Wines from pinot grigio to chardonnay

By By Stan Torgerson / wine columnist
Jan. 29, 2003
Tomorrow night's tasting of seven wines produced by the Gallo winery is a first for us.
Several times we've had guests conducting our tastings, but they were always representing a certain segment of the industry.
One came to us from Australia and we poured a variety from that country. Another brought us Spanish wines and there were numerous different products made by a variety of their country's winemakers.
Recently, a gentleman from South Africa came to talk about the wines of his country while we enjoyed both the wines and the information.
But this is the first time a single winemaker has ever had a full evening devoted to its wines and its wines alone. Actually, of course, Gallo is not truly a single winemaker. It is a maker of many wines, from the inexpensive designed for mass marketing to a variety of very fine wines produced for those who can identify and appreciate the difference in the bottle.
E &J Gallo is the largest wine producer in the world and we are honored they thought enough of the growing wine appreciation found in our small city to send their Dallas regional representative, Carmen Castorina, to conduct this tasting.
The truth is, however, the Meridian tastings are recognized throughout Mississippi as the best attended in the state and local package stores will tell you their wine sales continue to increase yearly.
Gallo is not only big but getting bigger. Last November they purchased two well-known names in the California wine industry, Louis M. Martini Winery and Mirassou Vineyards.
The purchase of Louis M. Martini provided Gallo its first wholly-owned winery in California's premier wine region as well as 600 acres of vineyards in Napa and Sonoma counties.
The Mirassou deal, however, gave Gallo only the highly respected Mirrassou brand name and their inventory. It did not include the 500 acres owned by the family nor its large winery in Monterey County.
Why did such highly respected relatively small producers sell to the industry giant? Michael Martini put it this way.
As we pointed out recently, the wine business is getting more and more competitive as new producers appear on the scene yearly. In addition Americans' tastes are changing.
The Wine Institute based in San Francisco reported recently that in the past 10 years the volume of red wine sales from California increased 118 percent. In 1991 red wine held 17 percent of the market. That climbed to 25 percent in 1995. Last year it jumped to a 37 percent market share.
During the same 10 years white wines dropped from 49 percent market share to 40 percent. Blush wines went down from 34 percent to 23 percent market share, a 32 percent decline.
But in addition while overall volume of California wine sold climbed from 411 million gallons in 1997 to 450 million gallons in 2001, the dollar growth was minimal. Despite inflation the retail value of California wines climbed only a modest amount, from 13 billion in 2000 to 13.4 billion in 2001.
New wineries and new competitors setting lower prices in order to get a toehold drove average prices down. However, as evidence that American consumers are purchasing more and more wines from Washington and Oregon, Australia, Chile, Spain and other countries, sales of all wines in America climbed to $19.8 billion in 2001 compared with $19 billion in 2000.
The wines that Gallo will present tomorrow night include a pinot grigio, pinot gris, chardonnay, pinot noir, zinfandel, merlot and a cabernet sauvignon. Seven wines, seven different varieties. All are their upper level wines with retail prices ranging from $22 to $34.
Reservations have come in briskly but we've purchased enough of these wines to give us room for a few more wine lovers. We ask that you call tonight or tomorrow and make a reservation in order that we know the number to open.
The phone number is 482-0930. The tasting is $25 and will be at Northwood Country Club beginning at 6:30 p.m. Make your check payable to Wines Unlimited.
Non-members of the club are welcome to attend. We expect to make some interesting discoveries at this tasting.