Each year, the Munskänkarna Wine Association in Sweden (probably the worlds’ biggest, with some 25,000 members) chooses a “Wine Village/Wine Region of the Year”. For 2020, Roussillon in southern France was recently elected. A good choice we think. Roussillon is often lumped together with Languedoc and that can sometimes be justified. But Roussillon has its […]
Now, wine producers in the Spanish region of Ribera del Duero can make white wine and call it DO Ribera del Duero. So far, this designation has been for red wines only. The whites account for around 3% of the production in the region and have until now been sold as Castilla y Leon IGP. […]
In October we have twice been in the Douro Valley. In this wonderfully beautiful region in northern Portugal, some of Portugal’s, even the world’s, most interesting wines are made. That they make both dry wines and port wines here makes a visit to the Douro even more exciting. The producers are very fond and proud […]
Seek out diversity, ditch the same-same and fame Diversity is what makes the wine world unique. Wine is in essence nothing but an agricultural product. For most of those who make wine, life as a wine farmer is not as glamorous as it is sometimes portrayed. What is unique is the incredible number of different […]
Seek out diversity, ditch the same-same and fame Diversity is what makes the wine world unique. Wine is in essence nothing but an agricultural product. For most of those who make wine, life as a wine farmer is not as glamorous as it is sometimes portrayed. What is unique is the incredible number of different […]
Can the solution to the problem of the dreaded fungal disease downy mildew (mildiou) be something as simple as oregano? It is a little early to answer yes to that question. But the experiments that two Swiss researchers are currently doing are interesting. They discovered that by spraying essential oil of oregano on chasselas grapes […]
New Zealand is through with being the new kid of the block. Which is totally natural. They have nothing to prove anymore. Their wines (at least many of them) are world-class and as interesting as they come. All this has happened very rapidly in the last 30-40 years. Of course, there are still things to […]
Vinomed is the name of a new, export-oriented wine fair in Montpellier in southern France. It takes place for the first time this year for two days, April 27 and 28, 2020. The focus of Vinomed is the wines from the Languedoc-Roussillon even if the show also includes some other regions in “Occitanie”, like e.g. […]
Local grape varieties can be a strong point for wine countries. The wine enthusiast is more and more looking for the unusual and the unknown. Moldova, in the easternmost part of Europe, is in many ways a new wine country despite having many centuries of wine history. To make its voice heard in a competitive […]
Is the new trend low-alcohol wines? This is what many producers believe in New Zealand. And a great deal of effort is now made to produce sauvignon blanc wines with alcohol contents of around 10%. Concours Mondial du Sauvignon (which is organised by the big Concours Mondial de Bruxelles) reports on the latest research. The […]
“With knowledge and modern technology you can get an elephant to dance ballet”. The evening’s tasting offered a lot of new insights, nuances and wonderful metaphors. Among other things, the link between bananas and wine. A trip from two to 30 hectares over five generations in Monforte d’Alba. The last two generations sat at our […]
Sometimes people at wine tastings try and impress with opinions like “this wine tastes as if it has been in an egg-shaped concrete tank”, “this must have been kept in a stainless steel tank”, “you used old oak barrels for this, didn’t you?” and similar things. If you’ve been to a few wine tastings I […]
Only 2% of the world’s wines are aged in oak barrels. (Ed.: Only?) But for these 2% quite a few barrels are needed. France produced 670,000 barrels in 2018, an increase of 2%. 68% of the barrels went on export. The rest stayed in the French wine regions where demand is increasing, in part due […]
The Cote Chalonnaise is what you could call a “low-key” wine region. There are no famous names. No exorbitantly priced wines (as opposed to other parts of Burgundy). No famous cities. It’s just a normal wine region. This book is exactly a reflection of that. It is a low-key wine book. Four Seasons in Cote […]
The wine world is really not a stronghold of equality. The average export price of a grand cru (red & white) from Burgundy in 2018 was 87 euros per bottle. The red ones are more prestigious and averaged 101 euros per bottle. The whites were “only” at 56 euros. These are prices that most other […]
If you want a champagne that is something special and with extra character it is a good idea to leave the big and famous brands and instead to looking for “grower’s champagnes”. Grower champagne is made by people who own their vineyards and make the wine. The famous “house” champagnes, on the contrary, mainly make […]
One of the largest collections of corkscrews in the world can be found at a must-visit winery in northern Greece. At the Gerovassiliou winery of course! During my journeys of discovering wineries and wines, I was very excited to visit the Gerovassiliou winery. It is very easy to reach via a 20-minute drive from the […]
The wine festival for wine “made in Sweden” in Skepparp My wife and I usually go down to Skåne, Scanie, the very south of Sweden, at least once a year to visit grandchildren and other relatives. When we planned the trip for the summer of 2019, I noticed that while we were in Skillinge in […]
The designation Cru Bourgeois for chateaux has existed in Médoc for many years. Various attempts to rank them, roughly in the style of the 1855 classification, have been made since the 1930s. More or less successful. It was previously a (semi-official) classification but is currently a private label. But from 2020, a serious attempt will […]
A true story Systembolaget, the Swedish wine and spirits monopoly, usually boasts its wide range of products, but as is well known, the majority of all their listed products, especially quality wines, are the result of the work of private importers. Of the approximately 18,000 items the company offers, only about 2,500 are in the […]
There is no reason to be alarmed even though the world’s production of wine fell with 10% in 2019. The global total of wine is still good, estimated to be 263 million hectolitres. It is a big decline compared to 2018 but on the other hand, it is much more than 2017. In fact, global […]
Should we lament that the taste of wines have changed? That the wines we are accustomed to drinking will eventually change is probably inevitable in the wake of climate change. Some regions may need to change the grape variety, the heat may cause the acidity to drop, etc. This is especially a problem for the […]
Should we lament that the taste of wines have changed? That the wines we are accustomed to drinking will eventually change is probably inevitable in the wake of climate change. Some regions may need to change the grape variety, the heat may cause the acidity to drop, etc. This is especially a problem for the […]
Organic wines are becoming more and more popular with French wine consumers. 48% of them would like to see a larger range of organic wines in the stores where they normally buy wine. The fact that the wine is organic is a buying argument for 50% of the young and 38% of the older consumers. […]
There seem to be no limits to the creativity of winemakers. Diemersdal Estate in Durbanhill in South Africa has recently launched its third vintage of its Sauvignon Blanc Winter Ferment. For this wine, the grapes are harvested in February. The grapes are pressed and the juice gets 3 days of skin contact. However, the fermentation […]
Walla Walla, a well-known wine region in Washington State, was believed to be exempt from the vine louse (phylloxera vastatrix). Therefore, the recent discovery of the louse that is so dangerous to the vines dealt a heavy a blow to the wine producers. All of Washington, and especially Walla Walla, has the kind of sandy […]
South Africa’s vine surface has declined since 2009 when it was just over 102,000 hectares to today’s 93,000 hectares (table grapes not included). However, wine’s contribution to the country’s GDP has steadily increased during these years. The wine industry is important for the economy, not least in the Western Cape (around Cape Town), where most […]
A vertical tasting from 1998 to 2017 The headline might perhaps raise a few hackles. At the top of the pyramid there is, or at least should be, indisputably the most nuances, opulence and structure, in the most expensive bottle. One can, of course, not entirely deny this although I guess many of us might […]
Wine producers are facing difficult choices today. Not least in what way they should manage the vineyard. Conventional, sustainable, organic or biodynamic? They have a variety of pesticides to choose from. More if they grow conventionally, less if they are organic. However, there are very different opinions about how dangerous these products are (e.g. glyphosate) […]
A wine’s sulphur content is increasingly scrutinized. Sulphur dioxide is added to the wine as an antioxidant and stabiliser. But its use has diminished, rather drastically I think, in recent decades, in part thanks to better winemaking technology and knowledge. Sometimes you see “no added sulphur” on a label. But you rarely see a wine […]
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