Wine Classification Systems
Wine has gone mad
Call me a skeptic, but ….
Among the many positive changes in the wine industry has had in recent years has been to shed its image and educate consumers snob. Whether through regulatory initiatives, or self-government, the wine industry have learned that by keeping it simple, they sell more wine.
This global progress is certainly not limited to American viticulture. France is reviewing its complicated classification system, Germany is the simplification of the labels of their bottles and sales are increasing significantly. Even Italy, wrapped in centuries of hyper-governmental oversight, is changing too as regulator. It is evident everywhere that the industry is now truly committed to transparency for consumers of wine. Or so I thought when I went to a recent trade show in Miami a few weeks ago.
Wine trade shows can be much more simply walking around tasting a lot of wines. They offer an opportunity to learn about new trends in the industry. I was just a few steps on the football field, business center, where more than 400 producers from twenty countries, and offered samples of their latest wines, when I noticed a huge banner claiming to offer a wine that was a "neutraceutical" revolution! Really?
Given the monumental movement of growers and winemakers the "agriculture" green, organic and biodynamic, it seemed strange that no one could suggest "better" wines with chemicals even advertised as natural ingredients. To his credit (I think?), who claims that do not add preservatives or stabilizers in the process of improvement. In order to sell their wines healthier, say they have added broad spectrum digestive enzymes specifically to "some elderly people gradually lose their ability to digest the wine. "I could not help but wonder if the wine can be covered by Medicare.
Perhaps this process is in the best interest of, and health and public welfare of a wine to drink probably also hoping to earn some money .. Well, I'll try to give them the benefit of the doubt. After However, the process is based on "resveratrol, a natural compound in the skin of red grapes that has been well documented in clinical studies to be beneficial in the control and reduction of heart disease.
I guess what I disagree more with this company is that it suggests that increasing the levels of resveratrol in a glass of wine five oz up to 300% above its natural state, which are providing the wine drinker with a healthier lifestyle. Well, maybe. Marketing materials were plagued by what more I can not describe how inspiring. When I read statements like "gene survival", and a diet component "That could extend human life by up to 70% or 50 years," I can not help being skeptical. Will a glass of wine a day really allow me to reach the ripe old age of 130? I want to live so long? Given recent economic events, I care not see Portfolio new year, not to mention a few decades past my hundredth birthday!
Another study in the literature of companies included in a relationship between resveratrol and an enzyme that allegedly "became normal in mice champion athletes, making them twice as fast in a treadmill. "Well, now someone will have to build a better mousetrap!
Call me a skeptic, but … I think I'll stay with my grown with organically-farmed pinot biodynamically, sans neutraceutically injected compounds, thanks.
Somewhat shaken by this way of life incursion better through chemistry, I moved in for a glass of my favorite drink unadulterated. Not three booths away, I I found the distributor of an Italian winery that claim to have developed a system to produce "healthy wine completely free of toxins, with five times the level of, you guessed it, resveratrol. "I was beginning to wonder if there was no error found by a convention of the company drug.
This producer, from Lake Garda Italy region, was the delivery of marketing materials claim their wines (and I quote here) "is can drink with any personal injury to personal health, even if generous amounts in which healthy people take. "No pain even in "a generous amount? I know more than a personal injury lawyer and a few doctors who may think otherwise, and I doubt you'll get much support from Mothers Against Drunk Driving!
As I can determine, unlike the previous supplier, the winery does not add to their wines. Of In fact, say it is in their "special" washing process of the grapes, the wines take on - and again I quote - "peculiar and organoleptic allowing these wines also be taken safely by sick people who are prescribed to integrate diet with the essential elements. "What? The winery is absolutely representative never connect the dots between the washing of the grapes and the complaint, "we have achieved levels of trans-resveratrol up to five times higher than those obtained in traditional processes. "I do not hold literature or dealer at the show may deepen, or define, trans-resveratrol, or how to wash the grapes results in a fivefold increase of the compound.
Maybe I'm missing something, but this wine has gone mad? The claims of these two companies seem best suspicious, and that seems completely contrary to the growing global green movement, with increasing number of growers committed to making wine in their most natural state possible.
My guess is that the vast majority of consumers are looking for and select wines that are as pure and natural as Mother Nature intended. I encourage wine drinkers to proceed cautiously when considering the wines containing substances (or additives) that is not in the ground from which they originated. Until we fully understand any real potential benefit from the introduction of chemicals or compounds to the wine, let's keep science in the laboratory and outside the cellar.
About the Author
Naples Wine News is another step in a three decade long journey in the world of wine for its founder, Bruce Nichols. In the 1980’s, in his position as Director of Restaurants for Sheraton Hotels, Bruce served as wine buyer, conducted wine education programs and hosted California winery owners and winemakers, and worked with syndicated wine writers, Leon Adams and Jerry Mead.
It was during this period he first launched his “A Nichols Worth of Wine”, the eponymous wine publication dedicated to making wine educational and entertaining for the novice and connoisseur alike.
Fast forward to late 2004, Bruce retired to beautiful Naples, Florida. In 2006, Naples Wine News was born and “A Nichols Worth of Wine”, was introduced to Naples and surrounding community wine enthusiasts. An internet-based, on-line publication accessed at www.napleswinenews.com, each issue offers its readers a Wine Reviews section, the popular “Around Town” section reviews restaurants and wine merchants locally, and in the wine corners of the world.