Friday, August 31 2007
Oh What a Tangled Web
At first blush, North Platte Nebraska would not seem to be a hotbed of wine controversy. My own experience with Nebraska is a brief spell there as a lad, on a cross-continent camping trip, and using Bruce Springsteen's album of the same name to clear out unwanted guests from my home.
But it turns out that there's a lot more than just the junction of the North and South Platte rivers going on in Lincoln County. According to the Napa Valley Register, Nebraska liquor commission officers seized and destroyed over 1000 gallons of illegal wine.
The story gets quite convoluted, but a quick summary is thus: a former winemaker of Feather River wines is accused of trying to cover up his mistake of over-sulphiting 324 gallons of Feather River wines by breaking into the winery and sewering it. The owners (who are not accused of any wrongdoing) discovered a freight car on their property containing bottles, barrels, and kegs of wine that did not belong to them. NLC officials determined that it had been imported to Nebraska illegally by the ex-employee (a private citizen just can't import a thousand gallons without going through channels, it seems) and was possibly destined for resale. There is further speculation that the wine was stolen from Terra Valentine vineyards, whose wines go for $85 a bottle.
Just what does all this mean? First, chemical additions in winemaking are like carpentry: measure twice, cut once (an oft-heard refrain in my house: "I've cut this board three times, and it's still too short!"). Second, it's better to tell the truth and take your lumps when you mess up. Third, this story says that the 324 US-gallons of wine were worth $55,459. At 5 bottles to the gallon, that's $32 per bottle: who knew that Nebraska wine fetched so much money?
One very sad note (in addition to the whole lost value and wrecked lives thing) is that the wine had to be destroyed: the kegs and barrels were sucked out by a septic tank cleaning truck, and the bottles were crushed and landfilled. Oh, the humanity . . . er, wineanity!
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