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We are excited to announce a new WineCollective feature. Have you really enjoyed a WineCollective selection and wish you could have had a case of that exact wine for your cellar, as gifts or to share with friends?

WineCollective members (active monthly subscribers or gift recipients) are now able to order wine by the case and receive a member discount of 15% off the retail price! Any wine which has been featured by WineCollective will be eligible for the discount.

This feature is brand new and we’re gauging interest, so there isn’t currently a way to purchase through the website. To order a case of any previously featured WineCollective wine, simply email us at thecellar@winecollective.ca or call 403.648.9094. If you are a member, you just need to tell us which wine and let us check availability through our partners at Willow Park Wine & Spirits and we’ll take care of the rest! Your wine will be purchased from Willow Park and your case will be delivered, free of charge, with your next scheduled membership package delivery.

There’s no better (or cheaper) way to get your hands on some fantastic wine.

WineCollective is excited to announce a new partnership with Willow Park Wine & Spirits, Canada’s largest private wine, beer and spirits retailer. This new partnership will allow WineCollective exclusive access to Willow Park’s 5,000 unique and difficult to acquire wines. The partnership is effective immediately and the March delivery (going out on March 11th and 12th) is the first with Willow Park.

Current members of WineCollective don’t need to do anything, as their subscriptions will be transferred automatically. However, you will notice on your credit card statement that payment is now being made to Willow Park Online.

We look forward to becoming active within all of Willow Park’s many tasting and wine education events and encourage members to check out the new Willow Park Winter/Spring Events Program. (Checkout page 29 for a little press on us!)

If current or prospective subscribers have any questions about what this new partnership means to you, feel free to get in touch at 403.648.9094, or thecellar@winecollective.ca.

The huge 8.8 magnitude earthquake to hit Chile which may have had enough power to shorten Earth's days also damaged Chile's wine industry.

The quake hit SW of the Chilean capital Santiago which is close to Chile's main wine producing region. The Miami Herald reports that steel fermentation tanks tipped over, wine bottles broke, bridges cracked and there are reports of wineries without power. The vineyards themselves appear to be ok, but the real loss was the “tens of millions of litres of wine” which was just being prepped for sale. While it is still early, it appears the area has escaped the devestation which occured on the coast.

We at WineCollective have featured Chilean wines recently from the areas impacted and will continue to support the industry.

Blind tastings are often wonderful fodder for stories. New world wine bests old world classic. Upstart beer wins taste test over best seller, or Taiwan scotch beats Scottish Scotch .

In this case, we have English sparkling wine (it can't be called champagne as indicated in the title of this article of course, because only grapes grown in the Champagne region get that luxury) winning a taste test over French champagne. Here is the full story from the Telegraph.

England is not known for its grape growing climate. While Britain is one of the world's largest importers of wine, English domestic wineries are tiny in comparison. The Romans introduced viticulture to England but in large part, England was warmer then than it is now. Indeed, in a previous inter-glacial period (when England was still part of continental Europe) it appears that grapes grew wild in areas which are currently far too cold to support vines.

Wineries in England are concentrated in the warmest areas such as Kent and Sussex, but due to England's latitude (roughly as far north as Calgary), the growing season extends into October, exposing grapes to rain, wind and frost potential. However, all of those factors mean high acidity which is an excellent feature for sparkling wine. Ironically that means England could be beating France at its own game. Nyetimber's Classic Cuvée 2003 (from Sussex) was crowned Champion of Worldwide Sparkling Wines in the competition run by Italy's wine magazine Euposia. Who would have guessed?

Unfortunately, Nyetimber's Cuvée is not available in Alberta. We will have to satisfy ourselves with French champagne.

Yesterday, the LA Times had an interesting article about California wine shipments being down in 2009 for the first time in 16 years. See the story here: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-winedrop29-2010jan29,0,4062055.story

Wine consumption was up 2.1% in 2009 in the US, which is a remarkable achievement considering that 2009 was one of the worst years economically in the past twenty or thirty years. So it is obvious that people want to continue to drink wine, but California wine shipments fell by 4%, or almost 4 million cases.

It appears consumers are shifting focus to better “value” wines from “overseas wine makers”, specifically Argentina, Chile and Australia. Wine imports to the US from those countries increased an incredible 87% last year.

Here at the WineCollective, we search for unique and interesting wines without a geographical bias, so we continually look at where the best value and most unique wines are being created. I think it is fair to say, we have been enjoying a fair amount of quality wine from South America and Australia recently and if these trends continue, we will continue to do so. While this may be bad news for California wine producers, an increase in choice is never a bad thing for avid wine consumers!

..besides taking with you to backcountry cabins that is.

Are you still looking for a gift for that person who has everything?

Look no further. A WineCollective package can solve all of your holiday headaches.

Order a gift package from WineCollective.ca before December 18th and we will send the recipient a personalized gift card which will arrive by mail before December 25th. The lucky gift-getter will then receive their first package of wine in mid-January, perfect for those post-holiday doldrums!

If you have any questions or would like some help in your gift giving, you always email us or give us a call at 403.648.9094.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays,

The WineCollective crew.

This BBC article is interesting read about Moroccan wine producers.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8352885.stm

That is a bit of a curiosity because Morocco isn't a well known wine producing region despite its suitable Mediterranean climate and is of course an “Arab” country (as quoted by the BBC) which tend to restrict alcohol consumption.

There is a long history of wine production in Morocco, stretching back to the Phoenicians around 1000 BC. More recently, while Morocco was a protectorate of France, the French planted “hundreds of kilometres” of vines for domestic consumption as well as for export back to France. Morocco currently produces about 300,000 hectolitres of wine per year, with only about 1,000 hectolitres exported. That compares to French wine production of about 55 million hectolitres and Canada at 500,000 hectolitres.

So while there may not be a huge amount of Moroccan wine exported, there is still a chance it could be featured in an upcoming WineCollective package!

Order before November 30th to guaranty delivery in December.

The Holidays are Coming! Parties, presents, and the never ending sequence of holiday related events. WineCollective is here to help.

We at the WineCollective have been busy planning to make your holiday period easier. As part of that, we'd like to highlight some of the new features we're rolling out:

Easy gift giving – If you would like to purchase the gift of wine and want the delivery before Christmas, you need to order by the end of November. Any orders placed before the end of November are guaranteed to be shipped out before mid-December. Perfect for any Christmas gifts, holiday parties or events where you just need to bring a bottle of wine. Browse our gift packages.

Corporate gifts – For those customers who are considering corporate wine gifts this holiday season, we're pleased to be able to offer a gift card customized with your company's logo for any gift orders of three or more packages. Contact us for more info.

Gifting concierge service (FREE!) – To try and relieve some stress, we've also come up with the WineCollective concierge service. If you have lots of gifts to send out and don't want to be bothered to order individually, call us up (403.648.9094) or email and we'll take care of the details!

Everyone is busy at this time of year and we know the December delivery of wine may be tough to work into your schedule. So we are asking our members to update their WineCollective account with a business address for delivery, so that you receive your December package right on time! You can also just call us with the address and we'll take it from there.

Finish your holiday shopping early this year!

The WineCollective Crew

You've potentially heard the past reports on how drinking up to a glass of wine a day can be good for the heart. But today a report has been released saying even high levels of consumption still reduces the risk of heart disease.

The authors found that drinking between five and 30 grams of alcohol a day, the equivalent to less than one UK unit to almost four units or up to one large glass of red wine, reduced the risk of developing heart disease by half.

The protective effect did not increase significantly the more people drank and those with the highest consumption,11 units or more – the equivalent to over one bottle of red wine a day – still had a 50 per cent lower chance of heart disease.

Needless to say we should all be conscious of our alcohol intake (too much of anything is never good).

You can read the full article on the Telegraph. Oh, and thanks to @VineLiving for the heads up on this article.

Since we launched the WineCollective in March, we hadn't touched our package selection. We've been listening to your feedback, however, and we are proud to present a new package to our lineup!

The Magellan package!

The Magellan is the perfect upgrade for those of you that want a foray into some higher end wines, yet don't want four bottles to show up every month. In essence, the Magellan package will be offering some of the same wines presented in our premium Indulgence package, but at almost half the cost! If you're in the Cartier package (formally the Jacques Cartier), this would be a great upgrade package.

We've also made a few other changes around the site, but we'll let you explore those changes on your own. Let us know what you think in the comments. 🙂

Mike Steinberger from Slate has a compelling piece talking about the democratization of wine and how the internet is becoming the watchdog for wine critics. In it, he talks about Robert Parker and his publication Wine Advocate and how recently it has come under scrutiny due to its contributors accepting trade funded trips and samples. Apparently, Mr. Parker has avoided these perks as it might be viewed as unethical in terms of his objectivity towards the wines he reviews. There is also mention of the Cellartracker web application that I personally use and recommend to anyone who is looking for crowd sourced reviews of wine.

Link to the article here: Democratization of Wine

Ciao!