The Argentinian wine farmers really needed this vintage. After small quantities due to severe weather conditions in 2016 and 2017, 2018 is a very good year both for quality and for quantity. The quantity is up 30% from last year. The growing season offered perfect weather. Not so much rain, hot days and cool nights, […]
Château Lestrille is a family-run chateau in Entre-deux-Mers, the region between the Garonne and Dordogne rivers. This is a region that most people only pass through going from Bordeaux to Saint Emilion. But if you stop you will discover a lot of good wine producers. One of our favourites here is Lestrille, located in the […]
Autumn 2018 Champagne, September 26-30 Bordeaux, October 10-14 Douro Valley in Portugal, October 17-21 South Africa, November 9-19 Winter 2019 Chile-Argentina, January 20 – February 4, 2019 South Africa, February 16-24, 2019 New Zealand, March 11-26, 2019 For more information please contact us on email or on phone (we’re on French time), or go to […]
The coastal region of Toscana, called Maremma, is beautiful but not as well known for its wines as Chianti or Montalcino. But there are, in fact, a number of famous wines. In Bolgheri, Sassicaia started the Super Tuscan trend in the 1970s, a trend that totally changed the Tuscan wine industry. A bit further south […]
A purchase of a special wine from the cellar of a special house with special owners, a story told by BKWine Magazine guest writer, as well as exclusive wine expert at Vins Extraordinaires, Stuart George. Faringdon House is a 14,510 square feet house in Faringdon, Oxfordshire, England. The house is Grade I-listed, protected as a […]
Sometimes people as “Do you make wine in Sweden?” A fair question. The climate is obviously not ideal. The answer is “Yes.” I believe there is well less than 100 hectares in total, but quite a few producers. If you happen to be in the south of Sweden on July 27-28 you have a unique […]
A lot of champagnes are drunk at occasions when all that matters are the bubbles. But if you open a high quality champagne with a strong character it deserves more attention. It should actually be drunk as a “normal” wine. And why not with food? When you meet Alexandre Penet at Champagne Penet-Chardonnet in Verzy […]
Taste is by definition subjective, but that should not hinder us from using a more objective approach when discussing wine and winnings. What we tend to like varies. Some prefer to drink wine with a lot of maturation tones, others to drink wine young. And in addition, there is a whole spectrum of taste preferences […]
During our spring wine tours we have visited the small and interesting Champagne house Philipponnat. On our visit in early May we saw people working in their prestigious vineyard Clos des Goisses with knapsack sprayers on their backs. Obviously they were doing some kind of treatment. It turned out to be weed control with a […]
IWSR, an English company specializing in market research in the beverage industry, has published figures for global alcohol and wine consumption in 2017. Total alcohol consumption increased very modestly by 0.01%, but as it decreased in 2016, this small increase is still positive for the industry. It was mainly wine and cider that accounted for […]
Unusual grapes can pop-up when you least expect it. On one of our tours in Chablis in the spring, a little-known grape called sacy made an appearance during the tasting of Domaine Frédéric and Céline Gueguen. Of course, this was not a Chablis. Some Chablis producers, including Domaine Gueguen, also make wine outside the Chablis […]
To taste blind or not blind, that is the question. The answer is simple! Is it better to taste wines blind, semi-blind or open? That question has popped up several times lately. In recent months, I have been to wine tastings, wine seminars and in the jury of wine competitions, where that question has been […]
To taste blind or not blind, that is the question. The answer is simple! Is it better to taste wines blind, semi-blind or open? That question has popped up several times lately. In recent months, I have been to wine tastings, wine seminars and in the jury of wine competitions, where that question has been […]
Champagne producers would like to make us believe that Prosecco’s huge successes does not affect champagne. That champagne and prosecco play in different leagues. It is possible, but hard to believe 100%. At least Prosecco has now succeeded with the feat of entering the French high speed TGV train bistro wagons. You can now buy […]
Wine production conditions have hardly been ideal in recent decades, but now that there is light at the end of the tunnel, at least one producer has decided to blow life in the dormant wine industry in Zimbabwe. Jonathan Passaportis, owner of Winelands of Bushman Rock, the almost only surviving vineyard, believes in Zimbabwe’s future […]
IGP Ile de France is close to an agreement with Champagne. IGP Ile-de-France is a new IGP since 2017. Ile-de-France is the region around Paris and a (very small) part of the vineyards is actually in Paris suburbs. With new plantations in progress, the IGP may soon be around 70 hectares. But the new IGP […]
More and more wine bottles are sealed with screwcap, according to a survey. The screwcap has increased its market share in the world by 13.2% from 2012. Today it has 29.6% of the world market. In total, 30 billion bottles are sold annually in the world, of which 9 billion are closed with a screwcap. […]
The Petra winery in Val di Cornia along the Tuscan coast is making a fresh start. Today, they focus more on elegance than power. Petra presented their new wines at the end of March in Milan. BKWine Magazine´s Åsa Johansson attended the tasting. “We aim for brighter, fresher wines that better reflect our terroir,” says […]
When we visited Château Pichon-Baron, grand cru classé in Pauillac, recently we saw a small canister in the vineyard that we have never seen before. This canister is called CheckMate Puffer and is a new way of distribute pheromones that protect against the grape worm with the method with the curious name “sexual confusion”. The […]
Gennaro Nasti left Naples for Paris, where in 2016 he opened Bijou, luxury pizzas in designer decorated restaurant. To give you an idea, Bijou was voted Pizzeria of the year in 2017 by the Italian magazine Gambero Rosso. Gennaro is an expert in fermentations, and his pizza doughs are famous for being perfect. He continues […]
Sulphur is something that is naturally present in our environment and it is a product that is allowed for all wine producers – organic as well as conventional – both to combat fungal diseases in the vineyard and as an antioxidant in the finished wine. However, there is a certain demand from organic producers for […]
It will hardly surprise anyone that Chardonnay and Cabernet are (still) the most popular grape varieties in the USA. The exiting newcomer on the podium is Pinot Noir that is now solidly in third place. This is not least due to the fabulous success it has had in Oregon. When it comes to which grapes […]
A very violent hailstorm with huge hailstones hit Bordeaux on May 26th. It is as yet unclear how many hectares of vineyards have been affected, but probably at least a few thousand in southern Médoc, Bourg, Blaye and in Charente, the Cognac region. Vines that would have been in bloom the following week have now […]
Chile is a very exciting wine country today, really worth visiting. When you come to Chile you will surely also come to Santa Cruz. Santa Cruz is a small town in the Colchagua Valley in Chile. It has around 40 000 inhabitants. It is the almost inevitable base-camp to explore the famous Colchagua Valley, and, […]
Armenia, Georgia, Macedonia and Moldova all make wine but they are completely unknown as wine countries to most wine consumers. They now work together to market their wines. The wine industries in the four countries have gained momentum in recent years, and now they want to develop both their exports and their tourism. Georgia is […]
The impossible and absurd objectivity No, it is impossible to judge wine after a neutral and objective quality scale. But first… Is it important for the wine consumer if a wine has a “medal” in a wine competition? Some think it’s irrelevant. Another point of view that we often hear is “a medal! Then at […]
The impossible and absurd objectivity No, it is impossible to judge wine after a neutral and objective quality scale. But first… Is it important for the wine consumer if a wine has a “medal” in a wine competition? Some think it’s irrelevant. Another point of view that we often hear is “a medal! Then at […]
Wine is found in all possible price ranges. One is as often amazed at how inexpensive wines can be as at how expensive wines can be. At what prices do different wine countries sell their wines in the export market? We recently saw some interesting statistics for 2017 that compare export prices for the most […]
Birgit Braunstein lives in the village of Purbach in Austria, located in the Burgenland region. Her family has a long tradition of growing grapes and making wine. The tradition goes back to the 17th century, but Birgit’s first vintage under her own name saw the light only in 1996. Since 2000, the farming has been […]
OIV, the International Organization for Vine and Wine, recently presented the figures for the wine production in the world in 2017. The world has now 7.6 million hectares of vines; this figure includes table grapes and raisins. The production of wine in 2017 was 250 million hectolitres. This volume is historically low due to the […]
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