Before we reveal some of the supermarket chains' finest organic wines, let's get one small matter out of the way there's strictly no such thing as 'organic wine'. All the wines we've featured here are actually wines made from organically grown grapes. Right now, there's no legal or accurate definition of a finished product that could be described as organic wine.

So why should you buy organic wine? Well, all organic grapes are grown without pesticides, fertilisers and fungicides that would otherwise ultimately make their way into you, the drinker. A study earlier this year by the European Pesticide Action Network found that of 40 European wines tested, 40 contained pesticides. Each contained an average of four, with the worst packing in ten. The European Crop Protection Association was quick to point out that the levels don't pose any harm to human health, but still… why take the risk? As well as putting fewer synthetic chemicals in your temple of a body, organic wines also mean fewer chemicals in the vineyards and on the people that grow the grapes.

Read the complete story

Two glasses of wine a day can increase the risk of mouth cancer by up to 75 per cent, scientists warned.
The research also showed two units of alcohol daily raises the risk of breast cancer by 22 per cent.

It also found that men who drink four units of alcohol a day increase their risk of bowel cancer by 64 per cent.

Other research had previously showed that moderate amounts of red wine could have health benefits and may help to prevent heart disease and strokes.
But the Australian report by the Cancer Institute in New South Wales, found there is no safe level of alcohol and said drinking should be kept to an absolute minimum.

The institute’s chief executive, Professor Jim Bishop, said: “Alcohol is a well established carcinogen and is known to increase the risk of several cancers.”

Researchers also found two small glasses a of wine a day raised the risk of cancer of the oesophagus by 50 per cent and cancer of the larynx by 40 per cent.

Drinking eight units a day raised the risk of mouth or throat cancer by four to six times compared to a non-drinker.

Professor Bishop said: “We don’t want a general scare, but the fact is that alcohol consumption on a regular basis, even at moderate levels, can increase the risk.

“Clearly for cardiac disease it may be that red wine is helpful, but for cancer we cannot see any benefit at all from alcohol.”

It was the most expensive bottle of wine ever sold, a 1787 Chateau Lafite supposedly owned by Thomas Jefferson. After heated bidding, the Forbes family paid $156,000 for it at a 1985 Christie's auction in London. But was the wine for real?

Benjamin Wallace attempts to unravel that long-running mystery in his page-turner ``The Billionaire's Vinegar,'' a tale of alleged wine fakes, big egos and high-profile lawsuits.

Let's start with key player Hardy Rodenstock, whom Wallace portrays as a charming and secretive German pop-band manager and wine lover turned wine merchant. Rodenstock wowed collectors, critics and auctioneers with invitations to his mega-tastings (one featured 125 vintages of Chateau d'Yquem) and his surprising knack for unearthing rare old wines.

The 1787 Lafite was part of a cache of 200-year-old bottles that Rodenstock acquired in 1985 -- discovered, he said, hidden in a bricked-up Paris cellar. He has always refused to reveal the address where they were found. He announced that the bottles, engraved with the initials ``Th.J,'' were long-lost wines of Thomas Jefferson's.

Read the complete story

The Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation says the climbing Australian dollar has hurt the country's wine exports during the past year.

Figures from the corporation show the volume of wine exported fell by 8.5 per cent for the 12 months until the end of April.

While exports of bottled wine grew by 17 million litres, the overall volume of exported wine fell by 67 million litres.

The United States remained the country's second largest market despite falls of 18 percent in volume and 15 percent in value.

Lawrie Stanford from the Wine and Brandy Corporation says it is no coincidence that the US market has fallen.

"The US is a key market for Australian wine and one that we would hope to grow," he said.

"It's one of the currencies that we're growing strongest against and losing competitiveness and add to that the US is very sensitive to exchange rate movements."

Mr Stanford says the drop in exports was due largely to the high exchange rates.

"The Australian dollar is appreciating against most currencies in the world as it is, and now what that's doing is meaning that we're losing competitiveness in overseas markets.

Koreans drank more wine than whiskey for the first time ever last year, the National Tax Service said on Tuesday.
According to the NTS, Koreans consumed some 37,655 kl of wine and 34,741 kl whiskey in 2007. That works out to an average of 2.03 500-ml bottles of wine for each adult, up from 1.48 bottles in 2006.

Much of the imported wine came from Chile, which enjoys a free trade agreement with Korea. France, Italy, the U.S. and Australia were the other most popular foreign sources.

The market share of imported wine has increased sharply, from 50.5 percent in 2000 to 80.4 percent in 2006 to 85.4 percent in 2007.

Meanwhile, some 1,982,697 kl of beer was consumed in Korea last year, up 5.5 percent from 2006. Each adult consumed an average of 107 500-ml bottles of beer, an increase from 101 bottles in 2005.

Altogether the nation put away a whopping 3,290,770 kl of alcoholic beverages last year, up 3.8 percent from 2006.

Beer claimed the lion's share of the market at 60.3 percent, followed by soju (29.3 percent), traditional rice wine (5.2 percent), wine (1.9 percent) and whiskey (1.1 percent).

I ordered a bottle of 2005 Taz Fiddlesticks Pinot Noir at Mustards on a recent balmy night and was delighted when the first sip went down cool and clean.

"Wow, it's the perfect temperature," I commented to the waiter who poured the taste.

"I know. Can you believe it, I just had a customer tell me it was too cold. I told him it was cellar temperature and he said we needed to warm up our cellar."

I just shook my head and told her that diners have been served too-warm wine for so long that many people don't understand the joys of a properly cellar temperature wine.

"You can't believe some of the wines some people bring in for us to pour; they're really warm." she said.

It just shows that people gravitate to what they're familiar with; and warm wines are the rule of the day. I just wish people could taste the same wines side by side so they could see how much brigher and well balanced wines are when they're served at cellar temperature.

As I mentioned in an earlier blog post, I often end up adding a cube of ice to my wine when it's warm. It may water it down a bit, but in the end it's better than a wine that's too warm. Unfortunately as we head into warm weather this problem only will get worse. That's when I head toward roses.

As prices for Bordeaux wine reach ever more astonishing levels, chateaux owners are finally tackling the tricky, and long ignored, issue of shipping and transport conditions by testing a new temperature tracking device.

"Fine wine is often shipped in worse conditions that ice cream or lettuce," said Christian Butzke, former winemaker and now professor at Purdue University in Indiana in the United States.

Butzke is acting as independent advisor to the Boston-based eProvenance project, run by Eric Vogt, Harvard professor, wine lover and high-tech start-up entrepreneur.

Vogt's eProvenance system includes a tamper-proof seal, a hidden code and an electronic tag for each bottle, but it is the temperature tracking element that is causing ripples.

Extreme heat, extreme cold, and fluctuations of temperature are all problems for wine, but heat is often the hardest to spot. A frozen bottle might have its cork pushed out, show residue in the bottle, or simply be broken.

The damage done to a wine's taste, smell and color by extreme heat is something that can go unnoticed until opened despite having possibly paid anywhere in the region of 500 to 1,000 or more euros for it.

Over the last six months, about 1,200 cases of wine from some of Bordeaux's top chateaux, including Lynch Bages and Haut Bailly, as well as others who do not wish to be named, have had Vogt's tracking devices a credit card sized bit of plastic which carries a radio frequency identification system inserted in their wooden shipping cases.

Read the complete story

For Mother's Day, don't forget the wine! Sure, Dad's probably the one who talks about wine all the time, but Mom may be the one who actually buys it and she probably has a better palate, too. We have a very specific suggestion, but let's break down how we got there.

First, let's say this: The very best wine would be one with some special meaning to your mother. Think hard and try to remember a wine that Mom has mentioned several times over the years. Then go find it. What's important here is not necessarily the wine itself, but the idea that you really have been listening to your mother, at least about this. There can be no better Mother's Day present than that. If you're drawing a blank, though, here's some help.

Bubbly is always perfect for Mom, of course. With so many reasonably priced sparklers on shelves these days, it's easy to pick up a Cava from Spain for less than $10 or an American bubbly for less than $20. You should also consider a rosé bubbly. There are plenty of those around these days at very good prices and, really, what mother wouldn't love a pink bubbly?

While we're speaking of rosés, one of the growing number of delicious, dry rosé wines from around the world can't miss. Many fresh-as-a-daisy 2007s are already on shelves. Excellent, value-priced rosé is available from all over the world these days Spain, South Africa, the U.S.but for consistency and very easy drinking, it's still hard to beat French rosé. This is a good bet at restaurants, too, but make sure it's from the 2007 vintage.

For the many moms who are enthusiastically conversant about wine -- and especially if Dad is paying it's worth considering a smooth, silky red Burgundy from France. These have the elegance of very long-stemmed red roses. Look for a wine from the 2005 vintage and it will be hard to go wrong. If you want to narrow your search a bit, look for Volnay or Gevrey-Chambertin. Be prepared to spend at least $50, which seems like a lot of money, but how much did you pay for your last pair of jeans, and how were they different from your other jeans anyway? In case Mom only drinks white wine and this is something you should know surprise her with a good Pinot Grigio from Italy. We say "surprise her" because many moms, as well as dads, have turned away from tasteless, overpriced Pinot Grigio, so a good one would be a pleasant surprise. Look for these names: Alois Lageder, Zenato, Bortoluzzi, Placido, Folonari, Kris, Ca'Montini and Tiefenbrunner. Get the youngest you see. These will generally cost less than $20. If Mom is partial to Italian whites, there's also lively, bright and aromatic Gavi. Buy it young and serve this to Mom with appetizers or a light springtime dish. These will probably cost $12 to $20. (Considering the low prices, how about a Pinot Grigio and a Gavi -- one for now, one for later?)

Read the complete story

The Penfolds 2003 Grange has been released amid billing as one of the best ever, so why is it heading to supermarket shelves?
Only 50,000 bottles of the famous shiraz blend are released each year, with many heading straight to serious wine collectors both here and abroad.

However, the Australian Financial Review is today reporting that a significant number will also be heading to the Woolworths and its discount liquor stores, such as Dan Murphy's and BWS.

Woolworths spokesman, Benedict Brook, told AFR that the company expected to sell out within weeks.

This year's release also posted the highest opening price ever at the cellar door of $550 a bottle.

Penfolds chief winemaker Peter Gago said the wine is at the spicier end of the Grange spectrum.

Mr Gago said the palate displays dense layered liquored chocolate/mocha flavours laced with Moroccan (Middle Eastern) spices.

The 2003 Penfolds Bin 95 Grange consists of 96.5pc shiraz and 3.5pc cabernet sauvignon, sourced from the Barossa Valley, McLaren Vale, Coonawarra, and Magill Estate.

The 2003 Grange was released by Penfolds yesterday as part of its annual Luxury and Icon Wines range, which also includes the 2005 Bin 707, 2005 RWT Barossa Valley Shiraz, 2004 St Henri Shiraz, and the 2006 Reserve Bin 06A Adelaide Hills Chardonnay.

Read the complete story

It's hard to say goodbye to old friends. This year, while putting together our pick of the pink at $12 and under, it was obvious that many old standbys weren't going to make the cut. It isn't that the winemakers have forgotten how to make beautifully crisp, bone-dry, earthy rosés in places like Italy, Spain, and the south of France. It's just that prices have gone up.

more stories like this
Boston area author visits, week of May 4
Boston area author visits, week of April 27
Just for Fun
North
Private-school team rules chess tourney
It would be easy to lay the blame for this at the feet of that pesky, high-flying euro, but we're not so sure that tells the whole story. The truth is that Americans have rediscovered the roseate charms of authentic pink wine after decades of being led badly astray by cloyingly sweet, mass-produced fakes. This has surely allowed the Europeans to be more aggressive with their pricing than they otherwise might be. It's official: Rosé has moved upmarket.

If the ascent has been long and slow here, it's partly due to its durable image as the drink of the disadvantaged - a notion that was mature even in antiquity. In one of the earliest extant farming manuals, the elder Cato taught Roman planters how to vinify a cheap, thin, low-alcohol wine suitable for slaking the thirst of slaves. The recipe involved adding water to winepress residue (skins, pips, stems, etc.) and re-fermenting. The extent to which the result resembled real wine depended on how greedily the grapes had been wrung out in the first place. It would surely have been a pale, insipid thing at best.

Read the complete story