All Headline News reports on a story from The New York Daily News about the worlds largest wine bottle which contains nearly 64 gallons of Australian Shiraz and stands at over six feet tall.
The Guinness Book of World Records named the wine bottle the world’s largest in 2005. The bottle recently visited the US from Australia as part of a marketing campaign called “G’Day USA: Australian Week.”
As much as one in fifty screw top bottles of wine could give you a nasty whiff, experts have reported.
This is due to the screw top not allowing the wine to breathe the way a cork does, creating sulphidisation and leading to a smell described by many as resembling rotten eggs.
The International Wine Challenge event tested 9,000 wines from around the world with screw tops and found 2.2 per cent of screw top bottles suffered from sulphidisation.
It has also been reported that wine drinkers are more likely to detect the rotten egg smell than the smells associated with a corked wine, leading to debates about the use of screw tops until a more advanced method can be created to resolve this issue.
Within the next three years the UK wine market will grow so big that wine drinkers here will spend more on still and sparkling wine than any other European country according to a report sponsored by VINEXPO.
By 2010 wine retail sales will reach nearly £5.5 billion at which point the British will be spending more on wine than the French, Germans or Italians, making the UK the biggest retail wine market in Europe.
However, this is not explained by the amount of wine we drink here in the UK - less than the top four wine drinking countries France, Italy, the USA and Germany with the UK coming in at 5th - but by the fact we pay considerably more for a bottle of wine than most other European countries.
The research also shows that Australia has overtaken France as the UK’s number one wine supplier. Between 2001 and 2005 the volume of French imports fell by just under 8% while imports of Australian wines rose by just over 50% to put it at the top. At the same time imports of wine from the USA more than doubled while imports from South Africa rose by more than 50%.
Beyond the UK, the research confirms that the USA will become the world’s biggest wine consumer by 2010, overtaking Italy and France, whilst China will be the ninth biggest wine consumer by 2010.
The study of the UK wine and spirits markets for 2005, with forecasts to 2010, is part of a global research project commissioned by VINEXPO, the world’s biggest wine and spirits fair, held in Bordeaux, France. The research was conducted by leading drinks researchers IWSR in 28 wine producing countries and 114 wine and spirits consuming markets.
Thanks go to Jules at The Wine Wanker for bringing my attention to The Silly Tasting Note Generator. A fun tool to help you when you need a bit of inspiration … the words are actually based on tasting notes from the Wine Spectator so make entertaining and almost plausible reading.
My tasting note of the day … ” Sturdy but fleshy Gamay. Reminds one of pesto, musty cheetos and dainty skittle. Drink now through May.” Couldn’t have said it better myself 
Cheers,
Emma
As we all know Christmas and New Years can be a time to splurge on the finer things in life, like wonderful wines. Whilst we at Bottletalk HQ did our fair bit of overindulging and spending over Christmas we also love to know the best of the best that the Bottletalk members have been tasting.
These can be found on the Desert Island Wines page - so have a look, and let us know if you agree with the nominations there, or add your own.
Cheers,
Emma
Welcome to Gary Vaynerchuk of Wine Library TV - Bottletalk’s first sponsor.
Gary does an almost daily vidcast where he gives his honest, interesting and fun tasting notes on a whole range of wines.
Wine Library TV visualises what we at Bottletalk are trying to do on the web - making wine fun and accessible.
Some of our favourite episodes which we think are a good introduction to Wine Library TV and to Gary are:
Please remember when watching the vidcasts that when Gary mentions football he is of course referring to the American kind and not the beautiful game as we know and love here in Europe.
Cheers
Mark
Bottletalk has now been live for just over a week and we are very excited about all the tremendous feedback we’ve been getting from all our new members and other blogs.
On this blog we’re going to keep you updated both about Bottletalk news and also interesting stories from the world of wine. So let us know if there is anything we should be writing about.
Cheers,
Emma