New rules governing organic wine labeling in the U.S. took effect last month. The rule changes were intended to “clarify” the contents of organic labels for consumers. Clarify? Let’s see …

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I’m not sure why, but there has been a spate of interesting developments in the wine world in the past few weeks, all of which bear paying attention to by anyone interested in where the wine industry is going these days.

I’m normally not one to simply rattle off lists news stories, but these are all so interesting that I can’t pass up the opportunity to share them.

We’re Talking Mainstream
The fact that Amazon.Com is getting in the wine business has been old news for a while, but two more giants of American retail just announced they were also going to make a play for wine drinkers. Starbucks will begin selling wine (albeit crappy wine) in it’s new concept stores. They will be joined by Walgreens in catering to those folks who want a bottle of wine to go.

Yes, China Will Change the Wine Market
As if we needed any more proof that the Chinese market will have a profound impact on the world of wine, the Chinese government’s main investment fund just invested $365 million dollars to buy a 1.1% stake in Diageo, the world’s largest wine company, which itself has been investing in opening up the Chinese market for its products. Time to get Vinography translated into Mandarin for sure.

Your Wine Lists Rule Us Like Robotic Overlords
A recent study by the Cornell University Center for Hospitality Research on best practices for wine list creation has revealed that even the tiniest changes to wine lists result in significantly different buying behavior by consumers. You didn’t know that you were more likely to buy a more expensive bottle of wine if the price was listed without a dollar sign in front of it, did you? But you are indeed a sheep like the rest of us. The study revealed other interesting tidbits, like the more wines on the list the better it performed up until the number of wines hit 150, after which sales dropped. Or, contrary to much popular belief, the study showed that wine-by-the-glass programs did not lead to a higher number of sales of bottles. And then there were the head slapping common sense facts that were reaffirmed: organizing your wine list by terms like “fruity” “aggressive” or “sweet” was a recipe for lower sales, and having recognizeable high-end wines on your list was a recipe for higher sales.

Freakonomics Folks Drink Too Much Wine
I’ve been surprised by a rash of wine related articles on the New York Times Freakonomics blog, which indicates to me the possibility that either journalists are drowning a lot more sorrows these days, or statistics become a hell of a lot more fun when you’re drunk. In any case, the most interesting of these posts has been an analysis of a recent report from the Society for Wine Economists about the relationships between the adjectives used to describe wine and the perceived (and real) value of the wine. In short, it’s not clear whether adjectives common in tasting notes about top wines mean that these are flavors inherent in these wines, or that they are imposed on the wines by critics who know the wine is expensive when they are writing the notes.

Enjoy.

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A lot of wine books get published every year, and not many of them are very good, especially for wine lovers that would rather drink than read about wine. Even the well written ones fail to satisfy in one department — they don’t taste very good.

Perhaps this is what the publisher Kraken Opus was thinking when they came up with the idea for their newest wine book: The Wine Opus. Either that or they have a sinister plot to give hernias to the world’s richest wine lovers — at least those that do their own lifting.

Decanter magazine reports that The Wine Opus, which is scheduled to be published in 2010 and which will showcase the world’s top 100 wines, will weigh in at 850 pages and roughly 66 pounds, vastly exceeding the heaviest book that I own, The Atlas of Contemporary World Architecture (a measly 16 pounds).

But wait, there’s more. In addition to the bragging rights to owning a book that you can get a workout while reading, you get six bottles of each wine mentioned in the book.

Yes, you heard that right. When you buy this wine book, it comes with six hundred bottles of wine. And it will only cost you (put your pinkie finger next to you mouth) one million dollars.

While they were at it, I’m surprised they didn’t get Damien Hirst to create a diamond encrusted cover and sell it for $10 Million.

The book is available for pre-order, and any copies not reserved in advance will be auctioned off to the highest bidder.

I’m just wondering what I need to do to get a review copy delivered by forklift.

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It’s quite easy to be lulled into a false sense of reality in any number of ways in our lives. We extrapolate so much from our own experience that we tend to forget that most of us live in little bubbles, amidst an outside world that often bears little resemblance to ourselves.

I very much appreciate, and in some cases seek out, opportunities to be reminded that the world of wine I live in is not the world of the average wine consumer. While I tend to buy most of my wine from the smaller, independent wine merchants that I recommend my readers patronize, I enjoy browsing the wine aisles of supermarkets and big box stores to see what’s on offer, and watch how people buy.

Likewise, I always enjoy the surveys that are published at regular intervals suggesting to us what “normal” consumers actually buy, and what they think about wine. One of those surveys is the periodic UK-based Wine and Spirit Trade Association’s survey of British consumers. They ask a few thousand consumers about their drinking habits, and then report the trends.

According to Decanter, their most recent report included some questions about the importance of information about where a wine is from in helping consumers make their purchasing decisions.

Apparently less than half of British consumers surveyed said that the region where the wine comes from is an important factor in their buying decision, and only 58% said that even the country was an important factor.

In short, a large number of consumers don’t really know or care where their wine comes from, or at least they don’t use that as a criteria for buying their wine. Grape color, price, and grape variety seem to play a much greater role in decisions, presumably along with what the cute animal is on the front of the label.

As wrapped up as we get in our favorite wines, in learning about new wine regions, or in geeking out about wines with friends (or readers of our blogs) it’s important to remember that we all have a greater purpose as wine lovers. We must all slowly, gently, compassionately, and lovingly, but whenever possible, offer to turn all these average wine drinkers on to some really good stuff. I’m not talking about brainwashing or pedantic lecturing. I’m talking about seduction.

Next time you get the chance to hang out with an ordinary wine drinker, slip them a really good wine and get them psyched about it. So maybe that the next time they head out to buy wine, they are that much more likely to end up with something they love, and that much more likely to want to learn more.

Back in the 60’s there were (stupid, dangerous, and irresponsible) plots to dump gallons of LSD into various municipal water facilities as a means of “turning on” a lot of people who held strict prejudices against…well against a lot of different things.

I guess I can understand the desire to electrify a lot of people at once. The idea of having everyone’s tap water replaced for a little while with a truly awesome white Burgundy for them to accidentally enjoy is worth fantasizing about for a few minutes anyway.

Hell, if they can do it in Italy accidentally, we ought to be able to pull it off around here.

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Roussanne - whose name may remind you as much of a French philosopher as a wine grape - rates high among favorite white-wine varieties for me.

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Tom Hyland reports that happily, 2004 was a great vintage for Brunello di Montalcino.

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There are two types of people in the world, the joke goes: those who believe the world can be divided into two types of people and those who don’t. Substitute wine for people and you might just as easily be charting those who firmly believe in the wall of tradition, history, and style that divides the so called Old World, from the New World.

In principle, I object to a wine world so starkly divided, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t occasionally resort to the use of these labels and the generalizations they imply to make a point.

I certainly can’t deny, especially while standing in a stone-walled vineyard that has been farmed by people with the same last name since before the United States even existed, that such places have a depth of history, tradition, and identity that is entirely absent (or at least purely nascent) in America or the other places we commonly refer to as the New World of wine.

For me, one of the icons of such deep history and tradition in the European wine world can be found in the heart of a region whose very name conjures a rich landscape and a lifestyle that are both legendary: Provence. In this land of lavender and thyme, rolling hills, and incredible cuisine, the wine estate called Domaine Tempier might easily be the archetype of the Old World winery.

Writing about Domaine Tempier isn’t the easiest thing to do, if only because any effort to do justice to this winery and its history must both reference, and be compared to the eloquence of Kermit Lynch, the importer who is responsible for bringing their wines to the US and who wrote about them in his wonderful book Adventures on the Wine Route.

So, rather than attempt to write about a place that I have not been myself, let me share with you some of what Lynch has to say about Domaine Tempier and its home in Bandol, the wine region which takes its name from a little tourist town on the Mediterranean coast.

“Domaine Tempier is a place in Provence, a home with its winery and vineyards, its olive trees and cypresses. It is home to a large joyful Provencal family. It is a wine. And while it must be inadvertent, one of those fortuitous miracles that embellish existence (there is no recipe for it dispensed at wine school), there is a certain vital spirit that one imbibes with each gorgeous swallow of Domaine Tempier’s wine.”

What Lynch manages to capture so eloquently here, and in the rest of the chapter in his book which he dedicates to this Domaine, is the energy, history, and the cumulative experience that is embodied in this family-run establishment that can claim single-handed responsibility for the creation AND preservation of the appellation of Bandol.

I won’t attempt to retell everything in the book, but it is important to know that the entire family is involved in only the business of their wine, with vineyard management and winemaking split between the two sons of the family, each having naturally gravitated towards the area that most suited him.

Domaine Tempier grows its grapes in a traditional manner that may best be described as painstaking. Their vineyards, terraced into stony hillsides, are so steep and narrow that the family’s tractors need roll-bars to avoid certain death should they topple down the hill. Filled with old, old vines of Mourvèdre, Cinsault, Carignan, and Grenache, along with some white grape varieties, these vineyards yield microscopic amounts of fruit each harvest. They are farmed with no herbicides, no irrigation, weeding by hand, and their only fertilizer every year is the hand sown remains of the must (grape skins, seeds, etc.) from the previous year’s vintage

When it comes to winemaking, no commercial yeasts are used in the production of the wine, and in a remarkable showing of patience and winemaking tradition, the wines are allowed to finish their fermentation naturally, no matter how long it takes. Lynch relates in his book that the 1971 vintage took a staggering four years to finally ferment to dryness. Any other modern vintner (perhaps anyone with a shred of sanity) would have inoculated the wine with some additional yeast to complete fermentation, and in doing so, at least according to the Tempier family, would have ruined the wine.

Such is the mindset, and the devotion, that goes into every bottle produced by the family and, frankly, it shows. I adore all of the wines produced by this estate, but perhaps none so much as their rosé which I use as the benchmark for every pink wine I drink. All of the wines, but especially the reds age beautifully. Or, as some might say, they are truly ageless, improving for decades and lasting many more.

I recently had the opportunity to taste much of the most recent vintage from Tempier, including, for the first time, their white wine, which was wonderful.

Full disclosure: I received some of these wines as press samples.

TASTING NOTES:

2007 Domaine Tempier Blanc, Bandol, France
Pale gold in color, this wine has a beautiful nose of citrus juices, cut grass and lime zest aromas. In the mouth it is beautifully balanced, with great acidity yet also nice richness of texture and weight that carries a swirling mix of pear, gooseberry, and other grassy, herbal flavors across the palate into a fantastic finish. Truly lovely. Score: between 9 and 9.5. Cost: $39. Where to buy?

2007 Domaine Tempier Rosé, Bandol, France
Palest peach colored in the glass, this wine has a bright, stony nose of roses, rosehips, and other floral and mineral aromas. In the mouth it is explosive in its crispness with zingy, juicy flavors of rosehips and redcurrant supported by a steely undercarriage of wet stone minerality that slides around the mouth and lingers through a long finish. As usual, outstanding. Score: around 9.5. Cost: $32. Where to buy?

2006 Domaine Tempier Rouge, Bandol, France
Dark garnet in the glass, this wine has a rich nose of well-oiled leather, mulberry and cassis flavors tinged with green herbs. In the mouth the wine is mysterious — gorgeously velvet in texture with a melange of flavors that is difficult to describe: a mix of wet earth, mulberry, thyme, and wet stone that are blended together into an obsidian smoothness. Lovely. Score: between 9 and 9.5. Cost: $39. Where to buy?

2006 Domaine Tempier “La Tourtine,” Rouge, Bandol, France
Dark garnet in color, this wine has a nose of wet green wood, black cherry, and green herbs. In the mouth it is tart and taut with cassis, green herbs, and cedar flavors with moderate tannins and a long finish of sandalwood and oregano that turns a little bitter. Score: around 9. Cost: $55. Where to buy?

2006 Domaine Tempier “La Migoua,” Rouge, Bandol, France
Dark garnet in color, this wine smells of roasted meats, green herbs, mulberries, and black cherry. In the mouth the wine is bursting with mulberry and black cherry fruit, and shot through with aromatic garrigue aromas that intertwine with the velvety tannins that linger in the finish. Score: between 9 and 9.5. Cost: $60. Where to buy?

2005 Domaine Tempier Rouge, Bandol, France
Medium to dark garnet in the glass, this wine has a deep nose of currant and leather aromas tinged with a little grapeyness. In the mouth it is deep and rich with grippy tannins and a core of black currant, leather, and wet dirt flavors that are rimmed by tart cherry qualities that linger into the long finish. Score: around 9. Cost: $45. Where to buy?

In addition to the above wines, the Domaine also produces two other designated bottlings, named Cabassaou(usually their most expensive wine) and Cuvee Speciale.

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If you join me in the quest for the wine roads less traveled, I think you’ll enjoy this month’s feature - Offbeat Whites - in Wine Focus in our WineLovers Discussion Groups.

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