It’s early morning on New Year’s Eve, and a thick ground fog covers the Bay Area. Visibility on my street is about one block, and it’s eerily quiet out there. Not even the starlings and gulls are around and about. They’re hunkered down in their resting places, just as most of us humans are.

This gloomy day seems symbolically fitted to end 2008, a year that will be remembered for many things, but particularly, I suspect, for the dramatic collapse of our country’s economy following the September bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers. The San Francisco Chronicle reports this morning that home prices in the city dropped 31 percent this year, the sharpest on record, and a reminder that not even The City by the Bay, with its fabulous wealth and glamor, is immune from the economic meltdown. A radio report this morning, from the local NPR affiliate, said the restaurant business in San Francisco is in a state of collapse, with restaurateurs bracing for the worst in 2009. People just aren’t eating out any more, and if they are, they’re scaling down from entrées to appetizers, from 2 glasses of wine to one, or from wine to water. That has the waiters grumbling, but what can they do.

The fog is an apt metaphor, also, for the internal mood many Americans feel these days. One tries to peer into the future to glimpse what lies ahead, but that future is blanketed in an impenetrable darkness that masks everything. Best not to think too far ahead in times like these, people tell me. Focus on one day at a time, which means one moment at a time — the Now. It’s easier said than done.

But it’s important to remember that everything passes. The fog will go away, and by this afternoon the Bay Area will once again bask under blue skies and bright sunlight. The birds will be out in a little while, filling my street with sweet birdsong. Perhaps the little hummingbirds will visit the begonias outside my window, which are in full crimson bloom.

I know this, too: 2009 will be a better year. So tonight, when my family and I cheer in the New Year with a glass of champagne, I’ll say a special toast for President-elect Obama and for our country. We’ll see our way out of this. The fog will lift.

Item: “Retail Sales Plummet. High End Walloped,” with luxury goods down a catastrophic 35%, the biggest decrease of any consumer item in the country, including furniture and electronics. That’s from last Friday’s Wall Street Journal. And like it or not, wine is a luxury item.

Item: Eighty-eight percent of the participants in Wine Market Council’s new Wine & the Economy study feel the economy is getting “much worse” or “a little worse,” with Boomers and seniors even more discouraged than Millennials and Gen Xers. And “[wine] consumption rates…are trending downward for all wine drinkers,” the report found. The reasons? Nearly half of all consumers are “not spending as much money on wine” as they used to, while more than one-third are “not dining out as often as they used to,” even those who self-describe themselves as “better off financially.” The report concludes: “The financial situations of males, Generation X wine drinkers, and those 63 and older significantly worsened over the past six months.” (The report is not yet available online.)

Item: The governors of the nation’s two largest states both want to raise alcohol taxes, including on wine. In New York, Gov. David Patterson has proposed more than doubling the excise tax on wine, from 18.9 cents per gallon to 51 cents. In California, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s “nickel a drink” tax hike is supposed to help staunch the state’s exploding deficit, which Schwarzenegger recently described as “financial Armageddon.”

What happens to consumption when alcohol prices go up? “…increases in the monetary prices of alcoholic beverages, which can be achieved by raising Federal, State and local alcohol taxes, significantly reduce alcohol consumption”, according to this study from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

Item: Meininger’s Business International is reporting the following situations in the wine industries of these European countries:

Hungary: “…until recently the wine industry had seemed relatively immune to the economic crisis…But since late October, the industry has experienced a brutal reality check.”

Denmark: “…if Danes make spending cuts, it won’t be to wine.” Way to go, Danes!

Austria: The global crisis “has not, so far, had great repercussions for Austria´s wine industry.” But this conclusion is based only on statistics for January-June, 2008, meaning that third quarter and especially fourth quarter numbers could be grim.

Italy: “…we’ve seen a significant shift from on –premise to off-premise sales as consumers forgo restaurants and wine bars, preferring to dine and entertain at home,” Meininger’s quotes a marketing manager as saying. The article concludes, “…according to many industry experts, times are increasingly difficult for Italian wine.”

France: Exports down. Prices expected to drop in 2009. Champagne, Cognac and Bordeaux most at risk. Allan Sichel, the president of Bordeaux’s Negociants’ Union:  “We are anticipating difficult times, yes,” especially for smaller vignerons who “can’t get the backing from banks.”

Everything looked so great last January, with the wine industry healthy and happy and the economy rolling along. Then, in the spring and summer, came dark hints of a problem in the home mortgage industry, which nobody quite understood. Suddenly, wham. September arrives, and the stuff hit the fan. Now here we are slouching towards 2009, wondering what the hell happened and how much worse things will get before they start to get better.

Still, in my job, there was a lot of great wine in 2008. Here are my top-scoring ones. My employer, Wine Enthusiast, already has released our Top 100 list, so I don’t mean to compete with that. That’s worldwide; these are all from California. (All wines have been published in our Buying Guide, or will be over the new few months.)

1. Shafer Hillside Select 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon
2. Arista 2005 Ferrington Vineyard Pinot Noir
3. Signorello 2005 Padrone Bordeaux blend
4. Colgin 2005 IX Estate
5. Stonestreet 2004 Christopher’s Cabernet Sauvignon
6. Iron Horse NV Joy! Sparkling Wine
7. Williams Selyem 2006 Rochioli Riverblock Pinot Noir
8. Nickel & Nickel 2005 John C. Sullenger Cabernet Sauvignon
9. Far Niente 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon
10. Hanzell 2005 Ambassador’s 1953 Vineyard Chardonnay

The list is heavy on Cabernet and Napa Valley, with a few cool-climate Pinots, a drop-dead gorgeous Chard, and one of the smoothest California bubblies ever. All are ageworthy, and all are expensive.

TOP TEN BEST BUYS

At Wine Enthusiast we have a specific bottle price/rating formula for the special designation of Best Buy. This is always an important category, but especially in these hard times.

1. Honker Blanc 2007 Sauvignon Blanc (Napa Valley); $12. (From Tudal)
2. Vina Robles 2007 Sauvignon Blanc (Paso Robles); $14.
3. Chelsea Goldschmidt 2006 Merlot (Dry Creek Valley); $14.
4. Hayman & Hill 2005 Reserve Selection Merlot (Napa Valley); $15.
5. Mandolin 2005 Syrah (Central Coast): $10.
6. Lee Family Farm 2007 Silvaspoons Vineyard Verdelho (Alta Mesa/Lodi); $15.
7. TAZ 2007 Pinot Gris (Santa Barbara County); $15.
8. Fortress 2007 Sauvignon Blanc (Red Hills Lake County); $15.
9. Mirassou 2007 Pinot Grigio (California); $12.
10. Lake Sonoma 2007 Sauvignon Blanc (Dry Creek Valley); $15.

An interesting list, dominated by white wines. Hmm. Not sure what to make of that.  Maybe it’s easier to make a good, inexpensive white wine than an equivalent red wine. Or maybe I just found these crisp, (mainly) unoaked white wines a refreshment after so many clumsily oaked ones.

Anyhow, here’s wishing you and yours a happy, healthy 2009, and may your year be filled with peace, prosperity  — and fine wine!

Cheers!

See you all real soon.

It’s been a slow news day here in Lake Woe– err, I mean blogville. No wineries changing hands, no major scandals, no fisticuffs in the blogosphere. But the daily post must be honored, if for no other reason than that taking one day off leads to taking two days off which leads to, well, you get the idea. So here’s a roundup from the ridiculous to the sublime. Hopefully, there’s a point.

Decanter is reporting that Claudia Schiffer’s boobs will be the models for a new wine glass for Dom Perignon, to be designed by the famous French couturier, Karl Lagerfeld. No word on who will be doing the actual measurements. If you wish to volunteer, you might be able to reach Ms. Schiffer through this website.

That glass is gonna hold a whole lot of bubbly!

Then there’s this news that TransFair USA, a group that promotes fair trade practices, and which is headquartered right here in my home town of Oakland, will be putting the seal of approval on fair trade wines, just like they do with coffee, tea and bananas. “A Fair Trade Certified product means TransFair has determined that farmers got fair prices, workers got decent wages and the product was produced in an environmentally responsible manner,” the Associated Press reports. Three wines are said to have been approved so far: Live-a-Little (South Africa), Wandering Grape (Argentina and South Africa) and New Direction (Argentina). The wines are sold at Whole Foods Markets, among other retail shops.

The Family, Love, Wine Blog has a neat post on some new winery PR and marketing books, including one called Spinning the Bottle, by Harvey Posert and Paul Franson. Paul is a fine wine writer who’s written for Wine Enthusiast, my employer. Harvey is a longtime PR guy who worked for a long time for Robert Mondavi, back when the winery was owned and run by the Mondavi family. Harvey was always a great help to deadline-pressed reporters. He later went on to work for Fred Franzia.

Any book from Harvey Posert about winery PR is worth reading. I hope it has all kinds of juicy behind-the-scenes gossip, of which Harvey knows a lot — if he lets himself tell all.

Finally, “Falling sales across all price levels is a major problem that…wine producers and importers are facing due to the global economic slowdown. Restaurant wine lists have been revised, and the restaurant buyers are now placing orders only for the best selling bottles. Corporate spending on Christmas gifts and parties has been severely cut or even cancelled this year. Expensive labels are not selling as well as they used to. Regional sales are 40-50% down. The trade is keeping the level of stocks to the minimum.”

Here in America? No, Russia, according to Meininger’s Wine Business International.