did I know one of Stanford's many perks: discounted wine from the Stanford Alumni Association! The Stanford Wine Collection offers a plethora of options, from Del Rio to Kunde to Pence to Cardinal Rule -- all endearingly Stanford-themed.

In terms of wine selection, for the past 38 years, Stanford alumni in the wine industry gather annually to select wines for the collection. According tot he website, the tasting panel samples wines from mostly West Coast wineries, whose wines are wrapped and rendered anonymous.

The judges rank the wines on the Davis 20-point scale, and the collection's wines are determined after two hours of tasting.

A browse through the tasting panel recalled a familiar name: Pete Mondavi Jr!

VinoShipper handles all of the Stanford Wine Collection's sales and shipping, which I thought was a smart move by the Stanford Alumni Association to clear their hands of messy regulatory hurdles. (Niftily, on the website, Stanford also explains the 21st amendment and why regulation prevents them from shipping to all 50 states.)

月下独酌 (Yuè xià dú zhuó)

Among the flowers with wine beneath the sky
Alone I drink — no friend or kin, just me
I raise my cup to toast the moon on high
That's two of us; my shadow makes it three
Alas, the poor moon knows not wine's delight
My shadow follows like a living thing
At last with moon and shadow I unite
In joyful bond, to seize the last of spring
I sing: it sets the moon to rock in time
I dance: my shadow cannot hold its place
Sober, we share companionship sublime;
Drunk at last, we drift apart in space --
Lost to worldly things, until some day
We'll meet again, beyond the Milky Way​

Such love, such loss. This is a translation of Drinking Alone Under the Moon (月下独酌) by Li Bai, arguably the most famous figure in Chinese poetry -- and, perhaps, literature. Active in the Tang period, Li wrote over a thousand poems throughout his storied career, and Drinking Alone Under the Moon is one of the most well-known to this day.

I think this poem masterfully paints a picture of wine that we normally don't see -- one that brims with loneliness, humility, and candor. After scouring several translations of the poem, this above translation was the one I was most satisfied with; inevitably, some elements of the poem are lost in translation, but holistically, the meaning Li intended shines through.

Li also writes that "the poor moon knows not wine's delight," insinuating the wonders of escape and liberation that drinking wine gives the narrator. Wine, here, is clearly delineated from the natural world and order; the moon is inherently a part of nature, while wine is somewhat presented as a human manipulation of and luxury built upon existing nature.

As the poem's narrator drinks fine wine, his shadow appears to form the contours of someone akin to a lost lover in the moonlight.  He or she recounts that when sober, he or she shared "companionship sublime," presumably with a lover, but being "[d]runk at last" endowed the narrator with a sense of liberation and loss to "worldly things." Here, Li strikes a delicate balance between wine's capacity to engender loneliness as well as, paradoxically, hope; the poem ends declaring the lovers will "meet again, beyond the Milky Way."

Growing up, I always wondered if this final line implied that the lovers would meet beyond death. Perhaps the narrator's lover has already passed into a dimension even wine cannot touch. When I was much older, I fell in love with John Milton's work, and read a similar poem, On His Deceased Wife, that reminded me very much of the essence of Drinking Alone Under the Moon. In particular, one of Milton's quotes inspired me to pursue intensive study and work in writing. Milton describes vividly dreaming of his deceased beloved wife and, upon awakening, writes: "I wak’d, she fled, and day brought back my night."

When Literature Meets Wine

Meet Winc, a wine subscription box offering literary-themed wine labels. Wordsmith, one of their red blends, nestles an incomplete crossword puzzle on the label. There's something so mysteriously aggravating about this incomplete picture.

One of Winc's latest wines, Folly of the Beast (a Pinot noir), is named after Moby Dick's famous quote: “For there is no folly of the beast of the earth that is not infinitely outdone by the madness of men.”

Another cool example: Realm Cellars boasted three Shakespearean wines: Falstaff, The Tempest, and The Bard, a Bordeaux-style blend that received 100 points in Wine Advocate in 2013. The innovative labeling of The Bard includes a timeless passage from Richard II:

Another innovative design move: Ovid Vineyards's Experiment line has a literature-inspired bottle modeled off of old library cards.

Back to the classics: Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven introduces Lenore, the narrator's love, to the world. Corvidae Wine's Lenore, Columbia Valley Syrah draws upon this inspiration but denominationally and in terms of the bright black raven on the label:

And some bonus literary quotes about wine that really struck me:

• Homer said: “No poem was ever written by a drinker of water.”
• Shakespeare, in Henry VIII, wrote: “Good wine, good company, good welcome can make good people.”
• Ben Franklin: “Wine is constant proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.”

Frosé ~ Brosé

As of March 3, 2019, frosé yields 1.57 million unique results on Google. Scary? Illustrative of the future? That's for us to decide.

Typically a combination of rosé, lemon juice, sugar, frozen strawberries, and vodka, frosé apparently best suits full-flavored, full-bodied, dark-colored rosé.

The New Yorker featured a brilliant piece on frosé. The notion was introduced to the world in 1862, when Jerry Thomas penned "How to Mix Drinks," the first cocktail book. Thomas pioneered the Catawba Cobbler (harnessing the magical powers of pink wine)... and so it began.

I loved the author Troy Patterson's elegant rendering of frosé:

Having sloshed briskly to distinction as the fashionable drink of the summer, frosé lingers on the cultural palate as the season wanes, its easy-going portmanteau still buzzing the lips of trend-seekers, its icy bite still searing cranial nerves. The concept is beautifully low, so low as to come soaring out the other side, all-conquering: wine slush. To follow frosé’s journey to prominence is to court fantastical visions of great pink chunks of drift ice floating from the tasting rooms of Sonoma and the brunches of Bridgehampton into the ocean system and, inexorably, into New York Harbor.

Tracing back to rosé's popularity, I found a stunning repository of cultural indicators on social media. #roseallday yields 600,000 posts on Instagram. Frosé popsicles make grand appearances on countless feeds. In 2017, Nielsen found that rosé sales rose 53% in the U.S., while wine sales overall increased by 4%.

And in full force, brosé also strikes -- rosé for bros, since "real men drink pink." Thanks, GQ.

Three tier system, one unified anti-consumer front: Connecticut as a case study

Connecticut is currently hearing commentary on HB 7184, a bill which would introduce a number of pro-consumer provisions such as:

• Allowing Connecticut consumers to receive wine shipments from out-of-state wine stores, Internet retailers, wine-of-the-month clubs and wine auction house. Currently, Connecticut residents may only receive shipments from out-of-state wineries
• Permitting retailers to increase number of items discounted below cost simultaneously from one to ten
• Expands ability for retailers to use of coupons, online incentives, etc. to lower prices for consumers and price discriminate

However, to date nearly all testimony has been from large corporate retailers attempting to block the provision around out of state internet based shipments. One such example is Total Wine and More, who claim in their testimony that "Permitting out-of-state retailers to sell alcohol via the internet and ship it directly to Connecticut residents will make it extremely difficult for state law enforcement officials to properly ensure that alcohol stays out of the hands of underage persons", which is certainly not true because out of state wineries can already ship into Connecticut and no such underage issues have been reported. Other retailers have followed suit, piling on to try to keep the aspects of the bill most helpful to them while attacking many of the consumer friendly portions.

We cannot fault Total Wine for seeking protection from the government / attempting to lobby the bill to go in their favor, however it demonstrates an interesting side effect of the three tier system. The more that a company benefits from its position in the three tier system, the more likely that company is to lobby against consumer friendly protections. In essence, we have a regulatory framework that is not only bad for the consumer, but aligns the strongest stakeholders against the every day individual.

If it doesn't come from a grape, can you call it wine?

My family is originally from the Caribbean island of Jamaica, home of rhythmic reggae music, providence of delicious food, and the birthplace of beverages like Red Stripe beer and Appleton Estate rum. Jamaica's national fruit (yes, there's a national fruit), the ackee, is native to West Africa and comes from the same plant family as lychee. The sunburnt orange colored ackee pods (pictured below) are allowed to ripen on the tree before picking, and naturally open when they are ready for consumption. If forced open and consumed before ripe, the fruit is actually poisonous!

Although a fruit, ackee is most commonly served in Jamaica as part of the country's national dish, Ackee & Saltfish, a savory dish in which the ackee is sautéed with spices, fresh herbs, onions, garlic and dried saltfish that is boiled before being incorporated into the mix. The dish is pretty delicious and looks like something akin to scrambled eggs, depending on how you prepare it.

In 2010, a Jamaican company called the Journey's End Wine Company launched with the flagship product of ackee wine. Juice from the ackee fruit is fermented and ultimately served as a slightly sweet alcoholic beverage. Though initially skeptical, I eventually tried the product and can confirm that it is very refreshing . The company has gone on to produce wines from other fruits and flowers including sugar cane, sorrel, ginger, pineapple, passion fruit and beyond.

       

Though tasty, the product made me wonder: what can we call wine, and what can't we? Evidently, although fermented grape juice has come to claim the official title of "wine," juice from other fruits that are fermented with yeast are simply referred to as fruit wines! Technically, even apple cider can be though of as a fruit wine. 

Fruit wines are estimated to be less than 7% of the total U.S. wine market. However, in continental Europe, wines made from fruits other than grapes cannot have wine in the name, by law. Though many wine consumers skeptically view fruit wines as a cheap alternative to the "real stuff" fruit wines, though sweeter and lower in alcohol content, can be just as flavorful, complex, and fun to drink. Historically, it has even been common for some winemakers to produce fruit wines for family consumption at home.

If you're interested in learning more, take a look at the links below. Also, if you ever find yourself in Jamaica, give ackee wine a try and report back!

https://www.formosawinery.com/an-introduction-to-fruit-wine/

http://www.winepressnw.com/2017/05/22/4156125/non-grape-fruit-wines-growing.html

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/fruit-wine-market.html

John Legend is in the Rose Business

John Legend has been know for his ability to do so many things well. From starting his career at Boston Consulting Group to creating a nonprofit Free America focused on mass incarceration in America to becoming what most people know him for, a music legend (pun intended)! However, John Legend has decided to further diversify his talents by entering the wine business.

John Legend along with Jean-Charles Boisset have created the LVE wine label which stands for Legend Vineyard Exclusive. This label created three wines prior to their Rose which is now their fourth! One of the reasons that John Legend wannted to enter the space is because "Wine has a kind of connection to luxery, and if you can make it in a price range that's available to a lot of people, they want access to it".

Last year John Legend found multiple ways to combine his musical talent with his wine label. For example, he had a piano installed at a wine tasting room in Beverly Hills where he plans to drop in for impromptu performances. In addition, he played at a wine-fueled outdoor concert where he played some of his most popular songs as well as some of the newer ones.

John Legend is definitely not the only celebrity in the space. As we have seen with a lot of other consumer products, celebrity brands have been winning out even if they are not technically the best product. Will this trend occur in the Wine Industry or will consumers hold strong to quality? And how does this answer change for millennial wine consumers versus some of the older generations?

Innovative businesses around wine industry

I was fascinated by some of the trends that Michael Preis shared with us last class around innovations that the wine industry was going through like wine on tap or wine on cans. I started doing some research on general innovations around wine and found an interesting article that features 5 companies that had been born around these trends and innovations, and won Wine Industry Network’s seventh annual WINnovation Awards for excellence in wine industry innovation. These companies are: BevStrat, DIAM Bouchage, Emetry, Prosurix and VA Filtration.

Here is a brief summary of what each company does:

1. BevStrat: provides an independent sales force across the U.S. that can handle sales calls for the many brands that don’t have the resources to put together their own dedicated sales teams

2. DIAM Bouchage: uses the Diamant process to manufacture corks. Their latest one is an ultra-sustainable cork made from natural ingredients: cork, beeswax emulsion and a 100% vegetable polyol binder.

3. Emetry: uses data analytics to deliver relevant, accurate, and actionable insights that the wine industry needs to better understand their consumers and what powers their purchasing decisions

4. Prosurix: offers assurance and protection for consumers against counterfeiting through an app

5. VA Filtration: provides numerous cutting edge technologies to the US wine industry like small lot filtration solutions.

For more information, here is the article:

https://www.wineindustryadvisor.com/2018/11/20/wine-businesses-innovative-advances-wine-industry

Wine and Gender?

We've spent a fair bit of time in class talking about the different wine consumption habits of different generations, but we haven't talked about other ways to focus in on the consumer pie. So, I started to wonder what other categories consumers can be split into that would provide more precise information on who is buying wine and why. I started googling and quickly found that gender is one such factor.

There are several studies, market reports (some of which want you to purchase the download), and news articles about gender and wine purchasing.  The most concise one I found is here. It contains the following: 

"According to a report on the US wine market conducted by the Wine Market Council, young people in their 20s and early-to-mid 30s now drink almost half the wine bought in the US. And, get this: among high-frequency wine drinkers under the age of 30, women are out-purchasing men two-to-one when it comes to wine."

Another article made the following claims,

"First off, men only make up about 41% of consumption by volume, while women claim a much heftier 59%. But interestingly, men tend to be the bigger wine snobs. Whereas women spent about $1 billion in pursuit of high-quality bottles, men racked up $1.8 billion doing the same thing."

It is hard to say why women, especially young women, are buying wine more than their male colleagues. Regardless, well done ladies. You're getting more wine, and for WAY cheaper!