Author: SeniorWomenWeb

The Asset Cost of Poor Health

The National Bureau of Economic Research has issued a working paper on how poor health may result in reduced earnings:

Health care costs are a major financial concern for elderly households. Understanding the risk of health care costs at older ages is also important for the design of public and private insurance programs, such as employer-provided pensions and retiree health insurance as well as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

Past studies of the health care costs incurred by older households have often focused on out-of-pocket medical spending, finding these expenditures to be substantial and highly skewed. Yet such estimates may miss other important dimensions of the cost of poor health. Poor health may result in reduced earnings near the end of an individual’s work life, or it may trigger expenses associated with home renovation, relocation, or the hiring of various service providers. Moreover, the financial consequences of poor health may grow over time, as poor health tends to be an ongoing condition.

In The Asset Cost of Poor Health, (NBER Working Paper 16389), researchers James Poterba, Steven Venti, and David Wise attempt to infer the “full cost” of poor health by estimating the cumulative effect on assets of all the adverse consequences of poor health over a long period of time. Data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) for the period 1992–2008 are used in the analysis.

The authors compare the evolution of assets over time for older individuals who in 1992 (when they are ages 51 to 61) have similar assets but different levels of “latent health.” Latent health is an index that incorporates answers to numerous health questions, such as whether the individual has difficulty working for pay, has difficulty climbing stairs or performing other activities of daily living, or has experienced heart problems or other specific health conditions. This measure is strongly related to the subsequent onset of future health problems and to mortality, suggesting that it is a good summary measure of health status.

The results indicate that the asset cost of poor health may be quite large, substantially greater than most estimates of out-of-pocket medical spending. For example, within each asset quintile, the healthiest individuals (those in the top tercile, or third, of the health distribution) accumulate at least 50 percent more assets by 2008 than do the least healthy (those in the bottom tercile of health). The dollar differences in wealth accumulation are substantial — for those near the median of the wealth distribution in 1992, the difference in asset accumulation over the 1992–2008 period between the healthiest and least healthy groups is over $135,000. For the top asset quintile, the difference is over $470,000.

As the authors point out, poor health can reduce asset accumulation in many ways. It may lead to greater health-related expenditures, to lower earnings, and to lower Social Security benefits and other retirement annuity income as a result of lower earnings and earlier claiming of benefits. The authors find that between 20 and 40 percent of the asset cost of poor health can be attributed to lower earnings and lower annuity income.

In future work, the authors hope to explore some of the other reasons poor health reduces asset accumulation among older households. For example, people in poor health may do less new saving or may receive lower rates of return on their investments as a result of having less time to manage their portfolio or reduced cognitive ability.

The authors gratefully acknowledge funding from the National Insitute on Aging and the US Social Security Administration through grants to the NBER as part of the SSA Retirement Research Consortium.

Image: The anemic lady by Samuel van Hoogstraten; Rijksmuseum Amsterdam

May 24, 2011
A Daunting Topic by Elizabeth Duke: How to Improve Consumers’ Financial Education

Editor’s Note: Although the audience for this speech at Boston’s Federal Reserve Bank by Governor Elizabeth A. Duke (see right) includes leading academics in household finance and consumer financial education, industry practitioners, and policymakers, it is about us, the consumer. It is entitled Research, Policy, and the Future of Financial Education. We have edited out remarks about the conference itself.

Federal Reserve District Banks
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Today’s topic is a daunting one: how to improve consumers’ financial education. I hope to set the stage for your discussions by sharing my perspective on recent economic factors and trends in the financial services industry and the impact they have had on consumers, particularly those with low and moderate incomes. I will also give you my thoughts on the role of financial education in facilitating effective decisionmaking and suggest areas where additional research could help shape policies and practices to benefit individual consumers and lead to safe and sustainable economic growth.

The Case for Financial Education

I certainly don’t need to impress upon this audience the importance of financial education. Today’s consumers are making decisions among increasingly complex financial products and in the context of uncertain economic times. A working knowledge of basic financial terms and concepts can lead to better economic decisions and outcomes for individuals over the course of a lifetime. In addition, there is a clear relationship between individuals’ financial decisions and the health of our entire economy.

The financial crisis and the slow recovery from it has obviously had a dramatic impact on the financial decisions made by American families. Many now have fewer financial resources and limited options. The pace and timing of their saving and investing life cycle has also been disrupted. For example, high unemployment levels among recent high school and college graduates, especially among young African Americans, means that this demographic likely won’t be able to start saving and investing as early in life as previous generations.

In addition, starting salaries for recent college graduates have also declined, which means that young Americans who are employed will have fewer resources for saving and investing than their predecessors. Young people are living with their parents longer, which helps conserve their limited resources but likely places a strain on their parents’ budgets.

Also troubling is research showing that many consumers who should be saving for retirement instead have been forced to take hardship withdrawals from their 401(k) plans. According to an analysis by Vanguard, hardship withdrawals increased by 49 percent between 2005 and 2010. Other types of withdrawals increased by 56 percent.

The increasing use of retirement savings for other purposes is particularly troubling given that the responsibility for saving for retirement has shifted away from employers to individual employees. Having a secure retirement is a high priority and a significant long-term goal for many Americans, so it is especially important that they have an understanding of what level of resources they will need in retirement and the investment options available to them.

Individuals who are approaching retirement age, in particular, are being forced to make changes to their plans for retirement. Social Security Administration data indicate that in 2009 and 2010, the proportions of men and women claiming social security benefits at age 62 began to rise again after several years of decline. Workers have either chosen to leave the work force early in the last few years or, more likely, have applied for social security benefits as early as possible because of the weak job market. Opting to receive a smaller social security annuity earlier in life is just one of many hard decisions Americans have had to make in order to balance their short-term and long-term financial needs.

May 24, 2011
And Now A Word From Our Sponsor

by Rose Madeline Mula

It’s exasperating. You can’t go anywhere or do anything these days without being assailed by sales pitches.

Has my memory failed me (again!) or wasn’t cable TV originally supposed to be commercial-free? We would pay a fee but would be able to enjoy some entertainment uninterrupted by advertising. I can’t substantiate this from experience. It’s not because I’m too young to remember the introduction of cable (I wish), but my family couldn’t afford it. In fact, we were among the last in the neighborhood to acquire a TV set and were happy to be able to access only the three major networks on our black and white nine-inch marvel. It was such a miracle that we enjoyed even the commercials.

It wasn’t long before the novelty wore off, however, and annoyance at the ads set in. So we’d occasionally escape to the movies where we could be assured that no one, animated or human, would appear on the screen prior to the double feature trying to sell us something. Not any more. These days, if we’re foolish enough to arrive fifteen minutes early, our eyes and ears are assaulted by images on the giant screen of obscenely overpriced buckets of popcorn, jumbo candy bars, and kiddie-pool-sized sodas, accompanied by deafening jingles urging us to visit the concession stands before the movie starts. Actually, not a totally bad idea. At least we’d miss some of the commercials that follow for the local car dealers, banks, nail salons, food markets, and a mélange of other merchants.

So now may we see the movie please? Not yet, first we have to watch the teaser trailers featuring the loudest, most violent, bloody and/or pornographic scenes from at least a dozen coming attractions (that’s what we called the previews in the old days). And when the feature finally starts, the commercials don’t end, thanks to “product placement” — the relatively new practice of focusing the camera on various items — a can of Coke in the leading lady’s hand … a bottle of Budweiser on the bar … a BMW logo on the car driving up to the Hard Rock Café …

It never stops. Advertising is invading every aspect of life. Even the once-hallowed Super Bowl has become more famous for its half-time commercials than its touchdowns. We are constantly bombarded by promotion, either blatant or subliminal, wherever we turn: in magazines and newspapers, fliers stuffed in our mailboxes and under our windshield wipers, billboards by the roadside, pop-ups whenever we turn on our computers, designer logos on our clothes and handbags (we actually pay big bucks to promote their stuff!); ads splattered on the outside (as well as inside) of buses — and soon on cars, according to rumor. I hope it’s not true, but I recently heard that advertisers will pay you to allow them to paint garish ads on the family sedan or SUV.

Do you want to ride around in a vehicle proclaiming the soothing benefits of Preparation H? Before you say no, find out how much they’ll shell out to you. You may change your mind. What’s next? Ads covering your home … painted on your kids’ backpacks …broadcast in your voicemail greeting …?

As for the afore-mentioned TV fare, all the obnoxious, hard-sell infomercials are bad enough; but the half-dozen or more commercials crammed between increasingly shorter segments of so-called entertainment shows are almost worse. In addition, the programs themselves have degenerated into nothing more than glorified plug-fests, with every guest touting his or her latest book, movie, CD, or upcoming personal appearance. Okay, I admit it. Sour grapes. I’m angry because I’m never invited on those shows, so I don’t have a platform to promote my books (which are available in bookstores and online). Okay, I did it, too — sneaked in a commercial while I’m supposed to be entertaining you. Sorry, but until I’m invited to join the ladies on The View, I have no other recourse.

Where is it all going to end?

When I meet Saint Peter, I won’t be surprised if he’s waving a banner declaring,
“Use Paradise Paste For a Pearly Gates Smile!”

©2011 Rose Madeline Mula for SeniorWomen.com

Rose Mula’s most recent book,
The Beautiful People and Other Aggravations is now available at your favorite bookstore, through Amazon.com and other online bookstores, and through Pelican Publishing (800-843-1724), as is her previous book, If These Are Laugh Lines, I’m Having Way Too Much Fun.

May 23, 2011
Financially Fragile Households: Can You Come Up With Funds Needed to Cope?

Annamaria Lusardi, Daniel J. Schneider and Peter Tufano; Working Paper 17072, Financially Fragile Households, Evidence and Implications, prepared for the National Bureau for Economic Research, “ a private, nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization dedicated to promoting a greater understanding of how the economy works.”

(Editor’s Note: We’ve included some paragraphs from the working paper, as well as editing out some material during that process.)

Introduction

Economists and policymakers have focused on various elements of consumer financial behavior to gauge the overall well-being of households and of the economy. For example, the household savings rate, its converse — the rate of consumer spending, and household borrowing levels are commonly used aggregate metrics. On the micro-level, researchers have studied the distribution of wealth across the population, for example to assess households’ abilities to afford to retire. Other research examines households’ abilities to withstand financial shocks, usually by looking at their savings levels and access to credit. Yet other work examines bankruptcy filings as a metric of financial problems. Our work builds upon this large literature, but characterizes financial fragility by examining households’ abilities to access emergency funds from any source.

In particular, we study US households’ abilities to come up with $2,000 in 30 days, and we compare their coping ability with that of households in seven other industrialized countries.

Using this $2,000/30 day metric of financial fragility, we find widespread financial weakness in America: one quarter of Americans report that they certainly could not come up with the funds needed to cope with such a shock within thirty days, and an additional 19% would cope at least in part by selling or pawning possessions or taking payday loans. Adopting a broader definition of financial fragility, we find that almost half of all households report that they certainly not or could probably not come up with funds to deal with an ordinary financial shock of this size. We examine the cross-sectional distribution of financial fragility and we show that it is not just a poor person’s problem: a material fraction of the solidly middle class is pessimistic about their ability to come up with $2,000 in a month. Our work allows us to begin to characterize a “pecking order” of coping mechanisms, broadly rationalize them on the basis of direct and indirect costs, and suggest some implications of these patterns. Finally, we compare the levels of financial fragility and methods of coping across eight industrialized countries. While there exist differences in coping ability, we find a largely consistent ordering of coping methods.

We believe that a full consideration of financial fragility will enlighten public policy. In advocacy and policy circles, asset building for long horizon goals (retirement, education, small business development) has understandably been the primary focus. While the US government provides extensive direct and indirect subsidies to long-horizon savings, there is much less, if any, explicit policy related to short-term emergency savings. For example, home borrowing (and indirectly long-term savings in equity buildup) is tax advantaged through home mortgage deductions and long-term investing is advantaged through long-term capital gains rates. At the same time, income earned from emergency savings accounts receives no special treatment. To the contrary, asset limits on many social programs actively discourage low-income families from building up savings. While borrowing from family and friends is a critical element of household coping, it is virtually invisible in public policy. Finally, discussions of regulating and banning high-cost, short term borrowing schemes do not typically acknowledge their place in the pecking order of coping mechanisms.

… [the] perceived capacity to cope with an emergency is lowest in the US, UK, and Germany, all countries in which 50% of households or more would probably or certainly be unable to come up with the emergency funds. France and Portugal occupy an intermediate position; 46% of respondents in Portugal would certainly or probably be unable to come up with the funds as would 37% of those in France. The highest levels of coping capacity are found in Canada (28% certainly or probably unable), Netherlands (27.9%), and Italy (20%). In sum, we see substantial cross-national heterogeneity in perceived capacity to cope, with the United States at the upper end in terms of financial fragility.

May 23, 2011
Get a Kit, Make a Plan, Be Prepared for a Zombie Apocalypse
The following was originally posted on CDC Public Health Matters Blog on May 16th, 2011 by Ali S. Khan

There are all kinds of emergencies out there that we can prepare for. Take a zombie apocalypse for example. That’s right, I said z-o-m-b-i-e a-p-o-c-a-l-y-p-s-e. You may laugh now, but when it happens you’ll be happy you read this, and hey, maybe you’ll even learn a thing or two about how to prepare for a real emergency.

A Brief History of Zombies
We’ve all seen at least one movie about flesh-eating zombies taking over (my personal favorite is Resident Evil), but where do zombies come from and why do they love eating brains so much? The word zombie comes from Haitian and New Orleans voodoo origins. Although its meaning has changed slightly over the years, it refers to a human corpse mysteriously reanimated to serve the undead. Through ancient voodoo and folk-lore traditions, shows like the Walking Dead were born.

A couple dressed as zombies – Danny Zucco and Sandy Olsson from the movie Grease walking in the annual Toronto Zombie Walk.

In movies, shows, and literature, zombies are often depicted as being created by an infectious virus, which is passed on via bites and contact with bodily fluids. Harvard psychiatrist Steven Schoolman wrote a (fictional) medical paper on the zombies presented in Night of the Living Dead and refers to the condition as Ataxic Neurodegenerative Satiety Deficiency Syndrome caused by an infectious agent. The Zombie Survival Guide identifies the cause of zombies as a virus called solanum. Other zombie origins shown in films include radiation from a destroyed NASA Venus probe (as in Night of the Living Dead), as well as mutations of existing conditions such asprions, mad-cow disease, measles and rabies.

The rise of zombies in pop culture has given credence to the idea that a zombie apocalypse could happen. In such a scenario zombies would take over entire countries, roaming city streets eating anything living that got in their way. The proliferation of this idea has led many people to wonder “How do I prepare for a zombie apocalypse?”

Well, we’re here to answer that question for you, and hopefully share a few tips about preparing for real emergencies too!

Better Safe than Sorry

Some of the supplies for your emergency kit.

So what do you need to do before zombies…or hurricanes or pandemics for example, actually happen? First of all, you should have an emergency kit in your house. This includes things like water, food, and other supplies to get you through the first couple of days before you can locate a zombie-free refugee camp (or in the event of a natural disaster, it will buy you some time until you are able to make your way to an evacuation shelter or utility lines are restored). Below are a few items you should include in your kit, for a full list visit the CDC Emergency page.
- Water (1 gallon per person per day)
- Food (stock up on non-perishable items that you eat regularly)
- Medications (this includes prescription and non-prescription meds)
- Tools and Supplies (utility knife, duct tape, battery powered radio, etc.)
- Sanitation and Hygiene (household bleach, soap, towels, etc.)
- Clothing and Bedding (a change of clothes for each family member and blankets)
- Important documents (copies of your driver’s license, passport, and birth certificate to name a few)
- First Aid supplies (although you’re a goner if a zombie bites you, you can use these supplies to treat basic cuts and lacerations that you might get during a tornado or hurricane)
May 20, 2011
What’s On the Menu?; Help The New York Public Library Transcribe Historic Collection of Restaurant Menus

Browse Menus • Browse Dishes •

The following is adapted from the About/FAQ page on the What’s on the Menu? website.

With approximately 40,000 menus dating from the 1840s to the present, The New York Public Library’s restaurant menu collection is one of the largest in the world, used by historians, chefs, novelists and everyday food enthusiasts. Trouble is, the menus are very difficult to search for the greatest treasures they contain: specific information about dishes, prices, the organization of meals, and all the stories these things tell us about the history of food and culture.

To solve this, they’re working to improve the collection by transcribing the menus, dish by dish. Doing this will allow them to dramatically expand the ways in which the collection can be researched and accessed, opening the door to new kinds of discoveries. The NYPL has built a simple tool that makes the transcribing pretty easy to do, but it’s a big job, so they need your help. Feeling hungry?

Note: It is not necessary to be a New York resident in order to participate. Anyone with an internet connection can take part.

Questions? Comments? Want to stay in touch as the project develops? Contact menus@nypl.org

The Menus

The New York Public Library’s menu collection, housed in the Rare Book Division, originated through the energetic efforts of Miss Frank E. Buttolph (1850-1924), who, in 1900, began to collect menus on the Library’s behalf. Miss Buttolph added more than 25,000 menus to the collection, before leaving the Library in 1924. The collection has continued to grow through additional gifts of graphic, gastronomic, topical, or sociological interest, especially but not exclusively New York-related. The collection now contains approximately 40,000 items, about 10,000 of which have been digitized and made available in the NYPL Digital Gallery. More information can be found here.

The Rare Books Division of The New York Public Library houses approximately 200,000 titles, covering five centuries of printing — from the 1450s to the present —and representing Continental Europe, England, and the Americas.

What are the goals for this project? The library is focusing first on transcribing the menus that they’ve already digitized (approximately 10K). If they’re successful, they’ll look into scanning more menus and getting those transcribed too. Who knows, maybe someday the NYPL will be able to work with menu collections from other libraries and archives. But one step at a time …

May 20, 2011
Book Review of The Flavor Bible, Listed as One of the Ten Best Cookbooks in the World

by Sharon Kapnick

The Flavor Bible: The Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity, Based on the Wisdom of America’s Most Imaginative Chefs
by Karen Page, Andrew Dornenburg
Published by Little Brown; 380 pages

Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg like to suggest what ingredients marry well and what food and wines should be united. They’re well equipped to do so: They’ve already written several award-winning books about food and wine, and their own union – they’ve been married for 20 years — is a great personal and literary success. Page and Dornenburg also like to fire the imagination and empower food and wine lovers. In one of my favorite books, What to Drink with What You Eat*, they made making smart wine choices easy even for someone who knows absolutely nothing about wine.

Their most recent book, The Flavor Bible, was just included on a Forbes list of the 10 Best Cookbooks in the World. The Flavor Bible — actually a reference book not a cookbook — is a guide to hundreds of ingredients and the other foods, spices, herbs and condiments that complement them. Included are everyday ingredients like potatoes and tomatoes and more exotic ones like hyssop and fennel pollen. Some of the matches are classic, some are new, unlikely and clever. Sometimes the book will confirm what you already know: that tomatoes and basil, for example, pair well together. Other times it will give you new ideas: that basil also complements watermelon. In addition to what combinations are compatible, occasionally there are combinations to avoid, like 1) eggs and cranberries and 2) mangoes and wasabi.

Also included are the basics: when an item’s in season, cooking techniques, volume, weight, tastes, function, botanical relatives and tips. You’ll learn that celery (I hate it) and carrots (I love them) are related and that the longer cayenne cooks the hotter it tastes. Comments from prominent savory and pastry chefs, such as Michael Lomonaco (Porter House New York), Eric Ripert (Le Bernardin, New York), Emily Luchetti (Farallon, San Francisco) and Michel Richard (Citronelle, Washington, D.C.), are an important part of the book. These professionals speak “about the way they approach flavor development and inspiration” and offer interesting and helpful tips.

Bottom Line: The Flavor Bible will encourage you to think creatively and openly and inspire you to get into the kitchen. And it’s fun to browse through. Both the home and the professional chef will enjoy exploring its pages and playing with its many suggestions.

©2011 Sharon Kapnick for SeniorWomen.com

*What to Drink with What You Eat: The Definitive Guide to Pairing Food with Wine, Beer, Spirits, Coffee, Tea – Even Water – Based on Expert Advice from America’s Best Sommeliers by Andrew Dornenburg, Karen Page

May 19, 2011
The Ultimate Surrealist Object: Two People Inescapably Drawn to Each Other

At the center of modern art history is a love story between two artists who could not live with or without each other. The Peabody Essex Museum presents Man Ray | Lee Miller, Partners in Surrealism featuring 76 works by two giants of the Surrealism movement and other renowned artists in their circle including Pablo Picasso, Dora Maar, Max Ernst, Alexander Calder, and Le Corbusier. The exhibit is on view from June 11, 2011 to December 4, 2011.

From 1929 to 1932, Man Ray and Lee Miller lived together in Paris, first as teacher and student, and later as lovers. Their mercurial relationship resulted in some of the most powerful work of each artist’s career and helped shape the course of modern art. Combining rare vintage photographs, paintings, sculpture and drawings, this exhibition tells the story of the artists’ brief but intense relationship in Paris, their lifelong friendship, and the unique nature of their creative partnership. It also offers a window into the maelstrom of artistic and social experimentation that animated Paris in the 1930s and gave inspiration to writers, poets, filmmakers, musicians and visual artists of all stripes.

“This exhibition is a microcosm of Surrealism, embodied by two people and their feelings for each other. Together, Man Ray and Lee Miller became the ultimate Surrealist object — two people who were inescapably drawn to each other, but could not make it work,” said Phillip Prodger, PEM Curator of Photography.

Despite the impact their relationship had on both artists, this will be the first exhibition ever organized that features Man Ray and Lee Miller together on equal terms. Lee Miller is regarded here as an artist and potent Surrealist force in her own right rather than a mere foil for Man Ray’s work. Historically, Miller has been described as Ray’s muse, but their love affair was in fact a key source of mutual and sustained inspiration which pushed the art of their time in a new direction.

The Provocateur
Man Ray was a leader in two pioneering Modern art movements, Surrealism and Dada, but was never deeply invested in either categorization. Although accomplished as an avant-garde photographer, he defied labels and thought of himself as a painter first, ultimately wed to no single medium. Man Ray’s camerawork marked a turning point in the integration of photography among other visual art forms. An artist with great clarity of intention, Ray combined incongruous objects, asking the viewer to make sense of the result. In tune with Duchamp, Man Ray was also a master of the Readymade, elevating ordinary objects as art. He channeled his agony over Lee Miller’s departure into a life of productive creativity, often lovingly and cleverly referring to her via coded motifs.

May 18, 2011
Is College Worth It? Pew’s Social and Demographic Trends Examines That Financially Fraught Question

Executive Summary

This report is based on findings from a pair of Pew Research Center surveys conducted this spring. One is a telephone survey taken among a nationally representative sample of 2,142 adults ages 18 and older. The other is an online survey, done in association with the Chronicle of Higher Education, among the presidents of 1,055 two-year and four-year private, public and for-profit colleges and universities. (See the our survey methodology for more information.)

Here is a summary of key findings from the full report:

Survey of the General Public

Cost and Value. A majority of Americans (57%) say the higher education system in the United States fails to provide students with good value for the money they and their families spend. An even larger majority (75%) says college is too expensive for most Americans to afford. At the same time, however, an overwhelming majority of college graduates (86%) say that college has been a good investment for them personally.

Monetary Payoff. Adults who graduated from a four-year college believe that, on average, they are earning $20,000 more a year as a result of having gotten that degree. Adults who did not attend college believe that, on average, they are earning $20,000 a year less as a result. These matched estimates by the public are very close to the median gap in annual earnings between a high school and college graduate as reported by the U.S. Census Bureau in 2010: $19,550. A more detailed Pew Research Center analysis (see Chapter 5, “The Monetary Value of a College Education,” in the full report for more information) shows that this gap varies by type of degree and field of study.

Student Loans. A record share of students are leaving college with a substantial debt burden, and among those who do, about half (48%) say that paying off that debt made it harder to pay other bills; a quarter say it has made it harder to buy a home (25%); and about a quarter say it has had an impact on their career choices (24%).

Why Not College? Nearly every parent surveyed (94%) says they expect their child to attend college, but even as college enrollments have reached record levels, most young adults in this country still do not attend a four-year college. The main barrier is financial. Among adults ages 18 to 34 who are not in school and do not have a bachelor’s degree, two-thirds say a major reason for not continuing their education is the need to support a family. Also, 57% say they would prefer to work and make money and 48% say they can’t afford to go to college.

May 18, 2011
On Argentina, Malbec and a Good-Value Argentinian Producer

by Sharon Kapnick

Argentina’s wines have been doing phenomenally well in the US. According to Nielsen market researchers, at a time when sales of wines from most countries have been shrinking, wines from Argentina have been exhibiting double-digit growth.

Most of this growth is due to Malbec, Argentina’s superstar, the darling red varietal of the moment. One of the qualities that endears Malbec to wine lovers is its food friendliness. But, of course, it boasts other important qualities too. As famed wine consultant Michel Rolland explained to Laura Catena, author of Vino Argentino and a member of the esteemed Bodega Catena Zapata family, “[Malbec] is a wine with personality, a wine that can have beautiful black fruit aromatics, complexity, sweet tannins, concentration … all that a great wine should have.”

Torrontes — dry, crisp, floral, fruity and aromatic — is Argentina’s signature white, which complements spicy food especially well. Americans, always interested in something new, are starting to become familiar with it.

Some familiar good-value producers include Trapiche, Norton and Terrazas de los Andes. But I recently discovered another Argentinian producer that offers many inexpensive good-value wines. Santa Julia, one of Argentina’s largest family-owned wineries, ships three main ranges to the US — Santa Julia [+] ($10)*, bottled in 12.5% lighter-weight glass; Santa Julia Organica ($11)*, and Santa Julia Reserva ($13)* — in addition to sparkling wines. The entire estate operates under sustainable agricultural practices, and half of the vineyards are certified organic. Santa Julia prefers to employ people rather than machines whenever possible. And all of its grapes are estate grown and handpicked.

I especially liked Santa Julia’s Brut Rosé ($13), made entirely of Pinot Noir grapes. With aromas and flavors of cherries and strawberries, it’s a soft, creamy wine that complements food very well. It can be served throughout a meal, and it’s good on its own too.

The Reserva Malbec 2009 is a rich, full-flavored wine, with plum, blackberry and black cherry aromas and flavors. The Malbec 2010 [+] is another smart choice. Both are ideal with grilled and barbecued meats.

Santa Julia’s Tardío, a combination of Torrontes (85%) and Viognier (15%), was Argentina’s first dessert wine. The 2008/2009 vintage, at only $13 (for 500 ml), is a great, inexpensive introduction to dessert wines. It’s one of the successes from the small experimental winery Santa Julia operates in its search for creative combinations and unlikely varietals that it hopes will be fruitful discoveries. Try Tardío with cheese and other dairy-based desserts, berry and stone fruit desserts or as dessert.

At these prices, you might explore Santa Julia’s other wines to make discoveries of your own.

*The prices quoted above are suggested retail. You’ll find them significantly lower at many outlets.

©2011 Sharon Kapnick for SeniorWomen.com

Two other articles to explore:
State of the Packaging Art: Educational Wine Labels Help Consumers Make Smart Choices and The Name on the Back of the Bottle: Wine Importers You Can Rely On

May 16, 2011