At an upcoming Sotheby's auction you can indulge your love of French wine and your passion for doing good. The Sotheby's London auction on September 23 will include selections from the copious cellar of Belgian billionaire Albert Frere. Frere is auctioning off his prized vintages to benefit the Charles-Albert Frere Foundation, a charity set up to support children and disadvantaged adults. It is named after Frere's son who died in a car crash 10 years ago.

Frere often buys his wine directly from the chateaux and has it sent directly to his private cellar so it is in peak condition. This is the third in a series of wine auctions of Frere's collection. Highlights of this auction feature vintages from 1985 to 2005 with offerings from Petrus, Haut Brion, Marguax and La Tour. Shown at right is the Carre d'As 2000 Groupe Duclot lot which features two magnums of Latour, two magnums of Margaux, two magnums of Haut Brion and two magnums of Petrus all presented in an octagonal wooden presentation case, wrapped in a plain protective cardboard outer. The name translates as four aces. It is estimated at $16000-21000.

For centuries, France dominated wine production but may change. A recent article in the International Herald Tribune reported the results from a study for the Vignerons Independants winemakers association that revealed Spain will top world wine production to Spain by 2015

France is in trouble for two major reasons, falling consumption at home and the tendency of French winemakers to be slow to adapt to new trends and competitors. Eric Rosaz, the director of France's independent wine producers association, believes it's not too late and that France can remain the wine leader especially if they pick up current trends like screw tops, boxed wines and easy-to-understand labeling. In 2015, the U.S. will be the world's largest wine consumer with 871 million gallons but U.S. consumers tend to steer clear of French wines especially because they perceive French wines to be costly or too hard to understand.

Should France manage to dodge the challenges of Spain and the U.S., another threat is looming. The BBC has an article that says China may be the world's largest producer of bulk wine in 50 years time as well as a major force in fine wine. Currently, Chinese wine isn't well known outside of Asia but the country does have a huge number of vineyards and climate change may work in their favor as other places may find themselves unable to grow decent wine. What China currently seems to be lacking is technical expertise but that is changing.

Jasper Morris, of wine sellers Berry Brothers & Rudd predicts that in 50 years, consumers will ask for wine by the brand name or flavor but won't know or care where it came from. I'm hoping that won't be the case but there certainly is room enough on the global market for wines from all places. Other Berry predictions include some trends already in place such as the continued rise of English sparkling wine, the phasing out of corks and the rise of new containers to compete with the bottle.

I like to believe there will always be a market for certain French wines but in a year like this, where Robert Parker says the 2007 Bordeaux isn't great, it's becoming possible to see a world where French wine is no longer the dominant force in the world.

While many New World wineries have embraced the screwcap (most New Zealand and Australian wines are screwcap and many U.S. wines are too), the French winemakers have been slow to adopt them. The Telegraph reports that may be about to change. According to one wine expert both Domaine de la Romanée-Conti in Burgundy and Bordeaux's Chateau Margaux are thinking of going screwcap. This is huge news since these are two very recognizable and lauded brands. The director general of Chateau Margaux, Paul Pontallier says they have been doing tests for a few years but are not certain if they will use the screwcaps because their wines are meant to be stored for long periods, there is some debate over whether or not screwcaps are optimal for wines that are best aged.

One of Burgundy's best-known producers, Jean-Claude Boisset is using them on approximately a third of their wines including the Chambertin grand cru 2005, which sells for almost £100 a bottle. They feel that the screwcap is great for wines that will be aged because they protect the wine from oxidation better than a cork can. The Larouche wine group in Burgundy has also started using screw tops on its highest end wine, the Réserve de l'Obédiance, but still prefers the cork for red wines that will be aged.

The emperor of wine has also weighed in. Wine critic Robert Parker says wines bottled with corks will be in the minority by 2015 and that only wines meant to sit in cellar for decades will be topped by a cork. While the cork will always have romantic appeal, the realities of the wine business and the growing customer acceptance of screwcaps seem to have sealed its fate.

Following fast on the heels of Spanish wine, Mundo Gay comes France's first gay wine. Decanter reports that Tendre Bulle Gay Vin will be launched by Domaine de Boyer on July 1.The wine is a sparkling rosé from Languedoc-Roussillon. The bottle will show two heads in profile facing each other. The words 'Gay Vin' appear underneath and the letters G and L, for gay and lesbian, will appear on the capsule. About 13,000 bottles have already been made of the non-vintage, méthode champenoise Gay Vin. Sounds like the perfect wine for a gay marriage celebration.

Uh oh, if you are a fan of European wines, Eric Asimov, the chief wine critic over at the NY Times, says you better get ready to pay more. His recent article points out that while so far, price increases have been modest, that trend is not set to last given the rising price of oil and the deflating value of a dollar. Importers of European wines have been trying to keep the prices steady in order not to scare away fickle consumers but that may change in 2008.

What is bad news for Europe, Australia, South Africa and South America might just be good news for U.S. wineries. The article quotes Gary Vaynerchuk of Wine Library as saying this will be a big opportunity for California. I think that it's even a bigger opportunity for wineries in up and coming U.S. regions such as Oregon, Washington and New York. It may also inspire customers to find more obscure and less pricey European wines from places such as Hungary, Portugal and Slovenia which are still good values. The advice in the article might be distilled down to this: drink the stuff you know for now but be prepared to venture into new territory to find better values in 2008.

Wine Spectator has announced their wine of the year. Top honors this year go to France for the Clos des Papes Châteauneuf-du-Pape 2005. The wine is rated at 98 points and Wine Spectator says that under the care of Vincent Avril, Clos des Papes is making the best wine in the Châteauneuf-du-Pape domaine. Their red is a blend of 65 percent Grenache, 20 percent Mourvedre and 10 percent Syrah and other grapes. The wine is aged in wooden foudres for up to 12 months before the final blend and there were 7,500 cases made. Wine Spectator gives the price as $80 but now that the wine has been anointed as WOTY I'm guessing the price is set to cruise into the $100 to $150 range (an auction on Wine Commune was sitting at $100 per bottle last time I checked).

Sure you can buy a small vineyard in Sonoma for a few million but if you want to buy into the French wine business it might cost you a bit more. Chateau La Pointe is the largest Pomerol estate to go on the open market for years. The famed estate has been making well regarded wine since the 19th century and represents 3% of the entire area of Pomerol which is famed for its sand, gravel and clay soil. The estate is planted with Merlot and Cabernet Franc grapes. Decanter reports that the selling price is currently 32 million euros.

The Antique Wine Company, the company that offered a lot of every vintage of every vintage of Chateau d'Yquem since 1860 is at it again. This time they are offering a 48-bottle vertical collection of Chateau Lafite Rothschild. Decanter reports that the collection, which is being offered for sale, is being rigorously tested for authenticity. The collection spans four centuries of Chateau Lafite and includes a bottle of 1787, the same vintage as the infamous Jefferson wines which are currently being challenged for their authenticity.

The wine is being examined using a combination of nuclear isotope analysis and gamma radiation and proton beam tests to confirm the age of each glass bottle, The wine itself is being extracted via a hypodermic needle through the cork and will also undergo molecular and chemical analysis. The bottles were gathered over the course of two years from restaurants, hotels and private cellars including some from the cellar of a member of the Rothschild family. The collection is expected to bring between $1 and $3 million.

As I've mentioned before, I have a weakness for any kind of auction where all the lots come from one impassioned collector. Much of a person's character is revealed in the things they have deemed precious. Steve Verlin, one of the founding partners of the New York restaurant Veritas passed away in 2006 but he left behind an expansive wine collection which is being auctioned on May 4th and 5th by Hart Davis Hart Wine Co. in Chicago. His wine collection rivals the Park B. Smith auction in terms of the amount of quality French wine.

Verlin was a true wine lover and often created non-traditional wine pairings such as hot dogs with the Spanish classic Unico from Vega Sicilia, popcorn (popped in truffle oil) with his many top Champagnes, and Krispy Kreme donuts with his Sauternes from Château d'Yquem. To honor Verlin Hart Davis Hart will duplicate some of these pairings at the auction. He was also passionate about wine storage and his subterranean cellars were strictly temperature and humidity controlled. The auction includes many French wines from Bordeaux, Burgundy, Rhône and Champagne. He and his wife Grae also collected large format bottles including imperials, jeroboams and double magnums. Wines up for auction include the 1970 Pétrus, 1982 Cheval-Blanc, 1989 Haut-Brion, 1971 La Tâche, DRC, 1978 Châteauneuf du Pape, Rayas, Dom Perignon and Cristal. The presale estimate for the Verlin Collection is $4,000,000-$6,000,000.

The fact that this French wine is called a Shiraz and not a Syrah lets you know they are going after the hearts of Americans. Another clue is that the wine is called the "hippo cuvee" which makes it nominally (to me at least) a "critter wine." As a rule, I'm trying to stay away from wines with animals on the front but my partner picked this up because he loved the name and so I was saddled with this wine with dinner. The Fat Bastard is 100% Shiraz and at around $10, it's not exactly a luxury wine. Sometimes a $10 wine can be surprisingly amazing. Not this one. I'm not so much a Shiraz fan and this wine is a prime example of why. It comes on strong with a big red fruit flush and a whole lot of peppercorn aroma and then... Nothing. It drifts away with hardly any finish. It's the wine equivalent of a comedy starring Owen Wilson. You choose it because you think it will be fun and charming and entertaining, instead you just end up unfulfilled.

We first found out  last year that  Georges Duboeuf, Mr, Beaujolais Nouveau, was being investigated for wine fraud. There was apparently something to the claims, he has been fined €30,000 for fraud because some of the wine produced by his estate was blended with a variety of grapes rather than a single source. A series of barrels had been mixed with inferior grapes in attempts to conceal a bad harvest in 2004. Under France's AOC system blending is forbidden in order to maintain the terroir of a particular wine. Duboeuf has insisted that the blending was a mistake and not deliberately done. None of the wine was sold and the production manager at the winery,  Sylvain Dory,  resigned. For his part in the wine, Dory was given a three-month suspended sentence and fined €3000.

Vintage wines that were collected by French president Jacques Chirac, while he was the mayor of Paris  will be auctioned off this fall. The 5,000 bottles include several 1990 Château Pétrus and 191 bottles of 1976 Krug Champagne. The sale is expected to bring in over $630,000. The bottles are kept in the  Hôtel de Ville  and government auditors decided that keeping the expensive wine was a liability because of the price and the possibility that the bottles could be damaged by a flood. Also, the current regime just isn't drinking the way Chirac's crowd used to. Both the amount of wine consumed and the amount of money allocated to the wine budget have been drastically reduced.  It's a pretty strong statement regarding the French attitude toward wine in light of the recent years of plummeting French interest in wine and resulting poor sales.

Will Americans will replace the French as the world’s biggest wine drinkers? An article from Beverage Daily references a new study that says that within three years this will be the case. As we first noted last year, French wine consumption is falling fast. A new report from the International Organization of Vine and Wine (OIV) says that French wine consumption dropped another two per cent between 2004 and 2005 and consumption is already down by half over the past 40 years. Meanwhile, Americans are drinking more wine than ever, the amount grew three per cent last year. If the trend continues the U.S. will soon be the top consumers. Wine consumption is also on the rise in Britain, it grew five percent last year. Meanwhile French wine exports are rapidly falling.

Decanter reports that a Bordeaux winemaker has found a unique way to increase interest in their wines. Chateau d'Arsac will feature a different guest winemaker each year. The winemaker can choose 15 hectares (around 37 acres) of property from which to make their own vintage. The owner of Chateau d'Arsac, Philippe Raoux wants to prove that the person who makes the wine makes the difference. The wines will be listed by episode rather than vintage and Episode One will be created by Michel Rolland. Episode Two will be created by Denis Dubourdieu. For the third year they plan to work with an American (which makes good sense since they plan to market the wine in the U.S. and the U.K) and to have consultants from all around the world participate. There will be 60,000 bottles of the Rolland wine.

We've mentioned some California and Oregon wineries for sale before but the chance to own a French grand cru chateau is rare indeed. Decanter reports that the St-Emilion grand cru classé Château Soutard is for sale. The Chateau has been owned by the des Ligneris family since 1836 and is worth around 35 million euros. It sounds like the family isn't any great hurry to rid themselves of the vineyard but the process is definitely underway. While some French vinters may be facing trouble, houses with a long history, like Chateau Soutard will hopefully always thrive.