At Art Basel Miami Beach next month, renowned French champagne house Ruinart will offer a one-of-a-kind surrealistic sculpture by Dutch artist Martin Baas. Designed as the ultimate centerpiece for a champagne-lover's table, the artwork (detail above) was inspired by an elaborate 18th century Venetian chandelier. Constructed from clear Murano glass and silver, the piece was designed to appear as if a chandelier has fallen from above and is melting into the table, along with bottles of Dom Ruinart and specially designed flutes. The piece will be offered for sale at $100,000.

"Maarten's piece is all at once elegant, complex, delicate and powerful," says Ruinart's Jean Christophe Laizeau. "It is the perfect physical representation of the Dom Ruinart universe. We could not have collaborated with a more innovative and inspiring artist to express the stirring sensory experience of vertigo." Founded by Nicholas Ruinart in Reims in 1792, Ruinart was introduced to the U.S. in 1831 by Viscount Edmond Ruinart, and has been a favorite of conoisseurs ever since.

It's not looking good for the 2008 Bordeaux. Decanter reports that France's two main newspapers, Le Monde and Le Figaro have panned the 2008 vintage. They say that the recent poor weather has affected the harvest. Le Figaro said that the 2008 wine 'promised neither quality nor quantity' while Le Monde said that readers 'should not expect answers [from winemakers] when all the conditions that go in to making a great vintage do not come together.' The harvest has been very difficult all over the region running weeks behind schedule due to increased rain. The news comes at a time when conflicting Bordeaux stories are in the media. On the one hand, the 2005 Bordeaux is said to be phenomenal, but things after that aren't so rosy. Vintners are threatening to boycott producers over the cost of the 2006 vintage and the emperor of wine, Robert Parker had limited kind words for the 2007 vintage.

Recently, Dr. Vino had an interesting post on avoiding the Beaujolais Nouveau hype in favor of drinking local wine so as to avoid the carbon footprint of the French wine which is quickly bottled and then zipped off around the world on planes and trucks. French law rules that this popular red wine made from the Gamay grape be released the third Thursday in November at one minute past midnight.

While it's hard to argue with Dr. Vino's green logic there is something so pleasingly frothy about the Beaujolais Nouveau festivities. Georges Duboeuf won't win any prizes for being either subtle or carbon neutral this year, especially since the 2008 Georges Duboeuf Beaujolais Nouveau is being celebrated with a motorcycle parade through New York City. On Thursday, November 20, "motorcycle chef-heads" Marc Murphy, David Bouley, Johnny Iuzzini, Francois Payard, Kevin Garcia, R.J. Cooper and other top chefs and sommeliers will ride and deliver the first case of 2008 Georges Duboeuf Beaujolais Nouveau to an uncorking ceremony with Beaujolais bigwig Franck Duboeuf at Secession restaurant in the morning. Later in the day, from 4 p.m.-6 p.m. Franck Duboeuf will appear at Sherry –Lehmann (505 Park Avenue) to offer a complementary tasting of Georges Duboeuf Beaujolais Nouveau and in the evening from 6 p.m. – 9 p.m. City Harvest's Generation Harvest and Georges Duboeuf Beaujolais Nouveau Bash will take place at the Samsung Experience at Time Warner Center. Ticket to that event are $85 per person and benefit City Harvest. There are also events planned in Miami and in Las Vegas where a helicopter delivers a case of 2008 Beaujolais Nouveau to Las Vegas' Paris hotel and the hotel's s Eiffel Tower facsimile is lit in Beaujolais Red.

(Pictured above is Frank Duboeuf in a scene from the 2005 celebration.)

As some stocks become a bargain in this depressed economy so are some of the finer wines of this world. The Liv-Ex 100 Fine Wine Index, which represents the price movement of 100 of the most sought-after fine wines, dropped 12.4 % in October, its greatest decrease yet, which puts wine prices at an 18-month low. Some of the most notably impacted are Lafite Rothschild 2004 which is down 27.9% and Chateau Montrose 2003 which fell 23.1%. The wider range of the world's wines are not faring as badly as the Liv-Ex 500 reports only a drop 1.8% in October. On the plus side, this makes it a buyer's market and a good time for collectors and oenophiles alike to purchase the best at a lower price.

The history of renowned French champagne house Veuve Clicquot is told in a fascinating new book by Tilar J. Mazzeo, who reveals the young widow who brought it to fame and fortune. The Widow Clicquot: The Story of a Champagne Empire and the Woman Who Ruled It is the story of Barbe-Nicole Clicquot Ponsardin, who was "a young witness to the dramatic events of the French Revolution and a new widow during the chaotic years of the Napoleonic Wars."

After her husband Francois' death, Barbe-Nicole, 27, defied convention by assuming control of their fledgling family wine business. With much bravery and good fortune, against all odds and through "dizzying political and financial reversals", she became one of the world's first great businesswomen and one of the richest women of her time. Pictured above is her estate the Hotel du Marc in Reims.

A legend in her native France, Barbe-Nicole's story is not well known abroad. Mazzeo has uncovered many fascinating details about the grande dame of champagne, including the following:

• By her late 30s, Barbe-Nicole was one of the richest women in France, with annual sales of more than $30 million per year. She's credited with having taken champagne from marginal to mainstream and making it synonymous with style.

• As the Napoleonic Wars wound down, Barbe-Nicole risked her entire fortune and ran the blockade with 10,000 bottles of her most precious vintage, positioning herself to corner the huge Russian market the moment it re-opened. She was there weeks ahead of her competitors, selling her champagne for $100 a bottle to the celebrating Russians, becoming famous practically overnight.

• Barbe-Nicole invented champagne-making techniques that shaved months off production time and are still used today. Thanks to her employees' loyalty and a shrewd profit-sharing plan, she kept her method secret for almost a decade, solidifying her market dominance.

We may all be cutting back, but at the the White House dinner Friday night for foreign leaders to discuss the global financial crisis, the meal was anything but spare. The menu for around 24 global leaders gathered in the White House State Dining Room included, according to the AP, fruitwood-smoked quail with quince gastrique; quinoa risotto; thyme-roasted rack of lamb; tomato, fennel and eggplant fondue; a salad course of endive, baked Brie and walnuts; and a pear torte. What's raising some eyebrows though is one of the wine selections, the Shafer Cabernet Hillside Select 2003, which runs for around $300 a bottle, if you can find it. This wine was served with the main course will more modest wines such as the Landmark Chardonnay Damaris Reserve 2006 (around $40 a bottle, served with the appetizer) and the Chandon Étoile Rosé sparkling wine (about $30 a bottle, served with dessert) rounded out the rest of the meal. The President pays for his own groceries in the White House but state dinners such as this one are paid for with taxpayer dollars. It is perhaps some comfort in this case that at least two of those attending: President Bush and French President Nicolas Sarkozy are said to be teetotalers. Others in attendance included Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd; Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper; Chinese President Hu Jintao;German Chancellor Angela Merkel; and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

Sam's Club members will soon have a new choice in the wine aisle. The chain is launching their first fair trade certified wine, the charmingly titled Neu Direction. The wine is a 100 percent Malbec from the winegrowing region of Lujan de Cuyo near Mendoza, Argentina. The wine is one of the first to receive this status in the inaugural year of the groundbreaking Fair Trade Wine certification program in the U.S. Neu Direction is produced by Vina de la Solidaridad (vines of solidarity), a co-op representing 20 small farms, which grow and hand pick the grapes and Bodega Furlotti the winery, a century's old family owned business. The London Independent picked it as the best Fair Trade Certified red wine in the world in February 2008. Fair Trade Certified programs guarantee a fair price for goods and services and help to fund the development of schools, medical clinics and other basic necessities. This process is administered in the U.S. by TransFair, a non-profit organization. Neu Direction will sell for about $10 a bottle in more than 450 Sam's Club locations that are authorized to offer wine.

If you are in the market for a winery, we've got one for you and you could get it for half price. The Kirkland Ranch Winery in Napa Valley is being put up for sealed-bid auction, with a minimum bid of $22 million. International Wine Associates, which is a financial adviser to owner Kirkland Knightsbridge LLC, says that is "less than half of the previous value" of the property. The winery has been on the market for a while but due to the credit crunch has been unable to find a buyer.

It's been a long road for this producer of Sangiovese, Pinot Grigio, Syrah and other wines. The winery filed Chapter 11 a couple of years ago to avoid a foreclosure auction and emerged from bankruptcy protection last year. The Kirkland family built the 57,000-square-foot winery ten years ago and it can process 200,000 gallons of wine annually and has the capability to produce more than twice that. The cellar has storage for 3,000 oak barrels. The winery can crush up to 2500 tons and handle 257,000 gallons in refrigerated stainless steel tanks.

The winery is located on a historic 2500+ acre cattle ranch that was originally part of General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo's huge Suscol Rancho. The Kirklands purchased the former Lynch Ranch and the neighboring Sheehy Ranch in 1978 to create the Kirkland Ranch and raised cattle on the ranch until 1999. In 1985, a test vineyard was planted and the family eventually expanded their vineyards to 150 gently sloping acres of vineyards, while continuing to raise cattle.

The winery itself is a lodge-style building which is supported by 67 giant Oregon Red cedars that run along a wide porch surrounding three sides of the building. The lower floor has a retail room where guests can shop the exclusive selection of reserve wines. The second floor is home to a ttasting room opens to a large porch and the three story tasting room is supported by the largest of the red cedar trunks. A viewing hall, adjacent to the tasting room, overlooks all areas of the cellar and provides a safe location for visitors to view all phases of the wine making process. The winery has hosted retail sales and public tastings by appointment and hosted events at banquet and meeting facilities.

The winery is being auctioned through Braun Auctioneers and the Beverly Group Inc. Potential bidders will have until December 2 to conduct due diligence before purchase and sealed bids are due by noon on December 3.

I've mentioned the Dog Lover's Wine Club that features pooch-centered wine labels and donates to dog-helping causes before. Now they've become involved with the rescue efforts to rehabilitate the dogs involved in the Michael Vick dogfighting scandal. The Carivintas Winery Vicktory Dog Wine Collection spans 22 bottles and each label features a work of art portraying one of 22 dogs rescued from NFL player Vick's kennels. The "Vicktory" dogs now live at Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Kanab, Utah and ten percent of sales goes to the animal sanctuary. The portraits of the dogs were painted by artist Cyrus Mejia, one of Best Friends founders. The bottles contain red wine, currently a 2006 Tempranillo, Santa Barbara County but that may change as the series goes on. Individual wines are $40 and the entire 22 label series is $672.

[via Seattle Post-Intelligencer]

I rather expected this news to come after hearing this summer that the Copia: The American Center for Wine, Food and the Arts in California's Napa Valley was in financial trouble. It seems that the Copia will be selling off its main campus in Napa Valley and then leasing back part of the space. The good news is that the center isn't going completely belly up. It plans to expand its education programs and open satellite campuses with wine bars and stores. They'll need the help, the organization has a debt of $78 million, and prospective buyers are already dealing with a 50 percent write-down in value as reported in Wines & Vines.

The city of Napa might consider using the site as a civic center. Certainly the Copia building always did seem a bit large for its audience and was only stuffed with visitors during certain key festivals and events. Robert and Margrit Mondavi planned the center as a hub for Napa's expansive wine tourism industry but it never quite took off, its education-based lure never as strong as that of a hedonistic jaunt along from winery to winery in Napa Valleys verdant countryside. The most popular parts of Copia, the Julia's Kitchen restaurant and Cornucopia gift store will stay in Napa, either in the building or elsewhere and there are also potential plans for a Copia Napa wine bar.

Copia's feature may lie in San Francisco where a large wine bar and teaching kitchen could attract many more potential visitors. They've also expanded the Copia website to make it more interesting to all those interested in wine, not just potential visitors to the Copia center.

Hopefully the business or organization that ends up purchasing the space will have a tourism or wine focus. Several business including the Oxbow Public Market, the new Westin Hotel and a proposed Ritz Carlton chose their sites based on proximity to Copia and the plan to create a epicurean tourism destination. Copia is hoping to sell off the property by the end of the year.

The current U.S. President George W. Bush doesn't drink wine but President-elect Barack Obama does and one winery has already made an overture to him. As our sister blog, Slashfood recently mentioned Kendall-Jackson winery announced that it is sending 'a few congratulatory cases' of its Vintner's Reserve Chardonnay to President-elect Barack Obama. In a People magazine interview before the election Obama mentioned the wine which sells for $14 a bottle. The K-J Chardonnay is a popular favorite in many homes and a lovely, drinkable wine, but we might recommend that Obama step up the Kendall-Jackson ladder a little bit when entertaining. May we suggest the aptly named Stature? The 2003 Stature is a limited-production blend drawn from five classic Bordeaux varieties - Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Petite Verdot and Malbec. At $95 it costs a bit more but we think the dignitaries will approve.

Musician Jackson Browne has a leg up on other aspiring celebrity winemakers: he already has the property. Contact Music reports that Browne is thinking of turning his Hollister Ranch home in Santa Barbara, California into a vineyard. He knows he's got a great location for grape growing and ideal soil, there's only one problem, he thinks it might be too much work. He is quoted as saying: "I want to be a gentleman farmer, but I don't want to work very hard." Perhaps Browne should contact Tool frontman and successful winemaker Maynard James Keenan for advice. After all, Keenan has turned a piece of Arizona land into a thriving winery.

As Wall Street continues to disappoint you may find yourself seeking alternative money-making strategies as opposed to stocks and bonds. While wine is obviously fine for enjoyment it can also act as a unique investment option. It's important to note that putting your money on fine wine does not incur a capital gains tax since it is considered a 'wasting asset' only expected to last fifty years. Your best bet is a first growth from the Bordeaux region and Vanquish Wine, a bespoke wine service for private clients, suggests these top five:

How do you preserve an open bottle of sparkling wine? The silver spoon trick? A champagne stopper? A little foil hat? I've tried all of those and more with varying results so I'm intrigued by the Perlage system which promises to preserve open bottles of sparkling wine for weeks "with no loss of quality, taste or effervescence." It works by returning the headspace of the opened bottle to exactly the same composition and pressure of gasses that existed before the bottle was opened by first taking out the oxygen and then repressurizing with carbon dioxide. A bottle is place in the Perlage enclosure, air is taken out and it is resealed and pressurized with carbon dioxide. When you need another glass you can pour from the bottle while it is still inside the safety shell. The Perlage System comes in two versions a commercial one designed for restaurants and bars that can be connected to their existing CO2 systems or one for home use with disposable CO2 cartridges. It sells for $295 for the home version and is in use in over 1,000 restaurants worldwide so far.

Veuve Clicquot has launched another Champagne Bar, this time in a place where you might need a break after holiday shopping, Harrod's in London. The Veuve Clicquot boutique is located on the first floor amid luxury fashion labels. There is also a lounge area with gray and yellow tones and glass topped tables for a more quiet place to contemplate money spent. The full range of Veuve Clicquot Cuvees are available by the glass and by the bottle and there is a small a la carte menu. The Boutique also offers the Veuve Clicquot gifts and carriers.