A Look At Camus

Business World: Is Camus just the 5th wheel in the cognac market?

The Cognac market has long been a Hennessy brand-led field. But after Hennessy, there is a three-corner battle for 2nd place with Martell, Remy Martin and Courvoisier all selling over a million cases per year, but still less than half the volume of leader Hennessy. Not surprisingly, all these top four cognac brands belong to huge liquor corporations. Hennessy of course comes from luxury conglomerate LVMH (Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton), Martell is from Pernod Ricard, Courvoisier from Beam Suntory, and Remy Martin from Rémy Cointreau. The 5th largest but still way behind in terms of volume is Camus, a family-run company for five generations now. The present head of the company is Cyril Camus, the 44-year-old 5th-generation descendant.

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WNU Editor: I am a Remy Martin drinker .... Camus .... had a few times but it is not for me.

Cognac History and Vineyards (Video)

Apparently Red Wine Is Not Good For You

The Independent: Alcohol: Cancer risk 'increased' by drinking more than one glass of wine or pint of beer per day, experts warn

The UK is now one of few countries to advise the same alcohol limit for both sexes.

Drinking more than one glass of wine or pint of beer a day increases the risk of developing cancer, according to medical experts.

New guidelines for alcohol consumption by the UK published Friday by chief medical officers warn that drinking any level of alcohol has been linked to a range of different cancers.

The evidence from the Committee on Carcinogenicity (COC) overturns the oft-held view that a glass of red wine can have significant medical benefits for both men and women.

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Editor: Some have a different point of view .... Here’s What Happens When You Drink Red Wine Every Night (Mandy Oaklander, Time)

What Happens When You Suddenly Stop Drinking For One Month?

The Guardian: Going booze-free? The effects of a month without alcohol

With the start of another new year, people are once again swearing off alcohol for at least a month, often for charity. What are the potential effects of suddenly cutting all alcohol from your system?

Alcohol. It’s a popular social lubricant, provides pleasure, and often tastes nice. It also has long term health consequences, and imposes a heavy burden on our society. Overall, it’s a mixed blessing.

At present it’s becoming ever-more fashionable, even charitable, to abstain from alcohol for the month of January. After the indulgence of the Christmas period, it’s hardly surprising people will want to do something healthy, and what could be healthier than giving up alcohol?

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Editor: Speaking personally .... being irritable will be the first reaction .... but after one month .... the cravings will be there but the impact of not drinking will not.

Great Scotch Whisky (Video - Documentary)

China's Counterfeit Wine Market Is Killing Wine

Counterfeit wine bottles. CBS NEWS

Nic Cavell, New Republic: How China Conquered France’s Wine Country

French connoisseurs sold the Chinese pomp and prestige, until they started manufacturing it themselves.

In 1996, Chinese premier Li Peng surprised his audience at the National People’s Congress by toasting the Ninth Five-Year Plan with red wine: “Drinking fruit wines is helpful to our health, does not waste grain, and is good for social ethics,” he announced. For China’s rapidly growing underclass, this gesture signaled a commitment to rein in the fraud and waste epitomized by party banquets, where officials were known to drink each other under the table with bottles of Moutai Flying Fairy and other spirits derived from grain. For the elites in question, it was an unmistakable signal that business as usual required a new currency. Within a few years, they were using bottles of Château Lafite Rothschild to gain favor and ease transactions.

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Editor: The Chinese are not the only ones who are having problems with counterfeit wines .... Counterfeit wine: A vintage crime (CBS)

Global Warming Has Been Good To Champagne Producers

Racegoers pouring champagne.

VOA/Reuters: Global Warming Has Been Good to Champagne Makers, So Far

REIMS, FRANCE — Climate change is a touchy subject in Champagne.

As France prepares to host world leaders for talks on how to slow global warming next month, producers of the northeastern French region's famous sparkling wine have seen only benefits from rising temperatures so far.

The 1.2 degrees centigrade increase in temperatures in the region over the past 30 years has reduced frost damage. It has also added one degree in the level of alcohol and reduced acidity, making it easier to comply with strict production rules, according to champagne makers group CIVC.

"The Champagne region and Germany are among the northerly vineyards which have managed to develop thanks to warmer weather," Jean-Marc Touzard, coordinator of a program on wine and climate change at French research institute INRA.

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Editor: Global warming may be good for champagne producers .... but their prices are still high.

Chateau Lafite Rothschild 's Wines (Video)

From YouTube: Millésima presents Chateau Lafite Rothschild: « First among the first ». In the history of the first growths classified in 1855, the Chateau Lafite Rothschild remains a lord on its gravely lands. Carrying on an age-old wine growing tradition (since 1620), its successive owners have been very keen to produce wines of an outstanding esthetical dimension. Admired estate by the greatest wine lovers on Earth, the Baron Eric de Rothschild is the master of this castle, helped in management by Charles Chevallier.

Is Marijuana Wine The Next Big Thing In Spirits?

Vine Pair: The latest Craze In Winemaking: Marijuana-infused Wine

There’s been a lot of buzz about pot and wine recently. It’s hard to separate the toga party contingent’s thirst for a potion into which two psychoactive substances have been crammed, from the more sober, scholarly consideration of the 3,700+ year history of fortifying wine with cannabis. And the allegedly potent healing powers of cannabis-wine are almost always overlooked, advocates complain.

Come on. Isn’t pot-wine just an elevated partying tool? Or can it actually help people who suffer from various maladies? Also – is it any good? And where can we get it?

Historically, wine fortified with cannabis hasn’t been guzzled at the average Thirsty Thursday happy hour. Instead, pot-wine has been consumed during religious rituals and used as a form of anesthesia in surgery. Yes, it’s that powerful.

Records of the marijuana plant being utilized for medicinal purposes date back to the 28th century B.C. In China during the second century A.D., archeologists found records showing that the founder of Chinese surgery, Hua T’o, used wine fortified with cannabis resin to reduce pain during surgery.

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Editor: If marijuana becomes legal to grow .... I can see this trend booming.

How Champagne Is Made

(Click on Image to Enlarge)

Sputnik: 'I'm Drinking the Stars!' How Champagne is Made

Sparkling wine is a wine with significant levels of carbon dioxide in it making it fizzy. The carbon dioxide may result from natural fermentation, either in a bottle, as with the méthode champenoise, in a large tank designed to withstand the pressures involved (as in the Charmat process), or as a result of carbon dioxide injection.

According to the legend, champagne was invented on August 4, 1693 by a Benedictine monk Dom Perignon who at the time served as cellar master of the Abbey of Hautvillers. "Come quickly! I'm drinking the stars!" he exclaimed when tasting wine that he was unable to rid of bubbles, and thus the legendary beverage was born.

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Champagne Sales Set A Record For 2015

Bottles of Champagne are displayed at Dilettantes wine shop in Paris, France, Dec. 31, 2015.

VOA: Champagne Sales Set for Record Year

PARIS — Champagne sales are set for a record year, driven by solid demand from export markets, favorable currencies and stabilizing sales in France, the fizzy drink's home market.

Industry estimates gathered by Reuters showed that about 312 million bottles of the prestige sparkling wine will have been dispatched in 2015, a rise of between 2 and 3 percent from 2014.

Revenue has risen 4.4 percent to 4.7 billion euros in 2015.

In 2007, the record year so far, revenues reached 4.56 billion euros, before the global economic and financial crisis began weighing on the market a year later.

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Editor: I guess this means that the prices are not going to go down. :(

Crimean Winemaker Massandra Has Put 13,000 Vintage Bottles Up For Auction

Workers at a wine cellar in the Massandra winery on July 23, 2004 (AFP Photo/Alexander Nemenov)

AFP: Kiev cries foul as historic Crimean wines go under hammer

Kiev (AFP) - Legendary Crimean winemaker Massandra, once a supplier to Russia's Tsar Nicolas II, has provoked the ire of Kiev by putting 13,000 vintage bottles up for auction on Tuesday.

Massandra described the wines, some dating back to 1935, as "pearls that have endured heavy ordeals including during the war".

One 1944 muscat "was produced in Yalta just after its liberation from German troops," it noted in a statement launching the sale being held at the winery and online.

The Massandra region, which belonged to the Ukrainian state until the 2014 annexation of Crimea by Russia, is now under Moscow's control with the rest of the peninsula.

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Editor: There must be a lot of history behind some of those wines.

Scotch Whisky Is A £5bn Industry In The UK

BBC: Scotch whisky 'worth £5bn to UK economy'

Scotch whisky contributes almost £5bn to the UK economy and supports more than 40,000 jobs, according to research commissioned by the industry.

The Scotch Whisky Association (SWA) said the sector now accounted for 25% of total UK food and drink exports.

Its report also suggested that the industry's direct economic impact had grown by 21% since 2008, to £3.3bn.

It found it added more value to the economy than shipbuilding, iron and steel, textiles or computing.

The report also concluded that Scotch whisky supported almost 11,000 jobs directly.

Editor: I expected a bigger amount.

The Next Big Wine Regions In The World

A worker cuts a bunch of Sangiovese grapes during the harvest at the Biondi Santi vineyard in the Val d'Orcia close to the Tuscan town of Montalcino in central Italy, September 22, 2004. Credit: Reuters/Max Rossi

Bloomberg: The World's Next Big Wine Regions

Eight hot spots producing your next great bottle

I’ve always been a wine-discovery junkie, constantly on the hunt for new grapes, new vintages, new winemakers, and especially new places where vines may never have been planted before. Thanks to ambitious vintners, rising demand from drinkers, a taste shift to lighter wine styles, and yes, even climate change, the number of global hot spots for wine is ever expanding. If you’re still rattling off the names of the old, long-famous regions, you’re way behind the times. In these eight spots, good wine is on its way to becoming great wine, with a few stars leading the way.

Editor: I am not surprised that the country of Georgia is there .... they have produced some of the best fortified wines that I have ever tasted.

A Look At Argentinian Wines

CBC: Argentina wines offer good value, says wine columnist

Argentinian wines are crowd-pleasers that offer a good bang for your buck

My Comment: I have always found their Malbecs to be a pleasant surprise (see the above video) .... and the price has always been cheap. If you have a chance ... definitely try one.

Wine Stored At Home Ages FOUR Times Faster

Opus Winery 

  Wine Stored At Home Ages FOUR Times Faster: Drink Loses Its Taste And Becomes Less Healthy -- Daily Mail 

* In the experiment, 200 bottles of red wine were stored in conditions mimicking a dark room in a house, and 200 in a professional cellar
* Study found that wine stored in the 'house' aged four times faster, contained fewer healthy antioxidants and tasted blander than bottles stored in a cellar
* Experts from the Edmund Mach Foundation wine academy in Italy, said a relatively small rise in the temperature speeds up several chemical reactions
* These reactions have a large effect on wine ageing
* The three factors that have the most direct impact on a wine's condition are light, humidity and temperature

It is often said that a good wine tastes better with age.

But a new study has found that if it is stored at home, fast ageing can occur, which leads to a less tasty tipple.

Italian scientists discovered that wine ages four times quicker when stored at home.

In an experiment, red wine kept in conditions mimicking a dark room in a house was less flavourful and contained fewer healthy antioxidants than wine stored in a professional cellar.

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My Comment: Nothing new here. Light, humidity and temperature .... the three factors that can influence wine. Control them properly .... you can maintain the quality of your wine.

Global Warming Will Affect Your Beer

Growing Barle. Photo by Lucash on Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

How Global Warming Will Affect Your Beer -- Popular Science

A pilot study examines how drought affects the quality of starch in barley.

There are many things that will change as Earth's climate warms.

Doctoral student Peter Gous is worried about the price and quality of beer.

The aspiring plant bioengineer worked with a team of scientists to test how not getting enough water altered the quality of barley grains.

In a small pilot study, the scientists found that the starches inside barley grains grown with too little water are different from starches found inside nicely-watered barley grains.

The dryness-stressed barley had longer-chain starch grains and more protein than normally grown barley.

From there, Gous made an interesting conjecture about the future—one we've never thought of.

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My Comment:The beer will be fine.beer

The 2012 And 2013 Vintages Are Probably The 'Two Best Vintages In The History Of Napa Valley'

2012 And 2013 ‘Best In Napa's History’ -- The Drinks Business 

The 2012 and 2013 vintages were “the best two vintages in the history of the Napa Valley”, according to Garen Staglin of Staglin Family Vineyard.

Speaking to the drinks business during a lunch in London last week to celebrate the estate’s new partnership with Pol Roger in the UK, Staglin said: “The elements were perfectly aligned in 2012 and 2013 in the Napa Valley.

“I’d have to go very far back in order to compare them to another vintage. I’d call them ’98-100 point’ vintages in terms of quality and quantity.

“It was like the 2009 vintage in Burgundy – the wines had such great expression, if you bought anything from anyone in those years then you’d be happy.”

While the Rutherford-based estate sells 70% of its wines directly to consumers via its mailing list, Staglin has recently partnered with Pol Roger to distribute its range in the UK.

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My Comment: I am looking forward to drinking these vintages.

A Guide To Tennessee Whiskey

Amanda Macias/Business Insider 

  An Expert's Guide To Tennessee Whiskey -- Richard Carleton Hacker, Business Insider/Robb Report 

Too often when a bartender is asked which bourbons his or her bar carries, the list invariably includes Jack Daniel’s sour-mash Tennessee whiskey.

But as most residents of the Volunteer State know, Tennessee whiskey is an entirely different libation from bourbon, even though they share many traits.

Bourbon must be made in the United States, but contrary to popular belief, it can be made anywhere in the country.

It is by a unique combination of history and geography that 95 percent of all bourbon is now made in Kentucky—the Civil War, the realignment of state boundaries, and the proximity of waterways are among the reasons.

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My Comment: A rather brief summary of Tennessee Whiskey .... but still worth the read.

The Art of Blending (Cognac)

From YouTube: Cognac has long held a reputation for being a drink consumed by old men sitting by the fireplace, perhaps with a cigar in hand. Working with the BNIC, Flow Films looked at this historic drink through a modern lens -- injecting renewed spirit into the iconic beverage. The film follows mixologists Marcos Tello and Kyle Branche who blend Cognac into cocktails, Michelin-starred chef David Féau who pairs Cognac with food, and passionate Cognac producers who are utilizing new techniques to produce the best possible product.

By giving attention to some of the smallest (Cognac Paul Giraud) and largest (Martell, Hennessy, Remy Martin) craftsmen in the region, Flow Films was able to capture an accurate portrait of Cognac production. Equally entertaining and educational, the film also takes the viewer through the entire Cognac-making process - from the vineyard, to distillation, barrel-making, aging, and, finally, to blending. Unfortunately, tasting is something you'll have to do on your own...