finalanalysis

Via Decanter, this is pretty cool:

“Two forensic scientists at the University of Western Australia have found a way to prove the origin of wine chemically.

Alex Martin and John Watling used mass spectrometry to determine the chemical ‘fingerprint’ of 400 wines from around Australia.

The ‘fingerprint’ is made up of the concentration of over 60 trace elements. These depend mainly on the soil composition of the growing region and grape variety. It changes little during winemaking, transportation and storage.

Wines made from one grape variety in one region have similar chemical ‘fingerprints’, and are quite different to those of the same grape variety in other regions.

They are now building up a database of wines from around the world. Once completed it will be possible to identify the origin of an unknown wine sample by comparing its fingerprint to those in the database.

‘We aim to reliably place a wine within 20km of its origin,’ said Watling.”

Can Terroir test kits be far behind? I would imagine there is probably some use for this technology for auctioneers, brokers and consumers attempting to determine whether a wine is authentic or counterfeit.

Via John Liotta, Food & Wine magazine has laid off Lettie Teague.

Apparently she will still write her “Wine Matters” column for F&W. Eater.com doesn’t report the terms of her termination, but I would assume the conversation went roughly like this:

Beancounters: We’re going to stop paying you as a full time employee, but you can keep writing your column for us for pennies if you want.

Imaginary Lettie Teague: Well that sucks for me. But the food and wine writing business is in the toilet right now, so OK.

As it stands, I’ve never really liked Lettie Teague’s writing. But she has been a prominent food and wine writer with a prominent position at a prominent magazine during a time when the whole field of food and wine writing has risen to prominence. She is not the first person you would expect Food & Wine to cut, and if she is being put on the work-for-free plan, I expect this is a bad portent for food & wine media as a profit center.

In general, print media is suffering from a series of malaises, the worst of which is the evaporation of advertising dollars. If Food & Wine is in this bad a shape, who is next? Imbibe? Wine & Spirits? Wine Enthusiast? Wine Spectator?

I don’t think I need to tell Atlanta readers about Holeman & Finch Public House. Lots of other people have already written about H&F’s awesomeness.

This awesomeness has led to some ridiculously long waits to get in, sit down (or even stand up) and get a drink. This of course rocks for the H&F crew, but it also means that Starfish (nothing against Starfish) ends up with a lot of diners who were really looking for that Hopkins-inflected goodness.

To address this, Restaurant Eugene is now offering a H&F-esque bar menu. The RE bar itself seats six, while the “Orchid Room” adjacent to the bar seats 18 and will feature the same menu.

The cocktail-and-wine focus of the RE bar will be similar to H&F, but Chef Linton Hopkins says the menu will counterpoise the meaty fare of H&F with more seafood-focused offerings.

Full disclosure: I think Linton & Gina & Greg & Reagan & Andy (and everyone with the mojo to work with them) are a gift to Atlanta. I also appreciate their business. Especially now.

Given all the badness in the world today, and in the journalism world specifically, this isn’t the worst news possible. However it is a bummer to hear that the San Francisco Chronicle is mothballing its wine section. I always liked their coverage, and given their proximity to the California wine industry and the fact that they were a part of a “real” newspaper, they were generally a good source of breaking news.

Via Ryan Mullins, Atlanta’s newest wine blogger comes this missive from Steve Heimhoff regarding the collapse of Waterford Wedgewood, the venerable British crystal & porcelain maker. This is the money graf:

What’s so striking are the parallels with today’s modern, super-expensive wines. They increasingly seem like anachronisms, the kind of stodgy showpieces people no longer want, can use or can afford. Consumers, especially younger ones to whom the future belongs, are looking for contemporary, exciting and certainly less expensive wines, not more monster cult Cabs, made by celebrity winemakers, bottled in overwrought bottles, and that furthermore cost a day’s or a week’s wages.That dog, as Bill Clinton used to say, won’t hunt.

I read all this stuff so you don’t have to.

Via reader Tom J., I guess Bush has done something right in the closing days of his (p)residency*:

California winemaker Fred T. Franzia sought a presidential pardon in hopes of wiping the slate clean from an old grape fraud case for which he paid a $500,000 fine and served five years on probation.

Franzia failed. The Justice Department rejected his pardon application on Dec. 23, according to information obtained by McClatchy Newspapers through the Freedom of Information Act

*I’m still pissed about Bush v. Gore