NEW YORK (Reuters) – Greek winemakers are not pricing their wares in drachmas – yet.

The winemakers, visiting New York as part of an international promotional tour, doubted Athens would leave the euro-zone even after Fitch Ratings Agency downgraded Greece’s sovereign debt on Thursday, calling the country’s exit from the monetary union “probable.”

“No, no, no. That is not going to happen,” Stellios Boutaris, whose family owns the Kir-Yianni winery, insisted. “And if that happens, we will have bigger problems than just pricing wine in drachmas.”

Boutaris said he was “a guy who always sees the glass half-full…There have been so many journalists coming to talk about Greek wines because they are looking for a positive story about Greece. And right now, it is.”

Attempts in Greece to form a new government collapsed this week, jolting the European single currency on prospects Greek leftists opposed to terms of an EU bailout could win a June election and the country could exit the euro.

The Greek winemakers in New York ranged from big producers to boutique vineyards and one-man shops but all said they wanted Greece to keep the single currency because of the cheaper credit and relative economic stability it brought before the current crisis.

Angelos Iatridis, a University of Bordeaux-trained winemaker who worked harvests in France and Spain before buying his own vineyard, Alpha Estate, in 1999, thought the euro’s hovering near its 2012 low of $1.2623 was actually good for Greek winemakers.

NEW YORK, May 2 (Reuters) – Looking for a good bottle of Merlot, Pinot Grigio or Bordeaux? Ratings by experts may help narrow the choice but do they really make a difference?

Wine experts say the scores and descriptions they give a vintage will differentiate a good bottle from a mediocre one but in a recent study consumers who tasted fine Bordeaux rated the wines lower than the experts.

“The consumer can look at it (the rating) and say, ‘OK a panel of experts has looked at this wine and evaluated it and I know it won’t be plonk,’” said Lisa Granik, who holds a Master of Wine (MW), one of the highest standards of expertise in the wine industry.

Wine experts, magazines and judges in competitions give wine ratings, which are used as marketing tools by the vineyards. Competitions charge a fee for each product entered in the contest.

Granik, along with five other MWs and other wine experts, spent three days last week tasting and rating 700 wines for the Ultimate Wine Challenge, which gives ratings for wines that make the grade ranging from good/recommended to extraordinary/ultimate.

Doug Frost, another MW who took part in the challenge, believes ratings offer reassurance to consumers about the quality of the product.

“If not a third party endorsement then (if offers) at least some measure of security that at least some people have tasted this and at some point in the past have found it delicious,” he explained.

NEW YORK, April 17 (Reuters) – The popularity of farm-to-table restaurants and organic produce is seeping into the wine industry as more producers adopt green practices.

But their motives for making organic, sustainable and biodynamic wine may be more personal than business, although the practices also improve the quality of the wines.

“Most of the wineries are family-owned businesses and they saw this as a better way to farm. They wanted to pass on healthier farms and businesses to the next generation,” said Gladys Horiuchi, a spokeswoman for the California Wine Institute.

She added that more than two-thirds of California’s acreage and production is certified as sustainable.

Chris Millard, winemaker for Napa’s Newton Vineyards, famed for its unfiltered Chardonnays, said it is very expensive to be organic.

“We are not organic. We are not biodynamic. We’re not green. We’re sustainable,” he said. “And by that I mean that we encompass the whole business of making wine. Being sustainable in the vineyard and taking care of the land.”

For Millard sustainable means taking care of the land, and the people who grow the grapes and make the wine, and earning enough to stay in business.

By Leslie Gevirtz

(Reuters) – The Dutch drank their way to victory and independence from Spain in 1648 through the taxes they paid on beer, according to a report in the April issue of the Journal of American Association of Wine Economists.

Economists Koen Deconinck of the University of Leuven and Johann Swinnen of Stanford University wrote that taxes on beer “played a crucial role in financing the revolt … (and) were the single largest revenue source” for the outnumbered and outgunned Dutch, who were facing “the mightiest empire on earth.”

Since beer was safer to drink than water, cheaper to buy than wine, and not as easily spoiled as milk, it was the drink of choice for many Dutchmen.

In his book, “Beer in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance,” Robert Unger estimated that by the year 1600 per capita consumption of beer in Holland ranged from 400 liters to 600 liters (106 gallons-159 gallons).

As the Dutch revolt dragged on for 80 years, taxes on beer were increased until they became Holland’s largest source of income. The levies were collected through a method “resembling the VAT system in use in many European countries … (and it) allowed them to outlast the Spanish,” Deconinck and Swinnen said.

At their peak, they estimated, war costs represented 11 percent of Dutch gross domestic product.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – In a bid to reverse a decade-long slide in sales, some producers of Port wine have gone pink.

They have given the sweet red or amber colored Portuguese fortified wine, which is traditionally sipped as an accompaniment to the cheese course or dessert, a makeover with a lighter rosé version that is 20 percent alcohol.

“It’s port without rules,” Adrian Bridge, chief executive of Taylor-Fladgate in Vila Nova de Gaia, Portugal, said of his rosé, Croft Pink.

His 320-year-old, family-owned port house, which also has the Fonseca and Croft brands, was the first to make a rosé port in 2005 though others, including smaller producers Poças and Krohn, have followed suit.

Croft Pink, first sold in Holland, Canada and Britain, was marketed in Texas last fall before its 2012 roll out to the rest of the United States.

“One restaurant was going through three bottles a day – that’s an awful lot of port,” Bridge said.

He discovered that rather than sipping the drink, the bartender at the restaurant was pouring the bottles into a slushy machine to make icy drinks.

By Leslie Gevirtz

(Reuters) – Like smart investors who dispose of their stocks, the government of Aland, a string of islands off the coast of Finland, is selling 11 bottles of antique Champagne from a cache of 145 found at the bottom of the Baltic Sea.

Divers from Aland stumbled across the Champagne and beer while exploring a shipwreck in July 2010. The owner of the vessel and its destination remain unknown, but the sunken craft and its cargo now belong to the government of Aland.

“We began by selling two bottles of this antique Champagne at an auction last year,” Rainer Juslin, head of Aland’s Department of Education and Culture, said in a statement announcing the sale.

One of two bottles, a Veuve Clicquot, sold for $43,630, at the auction at New York wine house of Acker, Merrall & Condit, setting a world record price for a single bottle of Champagne.

The French auction house Artcurial, Briest-Poulain-F. Tajan will conduct this year’s auction on June 8 at the Alandica Congress & Conference Center in Mariehamn, Aland.

Four bottles of Veuve Clicquot, one bottle of Heidsieck & Co and six bottles of Juglar, a champagne house that ceased to exist in 1829, will go to the highest bidders.

March 9 (Reuters) – French wineries, like over-tired children, are kicking and screaming but slowly making their way onto social media, a survey released this week found.

The survey of 528 wineries in the United States and France conducted by ABLE Social Media Marketing found that while 94 percent of U.S. vintners were on Facebook, only 53 percent of their French counterparts were.

But the French are coming online, albeit slowly. A similar study by ABLE’s corporate predecessor mysocialwinery.com conducted in 2010 reported less than 20 percent of French winemakers were using the social network.

Figures for vintners’ use of Twitter were similar, according to the survey that was conducted in December, a relatively quiet month for wineries north of the equator.

Meanwhile as the use of social media has climbed, France has seen its wine production and consumption decline.

Since 2006 production has decreased from 52.1 million hectoliters (1.4 billion gallons) to 45.7 million hectoliters (1.2 billion gallons) in 2011, a U.S. Department of Agriculture report found. Some of this is attributable to shrinking profit margins and growers being paid to uproot their vines.

The report also noted a steady slide in wine consumption by the French, which it said could be traced to a combination of government anti-drinking campaigns and adults substituting other beverages.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Some U.S. pawnbrokers are taking liquid assets – literally.

Along with family jewels and fine art they will accept wines as collateral for loans to help ease cash shortages of businesses and people on all rungs of the economic ladder.

“You’d be amazed by how many wealthy individuals have terrible credit ratings,” said Jordan Tabach-Bank, head of Beverly Loan Co. in Beverly Hills, California.

“And besides, if you go to a bank, it can take weeks or months to get a loan. When we make a loan, it’s usually the same day,”

The pawnshop for the prosperous lends to hedge-fund managers, bankers, lawyers, doctors and even Oscar winners.

“Most people have a vision of pawn shops as sad sites. But that’s not the case here,” Tabach-Bank said. “I have a lot of people who come in who have a business opportunity and they need an infusion of cash for business purposes.”

USGoldBuyers.com, an online pawnbroker with an office in New York, will also accept fine wines, said spokesman Jose Caba, adding that the rich do not always have liquid assets to keep up with their expensive toys.

NEW YORK, Feb 22 (Reuters) – Some U.S. pawnbrokers are taking liquid assets – literally.

Fine wines are among the items they will accept as collateral for loans, along with family jewels and fine art, as a practice common in Britain and France catches on across the Atlantic.

Liquidity issues, or a cash shortage, can be found on most rungs of the economic ladder, the pawnbrokers said.

“You’d be amazed by how many wealthy individuals have terrible credit ratings. And besides, if you go to a bank, it can take weeks or months to get a loan. When we make a loan, it’s usually the same day,” said Jordan Tabach-Bank, head of Beverly Loan Co.

In an office above a Bank of America Corp branch in Beverly Hills, California, home to some of Hollywood’s biggest stars, the pawnshop for the prosperous regularly lends to hedge-fund managers, bankers, lawyers, doctors – and occasionally to Oscar winners.

“Most people have a vision of pawn shops as sad sites. But that’s not the case here,” Tabach-Bank said. “I have a lot of people who come in who have a business opportunity and they need an infusion of cash for business purposes,” he said.

USGoldBuyers.com, an online pawnbroker with an office in New York City’s diamond district, will also accept fine wines as collateral, spokesman Jose Caba said. While the wealthy like their “expensive toys, unfortunately, sometimes they don’t have the liquid assets so to speak, to keep up their toys. That’s where we come in.”

NEW YORK, Feb 7 (Reuters) – Champagne, sparkling wine and chocolates are a favorite pairing to celebrate Valentine’s Day, despite warnings from experts that the two do not go well together.

Sales of bubbly rise with the approach of Cupid’s big day on Feb. 14, according to the research and data company Nielsen, so romantics and even some winemakers are convinced that with the right choices the two could be a winning combination.

“There are as many flavors in chocolate and wine. So, if you’re going for a fruit such as raspberry or apricot dipped in dark chocolate, then you really want the demi-sec,” said Eileen Crane, the winemaker at Domaine Carneros, the California sparkling wine house, referring to the semi-dry wine.

A self-confessed addict of both bubbles and chocolate, Crane said she preferred dark chocolate with a classic brut Champagne but if the box of sweets included milk chocolates then a rose sparkling wine would be a better choice.

For lovers of chocolate desserts Janet Hedstrom, the executive chef the Washington state winery Domaine Ste Michelle, recommends Blanc de Blancs, a sparkler made entirely of Chardonnay grapes.

Although Tom Tiburzi, the winemaker for Domaine Chandon, the California cousin of France’s Moet-Chandon admits that “it takes a bit of work to find truly epicurean sparkling wine and chocolate pairings,” he suggested that a good choice to accompany dark chocolates would be a classic Brut sparkling wine or a Blanc de Noirs, a white wine produced entirely from black grapes – usually a blend of Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier.

During a wine/chocolate tasting at wine importer Pasternak Wines in New York state women employees thought a Blanc de Blancs paired with white chocolate was a big hit.