World's Largest What?

This Sunday morning, while watching the news, I heard of a town here in Illinois who were trying to create the world’s largest ketchup packet. That’s right. . . ketchup packet.

It happened this weekend in Collinsville, Illinois and was a fundraiser for the local school. The goal was to create a 1500 pound packet of ketchup to submit to the Guinness Book of World Records. I have always liked people who think big.

So this got me thinking; why couldn’t the Illinois Wineries create the largest grape stomp ever?! You know, the whole Lucy & Ethel dream so many people have could come true. A weekend of purple feet and world records. Hmmm. . .

Illinois Isn't The Only State With These Problems

As mentioned in previous blogs, the Illinois Winemakers' Alliance has been working with the Specialty Retailers Association to battle HB 0429 and SB 0123. Looks like Wisconsin wineries will be fighting their own battle:

Free the Grapes! Fate of Wine Direct Shipping in Wisconsin Rests with Conference Committee, Governor

NAPA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--For 20 years, Wisconsin’s wine lovers have been able to purchase wine directly from wineries licensed to do so, as well as from in-state wine retailers. But consumers will lose these privileges if the Budget Bill passes as it is currently written, according to Free the Grapes!, the national consumer grassroots coalition (www.freethegrapes.org).

“These anti-consumer provisions were slipped into the Senate version of the 384-page, $66 billion, two-year Budget Bill, rather than being considered in the light of day,” said Jeremy Benson, executive director, Free the Grapes! The association is encouraging consumers to visit its website at

www.freethegrapes.org and use the website to send personalized letters to state legislators and Governor Doyle. The organization points out three provisions that will effectively cut-off consumers from their favorite wines and wineries, and punish Wisconsin’s emerging wine industry:

· A Low-Tech Throwback to Paper Signatures: Each of the growing number of states (34) that allow legal, regulated direct-to-consumer shipments, including Wisconsin, allow electronic signature at the point of delivery by freight companies like FedEx and UPS. The Budget Bill’s language would require freight companies to gather paper signatures of the recipient and report these paper documents to the State, a process they probably cannot comply with. Additionally, the language requires that drivers collect a written “attestation” that the recipient was not intoxicated at the time of delivery.

· Cumbersome Shipping Limits: While shipping limits are standard in other states, Wisconsin’s current Budget Bill will limit shipments per individual rather than per winery, the standard in most other states. Because wineries cannot be sure how much wine an individual has purchased directly from others, wineries will not risk the penalties of non-compliance. Only Indiana and Massachusetts have included a per consumer aggregate purchase limit in their existing statutes; these two states are considered “prohibited” by wineries and FedEx. The proposed language also reduces consumer benefits of legal direct shipping by lowering the case limit from three cases per winery per consumer, to three cases per consumer (from all wineries).

· Regressive Licensing Fees. The Budget Bill is proposing the most regressive and onerous winery licensing fees of any state. For many wineries, the license fee will exceed the profit on wines shipped and wineries will be forced to cut-off consumers from their wine club programs

The next step for the budget bill is in the conference committee to reconcile differences in the budget between the Senate and Assembly versions.

Since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on direct shipping in May 2005, consumer shipping has become legal in 34 states, which collectively represent 78% of wine consumption in the U.S. Most states have successfully implemented the model direct shipping bill, which allows shippers to purchase a permit, pay taxes, mark boxes, and consent to the jurisdiction of the state, among other provisions. Free the Grapes! is a national consumer grassroots coalition of more than 300,000 members, and supports legal, regulated direct-to-consumer wine shipments.

First Sideways, Now Ratatouille

The first time I tried telling my boss about the movie Ratatouille was quite a fiasco. Here’s how it went down. . .

Being in the wine business, any new movie featuring food and wine gets my attention! So I decided to ask my boss, a devout foodie and owner of Lynfred Winery, if he was going to take his grandkids to go see the new Disney cartoon ‘Ratatouille’. He said he had not heard of it. I, of course, said ‘oh, you HAVE to go! Not only would your grandkids love it but so would you!’ He then asks what it is about. This is where everything goes downhill.

The first words out of my mouth were ‘so it’s about this rat who wants to be a chef’. That is all I needed to say, before I could go on he was talking about how horrifying that must be, the travesty! ‘A rat as a chef? Ridiculous!’ Needless to say, I made him watch the trailer and he’s already planning a date with the grandkids.

So that leaves me with the pondering question. How will people perceive a wine with a rat on it? Well, if it goes over as well as the movie has, I would predict quite well. Here’s an article I found regarding the new ‘Ratatouille Chardonnay’:

July 26 (Bloomberg) -- Will a cartoon-movie rat on the label of a French-made chardonnay entice drinkers to pick it up?

We'll find out next week, when 2004 Ratatouille, named for Disney-Pixar's charming animated foodie flick, goes on sale for $12.99 at Costco stores in 18 U.S. states. This licensed bottling ushers in what may be a whole new trend for wine and the movies.

Plenty of films feature real wine brands, including 2004's ``Sideways,'' which doubled sales of California pinot noir. That's why wineries use product-placement agencies to get their labels on the screen.
The 2004 Ratatouille is the reverse version of this promotion strategy: It's the first movie-branded wine, and it's going retail.

The Disney wine doesn't spring from anything specific in the film's story of an ambitious young country rat named Remy who has haute-cuisine dreams and finally makes it as a four-star chef in Paris. The few wines in the film are big-deal bottles. I spotted a Cote-Rotie, a 1961 Chateau Latour and, in the scene when feared restaurant critic Anton Ego orders the legendary 1947 Cheval Blanc, what turns up on his table is Lafite- Rothschild.

Ratatouille wine is more modest, a crisp white from the Macon region of Burgundy. Louisiana-based importer D.C. Flynt M.W. Selections, which handles many wine projects for Costco, sourced the wine from an historic estate, Chateau de Messey. Owner Marc Dumont produced it from grapes in his Cruzille vineyard and put the movie label on a mere 500 cases of his regular Bourgogne chardonnay.

Costco Wine Program
The wine tie-in idea surfaced at a Disney-Costco summit in California, says Annette Alvarez-Peters, who oversees the Issaquah, Washington-based retail chain's wine program. She is coy about financial arrangements with Disney, but a typical licensing royalty is 8 percent to 12 percent of the retail price. Given the small numbers, it's hard to view the wine as more than a promotional gimmick.

But there may be a future for a limited number of movie- and TV-branded wines on retail shelves. Surely the wineries featured in ``Bottle Shock'' and ``The Judgment of Paris,'' two films now in production, will pick up on the idea and offer movie-labeled cuvees when they hit theaters next year. Both tell the story of the famous 1976 tasting in Paris when a handful of California wines beat out the best of France.

The future for real brands on the screen seems bright. Producers and set designers may be influenced by gift bags with free bottles, but serendipity sometimes reigns.

Free Publicity
Consider the appearance earlier this year of Kendall- Jackson Vintner's Reserve cabernet in the opening scene of a TV episode of ``The New Adventures of Old Christine.'' Star Julia Louis-Dreyfus pulls out a bottle hidden under her bathrobe, announces she's keeping ``Mr. Kendall Jackson'' company tonight and takes the bottle into her bedroom.
``I nearly fell out of my chair,'' recalls George Rose, head of public relations for the giant California winery, who was watching the show. He says L.A. product-placement agencies call regularly, pitching a $100,000 budget to place the brand, but this, he reports gleefully, ``cost us nothing.''

For tiny brands, the results can be big. When Demi Moore seduced Michael Douglas with a Napa Valley cult chardonnay, 1991 Pahlmeyer, in the 1994 thriller ``Disclosure,'' owner Jayson Pahlmeyer was inundated. ``I could have sold 400,000 bottles,'' he says, ``but I only made 400 cases.'' Pahlmeyer provided two free cases to the film and paid no fee.

Product Placement
Usually, though, an ``integrated entertainment marketing'' agency is the go-between. Six years ago, Napa Valley's Clos du Val was the first small winery to pursue on-screen product placement, and it paid an agency, Set Resources of Culver City, California, a $5,000 monthly retainer. Soon after, James Gandolfini was pouring Clos du Val on ``The Sopranos.'' Since late 2005, the wines have appeared in 25 TV shows and nine films, including recent figure-skating comedy ``Blades of Glory.''

Clos du Val's distinctive terra-cotta-colored label is easy to identify on the screen, where instant recognition is essential. Champagne Mumm's Cordon Rouge, with its red sash on the label, has a long movie history -- from the Bogart and Bergman scene in ``Casablanca'' (where he says ``Here's looking at you, kid'') to the more recent ``Pearl Harbor'' and ``A Beautiful Mind.''

Hollywood sells, so the bottles of 2004 Ratatouille will surely go quickly. The mystery is why Disney got involved. Profit on 6,000 bottles is a blip in the hundreds of millions the company will earn from consumer products in fiscal 2007. Maybe it's part of Disney's push to attract sophisticated adults with items like furniture.

On the other hand, how sophisticated is a cartoon rat? For movie-magic chardonnay, if budget is no object, I think I'll stick with 2005 Pahlmeyer ($70), which doesn't have a rodent on the label.

More Wine & Health Benefits

Those of us in the wine industry are very aware of the health benefits of wine and love to share new studies with wine drinkers. Here's a recent article about the benefits that result from Resveratrol:

Study Shows Improved Health With Regular Use of Resveratrol - Compound Found In Grapes

07-20-2007 RALEIGH, N.C. — A natural compound found in foods such as grapes and nuts has proven beneficial to the overall health of overweight, aged mice, providing significant implications for the health and survival of mammals. A study released by the National Institute on Aging and the National Institutes of Health has found that overweight mice whose high calorie diet was supplemented by the compound Resveratrol had better health and survival than aged overweight mice who did not receive the compound. The online study published in the November 1 issue of Nature, indicates that heavy doses of Resveratrol lowers the rate of diabetes, liver problems and other fat-related health issues in obese mice. Researchers believe that Resveratrol is one of the primary ingredients responsible for the cholesterol lowering effects of red wine and is also thought to contribute to the improved cardiovascular effects associated with the moderate consumption of red wine and grape products. Resveratrol also demonstrates anti-infective, anti-oxidant, and anti-inflammatory properties that help it block reactions associated with the cancer process. Resveratrol, a small molecule produced when certain plants are under stress, is found in the skin of grapes and in other plants. Campbell University has measured the concentrations of Resveratrol in Muscadine grapes to be five to seven times higher than any other product on the market today. The muscadine grape is native to the southeastern United States and is well adapted to the warm, humid conditions of this region. It is harvested as single berries instead of in bunches and has smaller leaves and fruit with thicker skins than the bunch-type grapes. In a study reported January 1997 in Science, researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago purified Resveratrol from grape sources and showed it to have anti-carcinogenic activity, meaning that it inhibits tumor promotion. Muscadines also contain ellagic acid, a natural organic compound thought to inhibit the start of cancer caused by certain chemicals. Given the significant amounts of Resveratrol found in the muscadine grape, economists are predicting that the muscadine will not only be an alternative crop for growers in the Southeast, but a new health food as well.

Here Comes Wine to Save the Day!

Searching the wine news is always amusing but today's article in the Napa Valley Register really had us thinking about the power of wine (and hugs). . .

Drink wine, stop crime
By Jack Heeger
Friday, July 20, 2007

A story making the rounds of the news media last weekend involved a small group whose outdoor dinner in Washington, D.C., was interrupted by a hooded intruder carrying a gun.He pointed it at a teenager and said he’d shoot if he wasn’t given money.Everyone froze except one guest who offered the gunman a glass of wine (it was Chateau Malescot St-Exupery, a Third Growth Bordeaux). He took it, praised it, put his gun away, apologized, said he might have come to the wrong house, then asked for a hug. The woman who offered him the wine gave him one. He asked for a group hug and all five people did so, then he left with the crystal glass (with wine) still in hand.Police acknowledged that while it was a strange story, it appeared to be true.
(While giving him the group hug, someone should have whacked him on the head with the bottle.)

Article Repost from Today's Fermentation Blog

The first blog for the Illinois Winemakers' Alliance comes from a blog at Tom Wark's 'Fermentation' blog. Tom Wark, the Executive Director of the Specialty Retailers' Association, explains what is going on in the Illinois Wine Industry in a blunt, yet totally understandable, way:


1933: Hitler and Wholesalers
For anyone who has not been following the attempt in Illinois to re-write the wine distribution laws in that state so that distributors are granted even more power than the state already grants them, a new development has occurred.

A new association of wineries calling themselves The Illinois Winemakers Alliance has formed in part to oppose Illinois House Bill 429.

HB 429 does a variety of things:

Allows out-of-state wineries to ship to Illinoisans2. Allows in-state wineries to ship to Illinoisans3. Allows wineries making up to 25,000 gallons of wine to distribute 5,000 gallons annually to retailers and restaurants4. Prohibits wineries making over 25,000 gallons of wine to distribute directly to retailers and restaurants5. Prohibits Illinoisans from purchasing wine from out-of-state retailers..6. Allows Illinoisans to have wine shipped to them from in-state retailers

The reasons consumers are against this bill should be obvious. They are being stripped of a long held right to buy from out of state wineries. But when you couple this with the fact that in-state retailers may still ship to Illinoisans you can see the unconstitutional implications of the proposed legislation. To quote from the Granholm v. Heald Supreme Court decision:

"States may not enact laws that burden out-of-state producers or shippers simply to give a competitive advantage to in-state businesses….If a State chooses to allow direct shipment of wine, it must do so on evenhanded terms…”

However, the new Illinois Winemakers Alliance, while opposing this anti-consumer provision of HB 429, is also opposing the bill because it strips some Illinois wineries from selling directly to retailers and restaurants, even in the small amount that the bill allows smaller wineries to sell. These wineries that make more than 25,000 gallons annually and that would no longer be able to sell direct to retailers and restaurants, would be put at the mercy of Illinois wholesalers—who are the only ones who could sell these wines to the trade but are under no obligation to distribute these wines. Put simply, Illinois wineries making over 25,000 gallons of wine would be at the mercy of Illinois wholesalers to get their wines in restaurants and on store shelves. What if no wholesalers want to distribute these wineries' wines?

You can see why the new Illinois Winemakers Alliance, that represents wineries producing nearly half the wine made in the state, are against HB 429. And you can see why wholesalers just LOVE this legislation.

Currently HB 429 is sitting in the Senate Rules Committee awaiting action. It has passed the house and would likely pass the Senate if it ever gets out of the Rules Committee.

HB 429 represents the kind of regressive direct shipping and wine legislation that has popped up all over the country since the Granholm Supreme Court decision. What's most interesting is that NO consumers are asking that this kind of legislation be passed. And no wineries are asking that their ability to sell directly to retailers and restaurateurs be diminished. As always it's the wholesales that are demanding this legislation.

With regard to the anti-consumer legislation proposing that wine lovers no longer be allowed to buy wine from out of state retailers, it seems counter-intuitive that wholesalers should have anything at all to say about this. Wholesales don't interact with consumers. They don't sell to consumers and they don't buy to consumers. They don't talk to consumers and they certainly don't listen to consumers. Why are they always the one's proposing legislation that affects consumers?

When was the last time you saw wholesalers actually do something beneficial for consumers?

They talk a big game about providing lots of choice by distributing so many wines in so many states. Yet, there's no way they can rival the number of wines that are made available to consumers via direct means. Furthermore, they spend millions of dollars opposing consumer access to wines through campaign contributions, writing anti-consumer legislation and opposing reasonable direct shipping legislation.

There is one theme that runs through all the actions of wholesalers whether they are opposing direct shipping to consumer or the ability of wineries to sell direct to restaurants and retailers: Their actions are all meant to reduce the power of their competition.

It's as though they know something very fundamental about themselves and their business model and the market place. It's as though they know that forced to compete in a level market they'd lose that competition. Luckily, they've had the states on their side since 1933 when prohibition ended and most states mandated that producers of wine sell to wholesalers who would then sell to retailers and restaurants. In essence, the states have been protecting wholesalers from themselves for nearly three quarters of a century.
By coincidence........the wholesalers gained their power the same year Hitler gained power and became Chancellor in Germany.

It's not 1933 anymore.

Tom Wark is the executive director of the Specialty Wine Retailers Association.