Olive Garden… A beacon of wine trends…???

Reading Down the Wine List: Everyone knows that restaurant wine sales are down as the recession has reduced both the number of diners and their willingness to spend a lot of money on wine. One of the best sources of news on restaurant wine sales is the Wine & Spirits magazine annual restaurant issue, which surveys selected wine-friendly restaurants and reports sales trends. The W&S data give only part of the picture, however, since they tend to survey restaurants with more sophisticated wine-enthusiast customers. What’s happen to wine sales a bit further down the food chain? Two studies by Ronn Wiegand (publisher and Master of Wine) in the current issue of Restaurant Wine report that US restaurant wine sales were off by 5.5 percent by volume  in 2008 while sales of the Top 100 wines fell by just 3.5 percent. This suggests some consolidation in this sector, which will make sense once I tell you what the best selling wines are. The drop in restaurant wine sales overall is less than the numbers I’ve seen for upscale restaurants. One reason for this discrepancy as I understand it  is that Wiegand’s figures come from distributors, who report sales to all restaurants and on-premises establishments, not just purchases by select restaurants. So this gives us a picture of the broader market.

Alain Delon sells wine collection

By Marcel Michelson

PARIS | Tue Nov 29, 2011 9:04am EST

(Reuters) – French film and stage actor Alain Delon sold a thousand bottles of his wine collection on Saturday with a big Chinese buyer pushing the auction results well above pre-sale estimates. Delon, once called “the male Brigitte Bardot” for his good looks, is one of France’s best-selling film actors with Jean-Paul Belmondo and comic Louis de Funes. While he never made a big splash in Hollywood, he has fans in Europe and Asia. The sale raised more than 250,000 euros ($333,800), compared to an auctioneer’s estimate of 100,000 euros, with Chinese media businessman Dong Guo pushing up the prices for the main parts of the sale. He acquired 70 lots and fell short of his goal of acquiring the entire collection due to other bidders in the room at Fouquet’s hotel and restaurant on the Champs Elysees. Buyers from China, Russia, United States and South America were active via Internet and phone lines and competed with the some 200 people in the stately room in the hotel, decorated with gold-colored curtains, dark wood paneling and black-and-white pictures of film stars and scenes.

Poll

A B C ‘s to ordering wine smartly

You’ve got a hot date. You’re dressed to kill and heading for a romantic dinner a deux. Everything’s perfect. Then the waiter approaches with the wine list. While attempting to maintain your carefully crafted suave persona, you break out in a cold sweat, and your hot date suddenly chills.Relax. With a little background info, choosing a wine for dinner is easier than learning your ABCs (which stands for Anything But Chardonnay).

Do you know Brett like I know Brett?

By LINDA MURPHY

 In the first year of my wine career, I poured wine at a showing of top bottles from around the world. On a break from the stand, I went around the room to taste many of the other offerings. When I returned to my table, the winemaker next to me asked, ‘Did anything really impress you?’‘The 1989 Châteauneuf-du-Pape from Château de Beaucastel,’ I answered. He chuckled: ‘You must love Brett.’