Mick Fleetwood, founder of the legendary Fleetwood Mac rock band, has put his name on a wine brand and is touring Costco stores around Northern California to promote them.

According to pressdemocrat.com, he’s been producing wines under the Mick Fleetwood label since 2001 and currently is making three North Coast wines — a 2005 Lake County chardonnay, 2005 Lake County sauvignon blanc and 2005 Mendocino County cabernet sauvignon. Two others, the 2004 petite sirah and 2004 merlot, carry the California appellation.

The Lake County wines are made at Langtry, formerly known as Guenoc, and the Web site reports that the Langtry wines, which sell for about $10, are similar to Fleetwood’s, which sell for $19 and $20. But Fleetwood’s manager said the wines are not the same because Fleetwood directed the blending of the wines and added more complex flavors.

An item on decanter.com quotes Fleetwood as saying, “Blending tastes is a lot like mixing sound — it has to be just right.”

(Robert Louis Stevenson said wine is like bottled poetry. Does Fleetwood say it’s like bottled music?)

Paris in Bordeaux

In a sort of related matter, decanter.com, which originates in England, reports that Paris Hilton will become the face of Bordeaux and will be featured in a TV, poster and print campaign to run throughout the summer and fall in Europe and the U.S.

The Web site said the ads will feature a tagline, “Paris: One Night in Bordeaux.” The program will kick off at Vinexpo in June, and she will arrive at the fair in a hot air balloon. This caused problems for organizers of the event, but “they eventually compromised by allowing the landing zone to extend into the lake in case of an overshoot,” the site said.

The date the item was published was April 1.

(Who said the Brits don’t have a sense of humor? And we had a great closing line ready: “Hopefully, as far as wine is concerned, the song to accompany this could be ‘The Last Time I Saw Paris’”.

Another wine closure

ProCork is a cork closure that its producer claims will stop cork taint in wine, and Chateau La Dauphine in Bordeaux agreed to bottle 300 bottles closed with it, along with 300 bottles closed with natural cork. Both wines will be tasted yearly for 10 years.

An item on decanter.com said the inventor of ProCork uses “a system of extremely fine layered polymer crystalline membranes on each end of the cork.” This allows oxygen in, but he claims it blocks the TCA molecule. “ProCork lets in a tiny bit less air than a normal cork,” he said, adding that the lack of oxygen in screwcapped wines causes a slightly reduced flavor.

The product was developed in Australia, but uses Portuguese cork. About 100 wineries in Australia are now using the product.

(ProCork may have to wait 10 years before the product can be sold to other chateaux in Bordeaux.)

Cork taint solution

If you should find a bottle tainted with TCA, Mel Knox, who represents French barrel maker Taransaud, has a solution, if the taint is relatively mild.

Latimes.com reports that Knox advocates wadding up a square foot of Saran Wrap or a similar polyethylene wrap in a glass pitcher and then pouring the wine over the wrap. Swirl it gently for five or 10 minutes to make sure all the wine is exposed to the wrap, and if the odor persists, repeat the process with fresh wrap.

Brian Smith, president of Vinovation, described on the Web site as a “wine fix-it shop,” said polyethylene absorbs TCA like a sponge, and his firm is experimenting with plastic-filled cartridge filters than can be put into barrels or tanks to absorb TCA.

(There’s a movement to require wineries to put a warning on labels that indicate egg whites or other fining agents have been used. Will they be required to put this on the label, too?)

But they’re so cute!

Ladybugs are considered to be a beneficial insect in vineyards. But they also can give off a foul-smelling liquid that can affect wine. According to biologynews.com, a growing number of winemakers say their wines have an abnormal aroma and flavor, which they call “ladybug taint.” The bugs can get mixed in with grapes during harvest and accidentally become mixed in with the juice.

Some chemists at Iowa State University have identified several compounds that are responsible for the odor, and the discovery may lead to detecting and eliminating the offensive compounds.

The compounds are not harmful to humans, though.

(“Ladybug, ladybug, fly away home,” may need to be rewritten — “Ladybug, ladybug, stay out of my wine.”)

Big, big bottles

If you’re planning a huge dinner party and need a dessert wine, here’s one for you — the famed Chateau d’Yquem is bottling its wine in 15-liter bottles, or nebuchadnezzars, and 120 of them will be available for about $17,000 each.

But you’ll have to have connections to get one. According to decanter.com, 50 have been allocated to Bordeaux Wine Investments, 50 to Bordeaux Wine Locators in the U.S., and 20 will be held for the chateau’s collection.

(That would make more than 500 one-ounce servings — a huge dinner party, indeed.)

Quote of the week

“I think it is a great error to consider a heavy tax on wines as a tax on luxury. On the contrary, it is a tax on the health of our citizens.” — Thomas Jefferson

Jack Heeger can be reached at jheeger@napanews.com