With St. Patrick’s Day almost upon us, and with “green wine” the talk these days, we wanted to see just how far this idea has spread.

A search of “green wine” on winebusiness.com turned up 7,510 mentions, and looking for the same combination on Google offered 112,000.

Green wine is catching on so quickly that an event has been created — the International Green Wine Competition for Sustainable Winemaking will be held May 5 in Santa Rosa, with the purpose of identifying outstanding wines made from certified biodynamic, certified organic and sustainably-grown grapes. They’re limiting it to 1,000 wines, and interested wineries are invited to enter wines by April 18.

(Some places serve green beer to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, but I’ve never heard of a wine bar or restaurant serving green wine — not the environmentally-friendly kind, but wine with food coloring.)

Putting bees to work

There soon may be a new tool to detect TCA and other defects in wine — a bee.

Scientists at the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Research Organization are blowing different scents over bees to see how they react. A bee, it seems, has a sense of smell so precise that it can distinguish between hundreds of different aromas.

Australian Broadcasting Corp. said the scientists are working to develop an electronic nose that could be held over a wine bottle. One researcher said it would detect “what kind of chemicals are in the wine and if it’s going to be a good wine or a bad wine.”

(If the bee shows you just bought a bad wine, would you say that you were stung?)

Amazon to sell wine

Amazon.com apparently is planning to sell wine via its Web site. The company has a job listing on its Web site for a senior wine buyer who will be responsible for “the acquisition of a massive new product selection.”

Amazon has been involved in the wine business — in 1999 it invested in wineshop per.com, which ultimately merged into wine.com, which sells gift baskets on Amazon, but not wine.

Two years ago Amazon started selling non-perishable groceries on its Web site, and according to the London Financial Times, Amazon will add wine and beer to a pilot fresh grocery delivery service, Amazon Fresh, currently operating in Seattle.

(The Financial Times article opens by saying that Amazon is “entering a business fraught with regulatory complexities and littered with the wreckage of previous failures.” No kidding!)

Australian wine lost

A fermenting platform at an Australian winery collapsed  last week, dumping about 80,000 gallons of wine onto the ground and injuring one cellar worker.

The concrete platform supported 10 fermenting tanks and several of them fell onto crushing and fermenting machinery below. According to news.com.au, most of the wine lost was red and from this year’s vintage.

The cellar worker was seriously injured but in stable condition at last report. Four others were working beneath the platform, but escaped in time to avoid being injured.

(Seems like the Aussies have had their own version of the Ten Plagues in the past year.)

Fruit fly control

One of the pesky things found in a winery is the fruit fly.

An item on innovations-report.com said scientists at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada, have found that a parasitic wasp, the Muscidifurax raptor, can control fruit flies by killing them. The usual control of fruit flies is by pesticide, but no one likes to use them unless absolutely necessary. They said that the wasp is easily reproduced and that insectories are ready to increase production depending on market demand.

(That may mean no more swatting at the little critters as you sip a glass of wine outside a tasting room.)

The honor system

Jurgen Stumpf owns four weinerein (wine bars) in Germany and he’s a very trusting man.

For about $1.50, you can rent a wine glass, then sample as many wines as you wish, and at the end of the evening you toss as much (or as little) money as you wish into a large jar. The amount, said an item on nytimes.com, is based on what you think is fair.

Each weinerein carries a different selection of wines and caters to a different clientele. For example, one is a down home type of place, and another is “student and backpacker-heavy,” the Web site said.

(The danger here is that everyone has a different definition of what’s fair.)    

Quote of the week:

“I was in love with a beautiful blonde once. She drove me to drink; that’s the one thing I’m indebted to her for.” — W. C. Fields in “Never Give a Sucker an Even Break”

Jack Heeger can be reached at jheeger@napanews.com.