Our love affair with tiny bubbles

With the countdown to a new year measurable in hours, it is time for me to turn once more to my annual Champagne column. Many a cork will pop between now and 2007, and many more after that. Have you ever wondered where our love affair with bubbles comes from?

There is only so much practical information I can give you about sparkling wine and Champagne, and most of it I have already shared with you. So sit back and allow me to regale you with a character as sparkling and fun as Champagne itself.

Champagne Charlie rolls off the tongue so easily it has been the title of at least 3 movies (sorry Hugh Grant, we haven't forgotten your embarrassing potrayal), a song by Stephen Foster and one from the the legendary bluesman Blind Blake, not to mention the song and album from Leon Redbone. It has been the sobriquet for many a naer-do-well, but the original Champagne Charlie was bigger than all of this put together.

Charles-Camille Heidsieck believed in promoting Champagne the hands on way. So in 1857 he sought out a new and fresh set of hands to introduce his bubbly to, America.

Wine salespeople have from time immemorial taken their samples on the road. Filling orders on the spot when they could, and arranging for delivery when necessary. So too did Charlie join this august lineage, only he did it well, Really well.

He became a national celebrity, and his arrival was always anticipated not only for his flamboyant style, but for the wares he was peddling. America had fallen in love with Charlie, and with Champagne.

For the better part of a decade Charlie plied the trade routes of the US hawking bubbly far and wide. These were tempestuous times, but this didn't slow down our Charlie. Reviled by the domestic wine producers, and dodging the tides of politics, Charlie became so loved by the public, that his name rang through music halls across the continent.

Even the American Civil War couldn't slow down Champagne Charlie, at least not much.

Determined to enter New Orleans to collect debts, Charlie ended up on the wrong side of a Union prison. Some little discrepancy with a diplomatic pouch slated for the French Embassy to the Confederate States. Branded a spy, Charlie was none the less back to business a few short months later.

Charlie wanted Americans to discover the joy of bubbles, and he succeeded admirably. In the US we consume about 144 Million bottles of sparkling wine a year, and have done so for at least the last 20 years.

So the next time you take a sword to a bottle, er I mean, carefully open a bottle of sparkling wine, think of good old Champagne Charlie, and all the hard work he put in to get you to pop that cork.

The future of wine sales

If you are a travel agent I don't have to tell you what the Internet has meant to your profession. Brick and mortar stores of all shapes and sizes have seen their business models change, often unwillingly. All while the consumer continues to benefit from the never ending variety of options to "buy on-line."

Many of us have all been dragged into the 21st century kicking and screaming, but none more than the wine industry. Since the repeal of prohibition there has been a strict three tier system for selling wine. The producer sells to the distributor, and the distributor to the retail/restaurant outlet, and finally the wine gets to the consumer.

Last year's Supreme Court ruling brought national attention to the concept of "Direct To Consumer" shipment of wine. What was less talked about on the cable news shows was the possibility of "Direct To Trade" (retailer/restaurant) sales.

What a difference it would make, especially for restaurants, if small wineries could sell directly. Distributors tend to warehouse huge amounts of wine, and the smaller the winery, the less attention it is too often given. It is easy for a few cases to get lost behinds the mountains of inventory that needs to be moved.

Inertia Beverage Group is going to change all that. By leveraging the Internet as a tool to keep track of all the pesky taxes as well as the distributor's cut, IBG has made it possible for a restaurant to order just the wine they want.

At least that is the promise, and the reality is not far behind. Currently only California and New York enjoy this privilege, but according to IBG's CEO Paul Mabray "We are launching FL, CT, TX, WA, and AZ in the next two months and 20 states after that."

Paul also tells us that they already represent over 300 brands, with 100 more on the way.

What makes all this possible is a paradigm shift that many have been slow to embrace, but which Paul Mabray and IBG see clearly.

When asked about the particulars of the software that allows DTT sales to happen, Paul replied "We are an open source, proprietary system of on-demand software (an application service provider) that can be used by any computer with a web browser and an internet connection."

What this means to those less computer geeky than I, is that using their services is as easy as surfing the web.
Allowing consumers and retailers/restaurants to buy directly from wineries has long been one of my favorites rants. I have been championing this for many of the same reasons as I push consumers to tour wineries and buy directly.

It lets the wineries know what people's tastes really are, not just what a distributor thinks they can sell. It gives the winery a little more money for their wines, and in some cases, may be the only way a winery has to sell their goods. It also gives consumers a chance to explore beyond the taste of their local wine buyers.

On the flip side, I really like what this means for restaurants. Fewer restaurants will be able to get away with a wine program which in reality is nothing more than a dumping ground for their local distributor.

The ability to source wines from far and wide will create greater demand for lesser known wines, and the restaurants will have to step up and increase their participation and knowledge in wine.

The consumer wins not only from having a greater selection of wines to chose from, but the fruit of healthy competition will yield better restaurants, retailers, and even wines.

The mechanism is just coming into place. It required looking at the industry in a new way to get to this point, and now the onus is on restaurants and retailers to do the same. They need to look beyond their favorite distributors with their weekly visits. They need to form relationships with their favorite wineries, and to expand their horizons.

It will take time, but the Inertia Beverage Group at www.rethinkwinetrade.com have sown seeds of outstanding potential.

Raison d'etre

I have been writing about wine for some time now. I started my first newsletter in 1991. Back then it was in paper, came out 4 times a year, and cost money. It was a good run, and I had many subscribers, but time changes.

The WineEducation.com web site was started in 1995, and this blog and my book "Juice Jargon" in 2004. In 2005 my newsletter, formally known as Notes, went from being paid to being free, from being paper to being email, and changed it name to "Juice".

Now I am pleased to announce that another paid service, previously only available to a select few, is now free and available to everyone.

Subscribers to the Free newsletter, "Juice" have full access to every wine I taste (starting from earlier this Fall). By the end of the year there will be around 300 wines in that data base.

This brings me to the title of this (terribly overdue) blog. My reason for being.

WineEducation.com will continue to be a great resource for general wine knowledge (and a bit of wine fun too).

Wine Whines, aka this blog, will be the source of wine news, interviews and more topical information.

"Juice" will be the place to find wine notes, and discussions about specific wines and wineries.

And as always "Juice Jargon" is the book that lets you take it with you. The handy reference and guide for how to talk about wine.

As anyone who reads me regularly, or just looks at the date of the last blog, knows, I am not a timely writer, but I am prolific. There is a great deal to read, and there is a great deal more to come.

Life gets in the way (or at least I let it get in the way) of writing as often as I would like, but I have several blogs in mind for the near future, and I am in the process of conducting a few interviews.

There is the book (which makes a great holiday present), there is the web site, this blog, and the Free Newsletter to explore. And all of hose are just to whet your appetite for the In Person Events.

P.S. For those of you that have nothing better to do than to keep up with my life, you will be happy to know that today, a mere four months later, we have our bedroom back (after the flood).

P.P.S. And for you skiers, I am looking at over 2 feet of new powder out my back door, here in Aspen.