eProvenance.com

WINE TALK
1

Interesting development. Anyone ever see this in use? Bring it on…

http://dat.erobertparker.com/bboard/showthread.php?t=212045" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

2

this is fine…but in reality…how many producers, distributors etc will want to expose themselves to this kind of scrutiny ?

3

Few if any.

JD

4

Steve Verlin was trying to pioneer this movement lat decade, then his family received death threats, so stopped the advancement of the project.

Wineries, importers and wholesalers, and probably even most retailers have no interest in this project.

Of course, anyone outside of those “three tiers” should endorse it and encourage it.

When Southern Wines and Spirits bought Lauber Imports in NY/NJ, the eliminated their temp controlled trucks and their temp controlled warehousing.

Talk about a step backwards.

5

Seems like this is really only useful if people use it. I don’t see many folks signing up for this.

6

But Parker is a paid spokesperson, he should have some pull with wineries.

7

You and I haven’t quit drinking Burgundy yet, so he’s not that effective of a salesman :wink:

8

One would think he and every wine critic/magazine would be screaming from the roof tops about how wines are treated in transit but most are strangely silent… headbang [soap.gif]

JD

9

Well, let’s put the question to them:

http://forums.winespectator.com/eve/forums?a=tpc&s=9306023451&f=6826053161&m=112100176&r=112100176#112100176" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

10

Looks like WS covered this last year!

11

Are folks finding a lot of heat damaged wines when they make a purchase?

And if you do find a heat damaged bottle, what it damaged from a known or unknown source? An example of a known source would be wine shipped UPS ground cross country in July to a residential address.

I suspect I know the answer to these questions. It’s EXTREMELY RARE (like never) that I’ve bought a heat damaged bottle from a retailer and the few heat damaged bottles I have seen can be traced directly to something boneheaded someone did in that very last link of the supply chain.

While anything the industry can do to improve the quality of the wine the consumer opens should be explored, I don’t think there is a river of heat damaged wine being peddled to unsuspecting consumers. Why? My opinion is that a) wine is not quite a fragile to heat as many think and b) the industry really doesn’t want to give you spoiled crap and most take reasonable precautions to ensure that it doesn’t happen. That would be bad for business.

12

Eric was a customer of mine in Boston and he is really a passionate Bordeaux collector and a super guy. Dan’s example of the Southern debacle with Lauber here is a good explanation for why there would be resistance to this on the distributor side.

However Eric made a good point that if top-tier wineries like the First Growths and Super Seconds in Bordeaux and a couple of big-name CA cult producers start using it of their own volition, this could spur the industry to make a move. Once the technology gets in the door it could have a snowball effect on, at the very least, the most fragile and collectible wines, and that really is the point here, isn’t it? I doubt too many people will be concerned if Southern is keeping all the Yellow Tail in uncontrolled storage.

13

IIRC, 2005 La Mondotte owc shipped with eProvenance card enclosed.

Cheers, Stephen

14

You do know who SW&S is, right?

15

Randy Sloan
Location: Napa Valley and the East Bay

The coldest winter I ever saw was the summer I spent in San Francisco.



Please don’t tell me that you’re this naive.

I’d almost prefer to think that you were lying.

16

Randy

I do not think eProvenance is about shipments from retailer to consumer, but more about off of the shipping steps before then.

17

Nathan, you don’t need to be a dick. Or maybe you do. But that’s why I asked the question about how widespread (or not) heat damaged wine is in the supply chain. I thought I knew the answer but apparently not.

So you are buying a lot of heat damaged wine??? Is it running 20%, 30%, higher? Certainly even 10% is unacceptable. You should immediately take action. Return all of those bottles to where you bought them and demand immediate refund. Those retailers should push the spoiled wine back up the supply chain. You should also demand that every bottle of wine that you purchase come with a something like eProvenance and certification that the bottle never rose above… what should we say… 60 degrees. Until this is done, we should all stop buying wine since so much of what we get is spoiled by heat and and the general disregard and negligence for the product by the industry that I am only just now learning about from Nathan.

And Nathan, despite your clever recall of that famous Samuel Clemens quote about summer in San Francisco that you used to imply that I never have faced heat, it actually gets significantly warmer in the East Bay and up in Napa. We’ve also recently started to see wines from other parts of the world appear on store shelves that I suspect have traveled further than down Highway 29. I’ve tried a few of these non Northern California wines and will keep my eyes open for those heat damaged wines that you’ve been seeing. It also never seemed to be a problem back when I lived and bought wine in New Mexico, Texas, or Maryland but there has been some climate change so I can’t speak to conditions now.

Anyway, in all seriousness…

I will repeat that I am all for considering any improvement in wine and the wine industry. But as a wine consumer, I’m having trouble seeing the need for this particular gizmo as I don’t see a lot of heat damaged wine. As a winery, it doesn’t seem to apply to a winery primarily doing direct sales. So, not seeing the need, I don’t really understand the huge cry by some – particularly on other sites – for adoption of the technology that some are treating like the second coming and savior of wine. It’s a bit overblown. It’s just a tool – a development – that will help in quality control of the shipping channels of the wine industry.

18

as was Haut-Bailly and Lynch Bages

19

Gasp…I can’t believe you said that, Randy!! That’s utterly/contrary opposite to what everybody knows to be the case. Why…one Monkton attourney even went so far as to
label the treatment of fine wine from source to retailer as sinister. [stirthepothal.gif] I have one friend that asserts that nearly all wines at retail are heat-damaged because they are
not given the same treatment that milk is during shipment and refuses to buy them.
I’ve had wine shipped to me here in NewMexico in the dead of summer. It arrives to me cool to the touch. The corks are not pushed and there is no physical evidence of heat damage,
other than the fact that the capsules don’t “spin”. But I wouldn’t know if they were heat-damaged anyway because:

  1. My palate has the perspacacity of a musk ox, and
  2. Everybody knows that heat damage doesn’t manifest itself until many years down the road.
    I have to say I’m not finding most of the wines I buy are suffering from heat-damage…but what would I know!!
    Tom
20

Randy

I could buy a $10,000 case of wine from Southern Wines & Spirits in NY in July in the middle of a 100 degree heat wave. It could arrive to my store at 5 pm in the afternoon.

It could happen.

Is this a huge problem? Tough to say. But why should we settle for second rate service. Why aren’t wholesalers and importers taking the greatest care of their product? Why should the customer not be assured of great provenance?

In the town that I live in, there is a wine store that leaves their doors open on just about all summer days. 90 degrees out, the doors wide open. Even if the A/C is blasting, that store ain’t cooling down.

I see nothing wrong with the advancement of this product.

A few years ago, my Raveneau allocation arrived from Winebow in the heat of the summer, in a non temp controlled truck. two corks were raised. I demanded a new allocation. At first, I was denied. Then it did happen. But those btls went back to the wholesaler, presumably to be resold to some unsuspecting retailer/restauranteur.

I doubt Francois Raveneau wanted to hear stories like that.