Wine, Beer & Spirits
Fashion for screw-cap wines undermines renewable cork forest management strategy, could lead to extinction of rarest wildcats and loss of 100,000 jobs, experts say
By Louise Gray
Telegraph (UK) 2010-07-16
Practical-minded distillers, ravenously questing enthusiasts fuel market for white dog - moonshine
By Robert Simonson
The New York Times 2010-05-04
Opinion: Maryland lawmakers need to stop coddling drunk drivers and require interlock devices in cars of all first-time offenders
The editors
The Washington Post 2010-03-30
In modern-day hooch, a taste, for a moment, of apricots and fleeting memories of summer
By Wayne Curtis
The Atlantic 2010-04-01
Again, Maryland's powerful alcohol lobby likely to quash attempts to add dime-per-serving tax to restore funding of care for poor, mentally ill
By Aaron C. Davis
The Washington Post 2010-03-12
Though Haitian presidential palace lies in ruins, distillery for Rhum Barbancourt survives - and is making repairs
By Scott Kraft
Los Angeles Times 2010-02-09
Opinion: Raising alcohol tax would close Maryland's budget shortfall, improve services and save lives by cutting liquor consumption
The editors
The Washington Post 2010-01-29
Iowa officials contemplate banning, limiting potent alcoholic beverage
By William Petroski
The Des Moines Register 2010-01-25
Baghdad alcohol crackdown turns city almost dry, pleasing some residents but drawing criticism for political motivations
By Liz Sly
Los Angeles Times 2010-01-24
Experts rethinking nature of alcohol and addiction
Humans rarely reach point of powerlessness over alcohol, addiction experts say. Many drinkers can evaluate habits and, using knowledge about genetic and behavioral risks of addiction, change them if necessary. Even some people with alcohol-use disorders, they say, can cut back before it disrupts education, ruins careers and damages health. Data suggest there are two forms of alcohol disorders: one in which the need for a drink takes over a person's life, and form in which people drink heavily for a period but then cut down and recover. And: Novelist Mary Karr describes her drinking in 'Lit' (click 'See also').
By Shari Roan
Los Angeles Times 2009-11-16
Two-month operation nets moonshine, misdemeanor charges
North Carolina agents seize 926 gallons of moonshine worth about $35 a gallon, charge resident with several misdemeanors after two-month surveillance operation. If found guilty, suspect could be liable for taxes. Moonshine was mostly in glass quart jars, but part of it was in 20-liter plastic containers; most jars also contained peaches, strawberries or other fruit. And: Virginia's anti-moonshine unit a victim of budget cuts (click 'See also'), just as reports of stills slightly increase. Much of whiskey unit's work involved staking out stills in hopes that operator would show up. Virginia moonshine costs about $20 a gallon.
By Jule Hubbard
Wilkes Journal-Patriot (NC) 2009-10-08
Old wine in Web-savvy new bottles
Sonoma County vintner Murphy-Goode conducts 'dream job' contest to hire a Web-savvy employee to tweet, blog and post videos to promote its winery. In turn, lucky winner - out of expected 10,000 wannabes - will be schooled in ways of wine, good food for salary of $10,000 per month.
By Julian Guthrie
San Francisco Chronicle 0000-00-00
Weather hurt California grape harvest
Drought, wind, frost in California contributed to lower grape crush yield last year; down 6 percent statewide, more for some areas, varieties, according to state report. Light harvest offsets decreased sales due to recession, but wine is relatively recession-proof and shortage, higher prices loom. Bottom line: "We need more rain" in 2009, says broker.
By Dale Rim
Santa Barbara News-Press; The San Luis Obispo Tribune 2009-02-11
Debt-laden culinary center closes
Financial woes end hopes for Copia, a California wine and food institute funded in part by late winemaker Robert Mondavi. Financial stability for venture was elusive, and nonprofit never drew visitors needed to support it and its organic herb gardens, demonstration kitchen and restaurant named for Julia Child.
By Julia Moskin
The New York Times 2008-12-23
Opinion: Thinking inside the box, and green
Wine producers everywhere need to follow Italy's lead and deliver better wine in a box. With U.S. poised to become largest market, consumers need to demand the switch to lighter packaging. It's the environmental and affordable thing to do. Once open, a box preserves wine for about four weeks, compared to a day or two for a bottle.
By Tyler Colman
The New York Times 2008-08-17
As economy slows, sales of alcohol go up in Iowa
As economy struggles, wine, liquor and beer sales rise in Iowa. Treasury gathered $87.6 million for the 12 months ending June 30, up 3.7 percent from year earlier. Most of the money went to general fund, for education, environmental protection, welfare and public safety; 16 percent goes to substance abuse programs.
By William Petroski
The Des Moines Register 2008-08-04
Seeking heirloom grapes in Italy's abandoned vineyards
After population's mid-century exodus to urban Italy, grape vines tended for centuries were left to run wild. Now, vineyard sleuth in Alpine valley works to save grape varietals from extinction, to bring them back to cultivation and, finally to turn them into wine.
By Aaron Maines
The Wall Street Journal. (may require subscription) 2008-07-04
Changing terroir
Spanish winemakers, alarmed by warming climate, build a rainwater reservoir, try new varieties, fertilize, monitor by satellite, grow their vines taller and prune them differently, harvest earlier, sometimes even by night and plan a $370 million study. Meanwhile, the grapes are ripening faster, sugar and alcohol content are rising, and the aroma is losing its complexity.
By Jerome Socolovsky
National Public Radio 2008-02-12
Nutrition and liquor
Regulators propose nutrition- and alcohol-content labeling for products of $160 billion beer, wine and liquor industry, and all have competing concerns about cost, placement and shape. But consumers want to know alcohol content by volume and in fluid ounces by serving. Tobacco, Tax and Trade Bureau is accepting comments; click "See also," below.
By Cindy Skrzycki
The Washington Post; Bloomberg News 2008-01-22
Drinking education
Starting a wine-tasting group can remove the randomness from what's in our glass. At a tasting, wine is the star, and attention is on contents of each bottle. Events are often region-specific, and conducted with the bottles hidden from view and the cost divided among the members.
By Paul Gregutt
The Seattle Times (WA) 2008-01-02
A glass, or two
Americans are poised to edge ahead of Italians and trail only the French in wine consumption. Factors cited include perceived health benefits, women's higher incomes, and friendly marketing techniques. But we do like good deals: 90 percent of all wine, by volume, is sold in a food store for less than $10.
By Walter Nicholls
The Washington Post 2007-12-26
Grape expectations
India's only certified enologist learns finer points of wine-making at California vineyard to enrich the classes she teaches back home. Industry, in its infancy, is growing at 25 percent a year, and added 50,000 acres of wine grapes between 2000 and 2005.
By Matt Villano
San Francisco Chronicle 2007-12-09
Drinking local
With rich timing, seventh-generation distiller, just the first to do it legally, finds a market for locally made vodka using cast-off parts from an old food processing factory and a coil for bottling that once was part of a cow-milking apparatus. There are about 100 such micro-distilleries across the country.
By Susan Saulny
The New York Times 2007-11-25
Down the drain?
Raids in Nashville, Lynchburg net 2,400 bottles of vintage Jack Daniels, some near 100 years old and valued at about $1 million. Some might be sold at auction, but if officials discover it was being sold without a proper license, the whiskey might be dumped.
By Joe Edwards
The Associated Press; Lexington Herald-Leader 2007-11-16
Rioja temple:
Swooping, multicolored titanium-skinned "temple of wine," with spa, restaurant and hotel, at the Marques de Riscal winery in Elciego, is just an hour from Frank Gehry's other Spanish masterpiece of construction, Guggenheim Bilbao.
expatica.com
World and wine:
Despite it's winery-sponsored printing, Robert Joseph's, "Wine Travel Guide to the World" is a tantalizing and beautifully photographed armchair tour that tempts the reader into checking online ticket prices.
By Susan Reigler
The Courier-Journal (KY)