Every Wednesday I post my recommendations of the best of last week’s postings concerning wine, whether blogs or news. I list them in the order I read them, so you shouldn’t infer anything about the order in which I list these posts.

Off-Premise Wine Sales Increase 5.1 Percent in January

http://www.winebusiness.com/news/?go=getArticle&dataid=71610

Is this the news everyone in the business has been waiting for? Without significant sales increases, the bloodletting/discounting can’t end. Hopefully, this is a harbinger of things to come.

Shedding Light on Wine Flavor

http://www.winesandvines.com/template.cfm?section=news&content=71618&htitle=Shedding%20Light%20on%20Wine%20Flavor

I guess this should have come as a surprise, as it seems everything in the wine-tasting experience affects how much people like a wine. Here, the same wine was tasted under different lightings, with different results.

Why Should Terroir Matter…

http://www.beendoonsolong.com/2010/02/why-should-terroir-matter/

Randall Graham is to be commended for being one of the more interesting characters in the wine business. Here, he emphasizes the importance of terroir as a way out of the branding that has so much influence in how we sell our products. I can honestly say I disagree with most of what he has to say, particularly the emphasis on terroir, which I consider mostly a myth. But the article is fascinating, and well worth reading.

Intrusive aromas

http://www.redwinebuzz.com/winesooth/2010/02/23/intrusive-aromas/

Arthur highlights how smells in the environment can affect the perception of a wine.

Minimizing the subjectivity of wine reviewing

http://www.steveheimoff.com/index.php/2010/02/26/minimizing-the-subjectivity-of-wine-reviewing/

Heimoff discusses the various things that can affect how much you like a wine, aside from the wine itself, how to try to avoid those extraneous things, and whether wine criticism has much validity at all. An interesting read.

For keeping up to date with what’s going on the in wine world, the best all around source is http://winebusiness.com.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010 at 7:46 am and is filed under Good Reads. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.