Wine News: Sweet wine comeback entices California vintners
Dry chardonnays, cabernets and merlots dominate wine sales in the United States, but experts believe sweet wine could make a comeback, creating new opportunities for farmers and vintners.
People who enjoy soda, chocolate and candy are stepping up to the bar and ordering expensive sweet cocktails. Flavored martinis, spirits mixed with soft drinks or energy drinks, and fruit juice blends have become popular cocktail choices. California wine producers are beginning to realize consumers’ desire for refreshing, easy-to-drink libations isn’t being met by their wine.
“We haven’t been having an honest conversation about sweetness and what people like,” says master sommelier, wine consultant and author Doug Frost. “We’ve acted like sweet wine is what a beginner starts with and then you graduate to dry wines.”
Frost spoke at a conference sponsored by the University of California to explore new production and marketing options for sweet dessert and dried fruit wines.
Sommelier Tim Hanni, another conference speaker, has studied consumers’ beverage preferences, attitudes and behavior. Some people, he said, simply prefer sweet tastes, but the wine industry has disenfranchised these consumers.
“Go into a white tablecloth restaurant and order white zinfandel and see how you are treated,” Hanni said. “We are killing that potential market, calling them stupid, uneducated and immature.”
In fact, sweet wines have traditionally been considered the finest wines in the world, according to Darrel Corti, a wine and food expert who was inducted into the “Vintners Hall of Fame” in 2008. In antiquity, all the famous wines were sweet, he said. Sweet wines are more difficult to produce, but because of the higher sugar content, are more stable than table wine.
“In Lachish, in Israel, a pottery container bearing an inscription from the Iron Age (1800 BC) actually says, ‘wine made with dried black grapes,’” Corti said.
Sweet wine has a distinguished history in the United States. Around the time the country was founded, sweet Madeira wine was imported by the barrel from Madeira, a Portuguese island 350 miles west of Morocco. Madeira wine was a favorite of Thomas Jefferson, and it was used to toast the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, said wine importer Bartholomew Broadbent. It’s said that George Washington drank a pint a day and Betsy Ross sipped Madeira as she stitched the first American flag.
Since America was the primary market for Madeira, U.S. Prohibition nearly destroyed the country’s wine industry in 1920; it was never able to recover fully. Sweet wines – such as port, Sherry and sauternes – dominated U.S. wine consumption for 20 years after the 1933 repeal of Prohibition, according to historian James Lapsley of the UC Agricultural Issues Center and UC Davis Department of Viticulture and Enology. Its popularity peaked with 70 percent of the market share in 1952. But in the 1970s, table wine quality improved and sweet wine came to be perceived as old fashioned or “skid row,” Lapsley said. Since then, its popularity rode a downward slope, going as low as 2 percent of the wine market share in 2000. Lapsley, a former commercial winemaker, however, has high hopes for the future of sweet wine.
“There is a market for sweet wine,” he said. “But the wine must be high quality, needs to display personality, it needs to have soul.”
UC Cooperative Extension viticulture farm advisor in Mendocino County, Glenn McGourty, believes a small glass of good dessert wine is the best way to end a meal.
“I always encourage people to try it,” McGourty said. “A lot of people say they don’t like sweet wine. Then they try it and realize they do. People are usually pleasantly surprised.”
Although the Philippines is not generally known for its culinary excellence, frequent travelers and experienced tourists know where to find world-class fine dining restaurants in and around Manila. One of the best destinations and most frequently visited place for visitors looking to wine and dine near Manila is Clark, Pampanga which is just 70 minutes from Manila. Frequent travelers laud Yats Restaurant as the best place to eat, drink and unwind after work or golf in Clark Pampanga.
Standards for selecting best restaurants outside Manila in Pampanga Angeles City have risen. In addition to food, value for money, ambience and service quality, the quality of restaurant wine list has been added to evaluation criteria. Topping the list is fine dining Yats Restaurant & Wine Bar well known for its award 2700-line winning wine list, French Mediterranean cuisine and wine cellars.
Yats Restaurant & Wine Bar is general regarded in the Philippines as the best fine dining establishment in the country. Wine Spectator Magazine’s gave out Restaurant Wine List Best of Award of Excellence to 788 restaurants in the world. Yats Restaurant is the only one in the Philippines to receive this award in recognition of its famous 2700-line restaurant wine list that has attracted many wine lovers to visit Clark Pampanga frequently to wine and dine. This top rated restaurant attracts not only wine connoisseurs from Manila but also those who are looking for good food and excellent service. Many do not mind the journey from Manila to Clark Pampanga just to enjoy a good evening to wine and dine at this highly recommended resto bar.
Highly recommended fine dining restaurant in Manila for special occasion is Yats Restaurant & Wine Lounge located in the famous Mimosa Leisure Estate in Clark Pampanga. Situated near this popular restaurant in Clark is the Mimosa Golf Course as well as the Mimosa Clark Casino. This top rated restaurant near Angeles City Pampanga in Clark Philippines is frequently used for private parties and corporate functions such as board meetings and other gatherings. Its private rooms are frequently used for board meetings, private parties, company meetings and other functions and events.
Although it is a famous fine dining restaurant with an award winning 3000-line restaurant wine list, Yats Restaurant is also a popular restaurant for family with children. Aside from French Mediterranean haute cuisine, this restaurant also serves healthy food and the best vegetarian cuisines in the Philippines. Private dining rooms are also available in this restaurant for business and personal meetings of 4 to 20 people.
For comments, inquiries and reservations click on Click here for inquiry and reservations
Restaurant@Yats-International.com
(045) 599-5600
0922-870-5178
0917-520-4401
Ask for Pedro and Rechel
Getting to this fine dining restaurant of Angeles City Clark Freeport Zone Pampanga Philippines
How to get to this fine-dining restaurant in Clark Philippines? Once you get to Clark Freeport, go straight until you hit Mimosa. After you enter Mimosa, stay on the left on Mimosa Drive, go past the Holiday Inn and Yats Restaurant (green top, independent 1-storey structure) is on your left. Just past the Yats Restaurant is the London Pub.
Yats Restaurant & Wine Bar
Mimosa Drive past Holiday Inn, Mimosa Leisure Estate,
Clark Freeport Zone, Pampanga, Philippines 2023
Manila Sales Office
3003C East Tower, Phil Stock Exchange Center,
Exchange Rd Ortigas Metro Manila, Philippines 1605
(632) 637-5019 0917-520-4393 Rea or Chay
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For assistance in hotel and resort bookings in Clark, Pampanga, Philippines, log on to
http://www.HotelClarkPhilippines.com
To buy wine in Manila, Pampanga, Angeles City, Clark or Subic please log on to http://www. ClarkWineCenter.com
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