City winery warms to Frederick's Fire in Ice

This is the time of the year when many of the regional wineries jump headfirst into their calendar of events. That includes Frederick (Md.) Cellars, where the city will hold its annual Fire in Ice celebration this weekend as part of its First Saturday program. There will be ice sculptures located throughout downtown, an ice carving demonstration, an ice playground, marshmallow roasting stations, and free hot cocoa. The event itself will take place from 5 to 9 p.m., although the winery will open at noon that day. Bo Weevil will play in the Cellar from 6:30 to 9.

As part of President's Weekend, the winery will honor former prez Thomas Jefferson, an avid wine drinker. Flights and glasses of Frederick's vintage Cabernets and Merlot will be offered in the tasting room, and 25 percent discounts on several wines will be available in the wine shop. The event will give visitors a rare chance to taste the vintage wines; well, at least without having to buy a bottle or two.

What makes Frederick Cellars unique is its location; rather than out in the middle of nowhere, as is the case for so many wineries in this region, this one is located downtown among the shops and restaurants of Shab Row and Everedy Square. Perhaps this almost one-of-a-kind arrangement will change over time; certainly you can find cities with working breweries located along one of the main streets. The idea of converting grapes into wine amid other businesses on a main thoroughfare or side street remains fairly foreign in this country. Still, that's changing a bit, as New York Times writer Eric Asimov noted in a Jan. 27 story and in this blog post a day later on the new City Winery in New York. It's a combo music venue and wine bar that also gives customers a chance to at least get their hands dirty in winemaking.

Asimov noted in his story that "City Winery is one of several custom winemaking facilities that have opened around the country in the last decade. Crushpad in San Francisco and Portland Wine Project in Portland, Ore., both offer similar hands-on participation, while, compared with those economy-class operations, Napa Valley Reserve in Saint Helena, Calif., offers a piece of a corporate jet, allowing members to help tend the vines and make the wines, for fees beginning around $150,000."

With cities seeking more urban commerce, and with new winemakers able to fill one of a growing number of open spaces or convertable buildings, it's not far-fetched to assume that others could follow.

Sustainability among symposium's key words

Saw these items on the weekend e-letter from the New York Wine & Grape Foundation and editor Jim Trezise, and felt they had the most regional interest:

CHANGE, SUSTAINABILITY, VALUE, AND MILLENNIALS are four themes that have resonated strongly during several recent industry symposia, starting at mid-January’s Wine Market Council presentations in New York City and last week at the incredible Unified Wine & Grape Symposium in Sacramento, which drew over 11,000 attendees. Whether it’s change you can believe in, like, or don’t like, change is the one constant in our lives, with the rapidity and scale of change multiplying at dizzying speed. In terms of politics, economics, communication, and generation gaps, the decades-old “Future Shock” prediction of best-selling author Alvin Toffler has come true: It’s not change itself that is unsettling, but rather the pace of change that’s impossible to keep up with. Sustainability has gone from a back burner topic to a front burner priority in just a few years, as evidenced by virtually the entire first day of Unified devoted to various aspects of sustainability from grape growing and winemaking to marketing and social responsibility. With retail giant Wal Mart leading the charge toward products made sustainably and therefore others sure to follow, the message is clear to wineries and others that this will be a big deal in years to come. The importance of value to consumers was also evident during several presentations over the past month, perhaps most starkly in two slides by John Gillespie of Wine Market Council which showed that $10 = $20, and $20 = $100—in other words, for consumers during this recession, buying a bottle of wine at $10 feels like what used to be $20, and paying $20 feels like $100 when times were good. This is most evident in the on-premise (restaurant) segment, which has basically evaporated. That price pressure also makes potential wine excise tax increases even more devastating for our industry, as dramatically illustrated by Jon Fredrikson (more on that next week). But there’s hope: The Millennial generation (basically aged 15-32), also called Echo Boomers because they’re the millions of children of Baby Boomers like me (45-63). This is a huge population of young people who, for whatever reason, have taken to wine in a big way, are interested in exploring different wines, want to learn about them, and remain relatively optimistic about the economy. They consume more wine per occasion (about 3 glasses), frequent wine bars, and have remained wine-loyal more than any other age group during these challenging times. And there are still 23 million of them who haven’t yet reached the legal drinking age! Finally, while no one claims that wine is recession-proof, the preliminary statistics from 2008 show consumption growth of about 1%--certainly below recent years but still on the positive side and much better than many other products, especially during the year-end holiday season. Cheers!
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NEW YORK GRAPE CROP in 2008 increased in both volume and value over the previous year, according to recent statistics from the New York office of USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service. The 172,000 tons (up 4%) were valued at $58.4 million (up 8%), with 4,000 tons marketed as fresh fruit and 168,000 processed (73% for juice, 27% for wine). New York is a clear but distant third to California (6.7 million tons) and Washington (350,000, or double New York’s total). Fortunately, grape quality in New York was also excellent last fall, breeding expectations of superb wines. While 2008 was a good year for New York grapes, our friends in the apple and other fruit sectors did not fare as well, with all experiencing decreases from 2007. We sincerely hope 2009 will be better for all.