BOOZEBIZ CHATTERBOX TAKES GREEN HUE

ENVIRONMNENTAL SCIENTIST DR DAVID PATON ON THE RECEDING WATERS OF THE MURRAY-DARLING ESTUARY: EVERY BARGAIN BIN CLEANSKIN YOU BUY SUCKS MORE WATER OUT OF THIS RIVER SYSTEM


Solving The Carbon Footprint Crisis
While Keeping The Booze Flowing
by PHILIP WHITE

Bacchus only knows just how far The Wine Supply Chain Council is willing to go to ensure wine drinkers make less of a mess of the global environment, but they’re having another talkfest in Melbourne next week.

The shocking condition of Australia’s Murray-Darling Basin, with the cruel extant fact of the death of its estuary, is partly the work of Australian wine drinkers determinedly demanding cheap squirt; partly the work of the thirsty who buy from the humungous booze mongers of Britain and the USA.

It is certainly partly the work of some of the winemakers of Clare and the Barossa, who built their own private pipelines to import salt water from the Murray to guarantee sufficient irrigation supplies to maintain their manufactory of industrial quality wine for export.

Such water inevitably increases the salinity of the ground to which it is applied.

The WSCC was devised to address such issues, but tends to approach the problem from the “must have” point of view, as in “these markets exist, they must have our wine; ergo we must work out how to get it there”.

The meeting follows one held in South Africa last year and will set the cooperative research agenda for the next 3-5 years to benefit wine producers.

“Experts from around the world will talk about how to ensure consumers receive the best wines possible” the WSCC says.

“The meeting on January 13-16 includes 25 industry leaders, academics and researchers. Australian representatives at the workshop include researchers from CSIRO and Monash University and senior managers from some of Australia's wine companies including Yalumba and Orlando Wines.”

(Orlando is part of Pernod-Ricard. It is not Australian.)

CSIRO mathematical and information sciences research leader, Dr Simon Dunstall, said one of the major issues for discussion will be how to reduce the environmental impacts of the wine and grape juice industry's transport task.

"Transport is a significant consideration in Australia, particularly the carbon footprint involved in moving wine over long distances," he said.

Consumers are quickly becoming directly concerned with such issues, and some wineries are already taking advantage of this.

I have, for example the first bottles from Zilzie’s Bulloak Carbon Neutral wine brand on my tasting bench now. From irrigated Murray Basin vineyards, these retail at $10 in Adelaide, a full day’s drive from Zilzie.

London is a lot further.

Surely the best way of easing the carbon footprint is to grow grapes closer to the markets which want the wine. If Texas can produce wines as fine as Australia’s Murray-Darling Basin and perhaps Coonawarra (see articles below), then why shouldn’t Texas be producing such fruit for the US market?

A hint of the future lies in Fosters new three-year contract with the Indian wine company, Indage Vinters, (formerly Champagne Indage), to package Fosters’ wine in Britain.

This wine will be shipped from Australia, South America and South Africa in tank, and packaged in the marketplace which drinks it. This reduces the footprint of such ridiculous mechanisms as taking bottles from Italy to Australia, filling them up, then taking them to Britain for sale.

While the UK drinks over 110 million cases a year, and drinking more and more of it at home, the feverish pressure there to supply ever-cheaper booze is forcing such Australia producers to chop costs.

Similar pressure in India will see more of that country’s booze made there.

Since Stephen Hickinbotham worked a consultant to the Indian government in the early ’eighties, it has been apparent that India can easily produce sufficient wine to supply its fledgeling market.

Given the water supplies, the same thing can be said of China.

One wonders just how the WSCC committee can flex its direction to suit such massive collisions of the booze world’s tectonic plates.

Topics the Council has discussed include: tracking temperature changes of wine as it is shipped around the world; improving order management processes; and, exploring the finding that 99% of wine currently made in the United States came from states that voted Democrat(!).

Dunstall's team uses a branch of mathematics called 'operations research' to simulate and optimise supply chains in a range of industries. It recently developed a “grape maturity forecasting system” which is being used in Australia and New Zealand to estimate when grapes are ready to harvest.

This was not much use in the harvest of 2008: we shall soon see how well it works this vintage, which is upon us.

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WINE LICENSING: INDIA SHOWS USA THE WAY

WINE IS A BIG DEAL IN INDIA, WITH SALES STEADILY CLIMBING AS GOVERNMENT PROMOTES WINE DRINKING AND LIFTS SALES RESTRICTIONS

India Pulls Its Cork

by PHILIP WHITE

As India gradually discovers wine, its lawmakers seem keen to deregulate restrictive laws and get on with it.

One major step is the move to permit department stores to sell wine.

“We are working towards easing regulation on wine production and consumption in the country. Availability of wine would be the first step in this direction. The government is willing to spread wine culture among people and promote vineyards in the country,” an official in the ministry of food processing, who wished not to be named, told the Economic Times of India on New Year’s Eve.”

“Some states, like Delhi, Maharastra, Karnataka and Punjab have already allowed department stores to sell beer provided they get a liquor licence”, ETI reported. “The ministry of food processing along with the department of commerce are of the view that wine should also be treated like beer, which is different from hard liquor such as whiskey and rum. The Delhi government, too, is likely to allow the sale of wine in local stores soon.

“The two arms of the central government are working on a policy to encourage wine making and its consumption in the country. They are also in favour of having a uniform excise duty regime across the state for wine sector. Excise duty on wines is a state subject and varies from state to state.

“To give impetus to wine production and its promotion, the food processing ministry has also set up a National Wine Board to develop standards and promote domestic wine industry, so that they may stand stiff competition thrown by Australian and French wines. Competition from foreign wines is expected to intensify with the recent reduction in customs duties on wines and spirits.

“The ministry argues that promotion of wine culture will lead to agricultural diversification and employment generation in rural India. With the growing popularity, wine farmers in Maharashtra are shifting from plantation of table grapes to wine grapes, said the official. India’s wine market, which is 1.2 million cases, has been growing at 40% this year compared with 2007.”

Meanwhile, in the USA, where many states already enjoy this privilege (to varying degrees – the laws are arcane), a few recalcitrants are still kicking and screaming.

The New Jersey legislature is considering changing its 47-year-old law designed to prevent monopolization, price-fixing and mob influence of liquor stores and introducing similarly liberal legislation. Liquor store owners are up in arms, saying this will lead to supermarket chains gaining control of the retail liquor business.

Fred Leighton, president of the New Jersey Liquor Store Alliance and owner of Bayway World of Liquor in Elizabeth, argued the legislation would hurt struggling business districts, raise the risk of minors illegally obtaining liquor at busy supermarkets, and lead to price hikes.

The director of the state Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control said the proposal is unnecessary and would make it more difficult to enforce the drinking age.

"When I see a 15-year-old walk into a liquor store, I assume there is a problem," Jerry Fischer, state ABC director, told the committee. "When I see a 15-year-old walk into a supermarket, I can't assume anything. I have very valid concerns."

The bill would change the existing system that limits any corporation or individual to only two retail liquor licenses statewide. It is being pushed by the New Jersey Food Council, the lobbying arm for such supermarket chains as Acme, Stop & Shop, Pathmark, Whole Foods and Quick Chek.

"The existing law is anti-competitive, unfair and riddled with loopholes," said Deana Lykins, a consultant retained by the N.J. Food Council. "It is a protectionist measure for one part of the liquor industry."

In Albany, upstate New York, opponents to a similar liberalisation of liquor laws also say the proposal by Gov. David Paterson to allow the sale of wine in grocery and convenience stores sounds “as ominous as a death knell”.

"It'll put most of us out of business," Michael Scanlan, co-owner of Niskayuna Wines and Liquors, told The Albany Times Union. "They can sell it for cheaper than we can buy it."

The ATU reported that Scanlan co-owns the cozy Nott Street shop with his brother, Peter Scanlan. Their father opened the store nearly four decades ago. Over those years, he claimed, “proposals for expanded wine sales came and went like tides but never came to fruition”.

Many liquor store owners see the move as inevitable, the report continued, partly because the state deficit is so large and the Paterson administration believes it can raise a quick $105 million in franchise fees from stores and pharmacies that now sell beer and are eager to sell wine.

35 states already allow the sale of wine in food stores. Capital Region stores like Price Chopper and Stewart's sell wine in Vermont locations, for example. Proponents say the proposal is a matter of convenience: while there are only 1,700 licensed liquor stores in New York, there are 18,171 outlets that sell beer; why not let those stores sell wine to make the product more widely available?

Many suggest that huge chains like Whole Foods and Trader Joe's avoid the Capital Region and other upstate areas because of this wine sale limitation.

Yet, directly reflecting the Australian situation, liquor store owners say there's no way they can compete with the big chains’ bulk purchasing power, and consequent discounting, comparing themselves “to the hardware stores that tried, and mostly failed, to conquer big-box competition”. And they say the governor's plan is inherently unfair: under state liquor rules, for example, they are allowed just one location while grocery and convenience stores face no such restriction.

Store owners predicted a small number of liquor stores will survive, mostly those that sell expensive niche wines. But many others, they said, will be imperiled if the Paterson proposal passes.

"In Vermont, you can buy wine anywhere," Rutland said. "But try to find a liquor store."

The NewYork Times meanwhile reported “The retail grocers of New York and Brooklyn feel bitter towards the dry goods department stores that have introduced groceries, wines and liquors ... and charge that the department stores are placing before their women customers ‘an unusual temptation to indulge in alcoholic stimulants’ ...

“W. H. Moss, grocer, Washington and Vesey Streets, said “selling wine and liquors in dry goods stores has a demoralising tendency on women. It offers them temptations to buy whiskey which otherwise they would not be likely to encounter. I would not be surprised to learn that dry goods stores were selling coffins.”

But that was the The New York Times of 17 November, 1894. Nothing changes. Maybe I’d move straight to India.