As a Nation, We’re Getting Drunker

For 71 years, Gallup has been tracking the number of Americans who say they drink alcohol. The latest poll results were released the other day and currently 67% of US adults say they drink alcohol. This is a slight increase over last year and apparently the highest recorded since 1985.

Favorite beverage? Sorry wine folks. Beer is apparently the #1 choice, followed by wine and then liquor. Interestingly, wine was the #1 choice in 2005. I blame the recession – beer is, after all, “recession champagne.” Wine still wins a little, as the #1 beverage choice among women and older Americans. Guys, younger drinkers, and (here you go), those in the midwest still prefer beer – just like the marketing tells us.

There are some other interesting tidbits thrown into the mix, including that those who seldom or ever attend church are more likely to say they drink in comparison to those who don’t get up early on Sundays. Additionally, those with no religious identity, Catholics, and non-Christians are more likely to drink than Protestants. Huh.

Finally, the report lets us know that the recession may not be the reason for the increase in drinking. Of poll respondents who earn less than $20,000 per year, 46% say they drink. However, 81% of those who earn $75,000 or more say they drink.

View the Gallup results and survey methods (pdf).

Image from Gallup

Guest Post Op-Ed: A Little Bit of Legislature

This guest post is from Nancy Bentley, co-owner of Kinkead Ridge Winery in Ripley, OH.

An editorial note: I try very hard as a blogger to stay apolitical. However, I do not require this of my guest bloggers. Nancy’s post expresses her personal feelings about some legislative issues affecting agriculture in Ohio and is a legitimate Opinion piece. I invite you to express your own feelings about the legislature in the comments or by contacting Nancy.

– M

–
It makes me laugh how the Wall Street Journal continually posts ads from the state of Ohio suggesting what a great state Ohio is to start a business. In 1999, we relocated from a highly successful vineyard operation in Oregon, in order to prove that great wines could be made in southern Ohio and to revitalize the area with new wineries for agritourism. We personally mentored at least five new wineries, and continue to help more.

I would like to describe several current situations regarding the Ohio Department of Agriculture and wineries, and then two other situations that reflect how they are hurting small farmers. To put finances in perspective: The Ohio wine and grape industry released its 2008 economic impact report, which finds that Ohio’s grape and wine industry has a significant impact of more than $580 million on the state’s economy.
Highlights of the report include:

• In 2008, the Ohio wine and grape industry had an economic impact of $582.8 million.
• The Ohio grape and wine industry employed more than 4,000 people in 2008, providing a payroll of $124.2 million.
• The Ohio grape and wine industry contributed an estimated $62 million back in state, local and federal tax revenue.

Situation #1: Given the fact that the Ohio wine industry contributes so much money to the economy, we are appalled at the latest overreach by the Ohio Department of Agriculture bureaucracy. There is a law on the books that allows them to inspect wineries as food production facilities, something that neither California, Oregon or other huge wine producing states do. Only wineries that wholesale their wine are subject to this annual inspection, which wineries will be charged an annual fee for, ranging from $50 to $300. Wineries that only sell retail will not be inspected. I have actually been in a winery in Ohio that only sold at retail that had dog turds on the floor. Wholesale warehouses that store wine may not be inspected (follow the distributor lobby money).

Nothing harmful to humans can live in wine. We actually had an ODA person suggest that we wash the grapes to eliminate insects, a laughable comment. There was a suggestion to use bleach to clean up black mold, a product that is well known to cause TCA taint in wine. Our only avenue for change is to change the law to exempt wineries. In the meantime, inadequately trained, probably highly paid registered sanitarians will be hitting the road and generating travel expenses to make sure that wineries have hairnets in the building. The maximum amount of money these fees could generate for the state would be $30,000, and it will be much less than that.

The claim is to protect the public, but there are no plans to take samples of wines for testing of any kind, and wineries are already highly regulated by the federal government (TTB) and local health organizations. This is just bureaucratic bloat and a waste of taxpayer money.

We cannot get a straight answer as to what part of the regulatory code will be enforced. On a conference call, I was basically told that wineries could be inspected with different criteria. And imagine if your winery is inspected in January, when everything is cleaned up, or at crush, when bees, fruit flies, etc. fill the winery.

Situation #2. We have been making Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, Cabernet Franc, Viognier/Roussanne and Petit Verdot for 10 years. In general these wines are in the 12%-13% alcohol range. A fine vintage from 2008 pushed them all over 14% alcohol. The federal government approves all wine labels. For free. The state of Ohio rubber stamps such labels, at an initial fee of $50 per label. Because these wines went over 14%, I was required to submit “New Label Registrations” and write a check for $250 to the state.

Situation #3: It goes beyond wineries. Last year, Harmony Hill Vineyards had a wonderful farmers market. The Ohio Department of Agriculture has now said that if you want to sell your eggs or meat at a Farmers Market, a cooler with blue ice is no longer good enough to store your food for a couple of hours. “Mechanical refrigeration” is required. So that means you load up a refrigeration, hope you can plug it in somewhere, transfer your food in the cooler, load it in the fridge, and reverse for the trip home.

We use farm fresh eggs in fining, and needed 6 dozen eggs from a small egg producer in Ripley. She is NOT allowed to deliver the eggs to us, a few miles away. We had to pick them up.

Situation #4: The Fizzleville Fair in Adams County has made home made ice cream for over 30 years. Apparently that will no longer be allowed.

So, in summary, this is a bureaucracy out of control. We need new leaders who will get out of the way and let Ohio small business do what they do best without excessive and stupid regulations. Ohio is hurting and driving small business out of Ohio, not encouraging it.

- Nancy Bentley

UPDATED: Save the Bigg’s Skytop Wine Tastings!

Michael from Bigg’s has updated us in the comments (comments #5 and #7). Your help is no longer needed, but the support was and is appreciated. Remke will be continuing with the wine tastings.

One of the best wine tastings in the city, which is also insanely inexpensive, is the Friday evening tastings at the Bigg’s Skytop location on Beechmont Avenue. There are nice light appetizers, quality wines, a genial and knowledgeable host, and a highly social environment.

Go while you still can.

If you haven’t heard, Remke has purchased the Bigg’s Skytop location (amongst others). Several readers have asked me what might happen to the wine program and Michael J. Campbell, the wonderful man behind it.

I asked Michael today, as I’m worried as well. I didn’t like the answer. Basically, Remke hasn’t made a decision yet and they will within the next 10 days.That decision affects both the wine program and Michael’s job.

You still have a chance to influence the decision.

Michael has asked that you use the Remke Contact form and request that they maintain the current quality wine program – and him!

So tell everyone you know and help save the program. It’s sort of like writing your congressman though – you actually have to fill in your request on that contact form; don’t just think about it.

I have my fingers crossed. I often visit the Remke by my home in Northern Ky. For months, they were an active part of the campaign to bring wine into grocery stores in Kentucky. I’m hoping that eagerness to carry wine spills into their new Ohio retail sites and includes quality programs like the one at Skytop.

Chilean Wine, Post Earthquake

I was in one of my favorite wine shops on Friday (which I will not name) and the nice guy pouring wine started telling me about the dire straits the Chilean wine industry was in post-earthquake. Turns out, the nice guy interpreted a $250 million dollar loss a little too pessimistically. It’s certainly bad, but it could be a lot worse.

Image from Montes Winery, Chile

I found the Wine Spectator article he referenced and supplemented it with my favorite online wine magazine, Decanter. Turns out that $250 million is across the Chilean wine industry as a whole, and includes 125 million litres of what is basically spilled juice. So if you break that up between all the wineries, it’s a loss, but nothing like they had originally feared.

From Decanter on March 3:

After a board meeting today at Vinos de Chile and Wines of Chile, the domestic and international operations that represent 95% of the industry, the verdict is that some 12.5% of the country’s cellared wine has been lost.

That is about US$250m worth of wine – a figure that will not represent actual loss as the wine is insured, and moreover the country’s wineries were overstocked, Rene Merino, president of Wines of Chile told decanter.com. ‘This will not affect our supply to our importers at all.’

That last sentence is key, because it means that you can still buy Chilean wine over the next year without a problem. Additionally, the wineries may not have lost much wine, but their employees did lose their homes, electricity, and so much more. I may actually make a point to buy more Chilean wine in 2010 and hope that somehow, by helping the wineries, I can help their employees.

From Wine Specatator, March 3:

In addition, many wineries now have scores of workers in need of shelter. ”What really concerns us now is our workers, as many have lost their homes,” said Merino. “This has to be addressed quickly. However, there is much that is out of our hands—electricity, roads, ports are obviously under government control, rather than ours.”

Wine Spectator also mentions that while the overall damage estimate is lower than feared, some wineries were indeed hard hit:

• Viña Santa Rita: ~8 million L, 1 m of which was premium juice
• Viña Montes (Purple Angel, Folly, Cherub): ~20% loss of icon level wines (Alpha M, Folly, Purple Angel)
• Miguel Torres: ~ 100,000 litres
• Viña Santa Carolina: ~ 200,000 litres
• MontGras: ~ 5% tanks, 10% barrels
• Viu Manent: Less than 15% of inventory
• Concha Y Toro: Initial figure of 40 million was “wildly exaggerated, but losses will be significant.”

Update: I’ve also heard from Viña Los Vascos (a Lafite estate) in the comments.

A Little Bit of Politics: No on 9

I try really hard to keep my personal politics out of this blog. You all don’t care (I hope) whether I’m Democratic or Republican or for whom I voted. But Issue 9 has a ripple effect across our city and our region, with consequences pretty far into the future.

Kevin and I live in Northern Ky, and we’re pretty lucky in that the bus swings right by the house and drops off Kevin pretty close to his office downtown.  I contemplated a job in Mason for while, but the drive turned me off. I certainly can’t take a bus from Northern Kentucky to Mason without a whole lot of hassle, and having lived in the DC area, I no longer have the patience for traffic.

When I lived near DC, I often worked projects in Princeton, NJ, and Philadelphia. To get there, I took a train (or multiple trains in some cases). Everything worked so well together: Amtrak, the New Jersey Transit, the DC Metro, and the Baltimore Light Rail. I could easily and comfortably get anywhere I needed to go, without worrying about weather or traffic. Everything connected. It was particularly wonderful when I wanted to go to New York City for an evening from Princeton or to the airport. One time I even took a train from upstate New York back to Baltimore. It’s so relaxing …

The passenger rail in Alaska takes you across the state. We just went halfway.

In Chicago, I usually take the Blue Line from the airport to Downtown. It’s so easy, and whereas a cab runs around $30 or a car includes renting + upwards of $25/day for parking, CTA costs me $3. The Blue Line also runs from downtown to a neighborhood I love with a great shoe store. And that’s just the Blue Line. Chicago’s public transportation is fantastic, running above, below, and around the city – making it a vibrant city, full of people from the surrounding suburbs who can easily get downtown to museums and shopping and work.

Imagine how great it would be to take a train/light rail to the airport, or to the outer suburbs, or downtown without having to deal with parking?

Those for Issue 9 play up the Streetcar, but that’s not the only thing Issue 9 covers. Basically, if you vote yes for 9, you’re saying you don’t ever want passenger rail connecting our fair city to Columbus and Cleveland. The 3C line would be dead to us. Heck, the fun train at the Zoo (within Hamilton County limits) would even be a problem. Yep, this measure affects the Zoo train too.

I can’t vote on this. I really wish I could. And in the interest of keeping this brief, I’ll direct you to Wine Me, Dine Me and the Hoperatives. Both of those blogs have written wonderfully informed posts about how voting yes for 9 will slow down development in Cincinnati. I’m just telling you how much I love trains. Vote No on 9.

Update: I recommend everyone read CityKin’s great mythbusting post on Issue 9.