BKWine Blog
The French Coopers’ Association (Fédération des Tonneliers de France) recently held its annual meeting in Napa Valley, California. It was the first time they gathered outside France. That the meeting took place in Napa is not a coincidence. It was the Californian wine industry that gave new life to the French cooperage (barrel making) industry […]
A Prosecco debate rages in both Australia and New Zealand. The big question is whether Prosecco should be considered as being a grape variety or a geographical origin. Up until 2009, Prosecco was the name of the grape with which the sparkling wine Prosecco was produced in north-eastern Italy. But then the Italians changed the […]
Paris’ first major professional wine fair, Wine Paris, took place on 11-13 February. Many consider it about time that the French capital hosts a large wine fair. Wine Paris is a merger of Wine Vision and Vinisud. Wine Vision is a fair that made its debut in Paris in February 2018 with exhibitors from France’s […]
We will of course have a wine tour to Champagne this fall. If you are a champagne enthusiast then you want to go there sooner or later. There are many ways to do that. Travel on your own. Go with some tour operator, BKWine or someone else. And other options. Everything will be different, you […]
Distell is South Africa’s largest wine producer. With brands such as Alto, Nederburg, Durbanville Hills, Plaisir de Merle, Pongrácz, Fleur du Cap, Allesverloren, Zonnebloem, Two Oceans, Drostdy-Hof and others, the company accounts for a not insignificant part of the entire South African wine production. Now all the premium wines of Distell will be managed separately. […]
The mythical Chilean port city of Valparaiso is a fascinating city in many ways, not least thanks to the artistic street art that gives the colourful city even more colour. Now the wine is also represented. In November, a group of talented street artist were asked by some Chilean wine producers to create large murals […]
Today, an organic wine farmer who wants to plant new vines can buy the same vines from the nursery as a conventional wine farmer. But this will change. New rules, although not until 2035, will require organic wine producers to buy organic certified plants. The nurseries are already preparing. And the authorities are busy writing […]
For the lover of statistics and/or the lover of Burgundy wines, we have found a handy and updated summary of all relevant figures concerning the wines of Burgundy, from Chablis to Mâconnais (Beaujolais not included). Burgundy has 84 appellations, which is 23% of all France’s wine appellations. Grapes are grown on almost 30,000 hectares. 50% […]
VDP stands for Verband Deutscher Prädikatsweinguter and is a highly respected association of around 200 German top producers with their own set of rules for wine growing and wine making. VDP recently launched a new category of German high-quality Sekt. This new category, VDP Sekt, can, like the still VDP wines, be made in four […]
For 100 years, the magazine Wines and Vines (formerly called California Grape Grower) has written about Californian wine news. To launch a wine magazine in the United States in 1919, just a few months before the prohibition started in January 1920, may not seem as the smartest of ideas. On the other hand, nobody thought […]
Cognac has a new category: XXO. In 2017 Hennessy launched a prestigious Cognac which they named XXO. But the authorities were not happy about it as this category of Cognac didn’t exist. Thus, the sale of this particular Cognac was suspended. But Hennessy did not give up and with the help of luxury conglomerate LVMH, […]
A few years ago, we wrote in the Brief about the South African wine producer KWV who had made a wine called Earth’s Essence without added sulphur. Instead, they had used the rooibos plant, known for its antioxidant properties. Continued research in South Africa has now shown that the South African tea plant honeybush also […]
There is no end to the success of rosé wines in Provence. Producers and wine merchants are already thinking of next summer. Many producers in Provence will have sold their vintage 2018 before Christmas. And prices for Cote de Provence rosé continue to rise. The wholesale purchase price of 350 euros per hectolitre – bulk […]
Four new white grape varieties have just been approved for use in Austrian Qualitätswein (quality wine) Three of these are so-called PIWIs, which is fungal resistant crossings. PIWI is a German abbreviation for Pilzwiderstandsfähig (literally fungus resistant). The fourth grape is Goldmuskateller, a regular Vitis vinifera that also has a good resistance to rot. The […]
The family-owned Baron cooperage will plant as many oak trees as the number of barrels they produce each year, starting this year, which is 12,000 (barrels and trees). From one tree you can make more than one barrel, but not many more. The “waste” is around 80% which of course can be used for other […]
Demand for organic wine will continue to increase in France, SudVinBio announced after looking at developments in recent years and on future trends. The study has been made as a prelude to the organic wine fair Millésime Bio, which takes place in Montpellier in late January. Organic wine sales have grown annually by 16.8% by […]
The big trade fair Vinitech 2018 took place in Bordeaux in November. Every year Vinitech presents new and innovative equipment for winegrowing and winemaking. This year, for example, a biodynamic oak barrel drew attention. It is manufactured by Tonnellerie Sylvan and is made with trees that have been cut down at specific dates according to […]
In fierce competition (we guess), Cigalus 2016 from Gérard Bertrand in Languedoc had the honour of being selected as the red wine served during the Nobel dinner in Stockholm on December 10th. We have been particularly fond of Languedoc wines for a long time, so we are happy that this amazing region was chosen for […]
A European wine that is organic is easy to identify. You just look for the green EU leaf. If it does not have the leaf it is not organic. But now there are also more and more “sustainability” labels on the bottles in France. However, “sustainable” is different from “organic”. Organics is mainly about the […]
Alsace is the number one biodynamic wine region in Europe. 880 hectares are certified biodynamic. This means that an impressive 5.6% of all Alsace vineyards are biodynamic, a record in Europe. Around 70 growers are certified either with the international certification association Demeter or the French association Biodyvin. All of these producers are also organically […]
France in general did a good harvest in 2018, both in volume and in quality. The Ministry of Agriculture has just published figures for the different regions. Total production was 46.6 million hectolitres, which is 26% higher than 2017, a year affected by both frost and drought that dramatically reduced the size of the harvest. […]
Portugal is a wonderful wine country in many ways. Not least because it is unrelentingly focusing on Iberian grape varieties. The only French grape that is included in the top-10 list is Syrah, and it is in the 10th place. There is an immense variety of grapes. The 10 most grown only account for 55% […]
Older vines give more character to the wine, says Rosa Kruger, a well-known South African viticulturist. She is behind a project called South Africa’s Old Vines Project, which aims at finding old vineyards, vineyards that have often been abandoned. The idea with the project is to give a new life to these old vines. A […]
When some people think about machine harvesting, they often imagine big monsters that brutalize the vineyard. It is true that harvesting machines are often big machines, but they can be quite gentle to both grapes and vines. And soon there will be on the market a tiny harvesting machine, suitable for the small producer and […]
The European Commission has now voted on the future of copper in European agriculture. On November 27, the decision was made to lower the limit to 4 kilograms of copper per year and per hectare counted as an average over a 7-year period (in other words, 28 kg in 7 years). This 4 kilos average […]
Star Wine List is a digital guide to wine bars and wine restaurants in different cities. Currently, the guide covers Stockholm, Gothenburg, Uppsala and several other locations in Sweden as well as Oslo, Toronto and London. And more cities are coming soon. Krister Bengtsson is the man behind this excellent tool. Read about great restaurants […]
We have, of course, also to give you some suggestions of what must be the perfect Christmas presents for those who like food and wine and travel, now that Christmas is approaching fast. We have two different suggestions for you. The really, really nice Christmas gift is of course a wine tour to one of […]
Henkell Trocken is one of the world’s most famous sparkling wines. The German company Henkell & Co is also the largest producer in the world of sparkling wines since the purchase of Spanish Freixenet in March 2018. Henkell now accounts for 8% of the world market for bubbles and is aiming for 10%. In addition […]
It has been a difficult year for many wine producers. The difficult fungal disease downy mildew has been widely present in Europe’s southern wine regions, where many producers have lost part of their harvest. The copious rains early in the season brought on the nasty fungus. However, the world production of wine in 2018 is […]
Wine producers should not deceive consumers when they promote their wines. This story is about Château de Reignac in Entre-deux-Mers. This chateau was bought in the 1990s by Yves Vatelot. His ambition from the very beginning was to make a high-quality Bordeaux. The natural conditions are there. In fact, he thinks that his soil is […]
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