Jack Heeger

We’ve all received scam e-mails claiming we will have access to a huge sum of money from a foreign country if we open a bank account into which the money can be deposited.

Now a scam with a new twist has targeted the wine industry. Winebusiness.com reports that at least three Napa Valley wineries that have advertised used equipment for sale have been contacted by “potential buyers.” In one instance, the price of a crusher was $2,950, and the “buyer” from England sent a cashier’s check for $6,000. The usual scam is that the buyer asks for a refund for the overpayment, and when the original check is deposited, it bounces.

So far, no wineries have reported actually being victimized.

(In this case it’s “Let the seller — or cellar — beware.’)

Fake wine in China

If you’re planning a trip to Shanghai, be careful when you buy wine.

From the China Wines Information Web site comes news that more than 50 percent of wines imported into Shanghai are fake, and 40 percent of Chinese wines sold there are also counterfeit.

The announcement said that access to the Shanghai market is accomplished in two ways: “Wholesalers sell fake wine to cook shops (restaurants) and small groceries. Second, wholesalers use the fake wine to (sell) instead of the premium wine.”

The site said there are 2,000 wholesalers in Shanghai.

(How do you say caveat emptor in Mandarin?)

South Seas wine

Everybody is getting into the wine-producing act.

From the Belfast Telegraph (yes, Belfast, Ireland) comes news that Dominique Auroy Estate on the island of Rangiroa, about 180 miles from Tahiti, is producing a more than 4,000 cases of wine.

The article said the owner imported vines from France and Italy — carignane, muscat and another grape that produces sweet wine, and the island produces two harvests per year. The grapes are grown in the middle of a coconut grove that has the Pacific Ocean on one side and a lagoon on the other. To get the grapes to the winery, they must be loaded on a boat and transported across the lagoon.

The article’s author said he tried a wine and felt it had a woody, chalky aftertaste. The vintner “took a stone and banged it against the wall and then asked me to run my tongue against it. It had a similar taste. It was, I realized, the taste of coral, the taste of the island.”

(I guess it’s true that wines pick up the flavor of the terroir — if you can call a coral reef terroir.)

Teens buying wine online

Jennifer Rosen, who writes an online wine column, reports a survey that showed 2 percent of 14- to 20-year-olds admitted they bought wine online, and fewer than 10 percent acknowledged that they had browsed Web sites selling alcohol.

But the same survey, which was commissioned by the Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America, who have opposed direct shipping on grounds that minors can easily buy wine via the Internet, also showed that 80 percent of the same 14- to 20-year-olds had browsed sexually explicit sites.

(Does an adult have to sign for delivery of a sexually explicit film? At least the wine industry has that safeguard built into direct shipping.)

Decanter goes green

Decanter magazine’s World Wine Awards, which includes wines from around the world, ended last week and results will be announced to the trade May 22-24. But they won’t be published for the general public until September. An article about last year’s event indicated 5,500 wines were tasted.

What got our attention was the announcement that the Decanter Awards were going “green.” They plan to recycle the bottles and cardboard, estimating that they will collect about 8,000 bottles. Envelopes containing entries (it costs $175 per wine to enter) were recycled, and foreign stamps were given to a charity to sell to collectors.

(We commend Decanter for its contribution to the environment, but Napa Valley Vintners has been recycling bottles from its auction for many years, nearly 5,000 of them last year. “(I’ve been here) 10 years, at least ... and the system was in place then,” said Stacey Dolan Capitani, who directs marketing efforts for NVV.)

Oops!

A couple of weeks ago we mentioned that folks in British Columbia are studying the feasibility of growing wine grapes in the Lillooet-Lytton area, which previously had been considered too cold to support commercial winegrape production, and said that currently only the Okanagan area is producing wine commercially in B.C.

An e-mail from Lisa Cameron of the British Columbia Wine Institute informed me that there are four other areas that also produce wine commercially, albeit not as much as the Okanagan. They are Vancouver Island, Gulf Islands, Fraser Valley and Smilkameen Valley.

(Apologies to the folks in British Columbia. May you grow grapes where no one has grown before.)

Quote of the week

“Wine makes every meal an occasion, every table more elegant, every day more civilized.” — Andre Simon, in “Commonsense of Wine”

Jack Heeger can be reached at jheeger@napanews.com