Wine news October 8. 2015

NPR reports that California's vineyards are being pressed to turn less water into wine. "So, about six months ago, Kivelstadt installed an onsite water treatment system that recaptures 99 percent of his rinse water and has cut Free Flow's water use down to almost nothing."

People Magazine reports that Diane Keaton has a launched a new wine and it is meant to be served over ice. "Ellen heard I drink my wine on ice and surprised me with a nice glass!" Keaton says with a laugh. "I couldn't turn that down. Eventually it got nicknamed "The Keaton" and don't forget I also played beer pong with Jimmy Fallon but had my cups filled with wine!"

Grub Street provides 10 essential tips for the modern wine drinker. "I hear all the time, 'I can't remember what I liked,'" Betts says. "Okay, well, you have a phone in your pocket. Take the picture. You'll be so stoked when you have it next time. Super, super important. I do that all the time, and this is my job."

Eater on pairing wine with steak.

The News Observer reports that the Michigan wine industry may suffer after two years of bad crops. 

Jane Anson in Decanter on an alternative Bordeaux tour. "I had never been to Gazinet. And it started me thinking about all of those outlying villages and hamlets that edge the Bordeaux map – lucky enough to be situated within the differently colored zones that signal plantable land, but unlucky enough to be situated far away from the more prestigious strips along the Garonne and Dordogne rivers, and nowhere near the famous villages that we more usually concentrate on."

The Grateful Dead has released a wine to commemorate 50 years reports The Drinks Business. "The goal was to capture the “joy, spontaneity and uniqueness of a Grateful Dead show”, resulting in a “dark, spacey and cerebral” Cabernet Sauvignon with notes of “black olive, tobacco, black currant and dark plum”.

Winefolly asks do calories in red wine matter? "Back in the 1960’s there was a popular diet called the “Drinking Man’s Diet.” The idea was that a dieter would replace their sugars and starches for alcohol… It was like Atkins + wine."

Punch on the great equalizing of natural wine. "Their other realization? That these wines get a far better reception when food is involved, which is why some of today’s best natural-wine evangelists have hung their shingles in restaurants—like Fung Tu, one of Wildair’s neighbors, where wine director Jason Wagner’s virtuosic list shows just enough funk to be the perfect foil for Jonathan Wu’s hybrid Chinese-American cooking."

Vinepair provides and introduction to the wines of Germany.