BKWine Blog
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 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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Burgundy winemakers have been fighting the elements this year. Spring frosts, hail, millerandage during flowering and – perhaps most damaging – lack of water. But when the harvest started on August 31 for the crémant wines, the spirits were high. In prestigious Côte d’Or, picking started around 13 September and continued for 10 days in […]
The harvest in Champagne was in full swing when we kicked off our autumn wine tour season with Champagne on September 11. And we mostly saw happy faces. Alexandre Penet at Champagne Penet-Chardonnet in Verzy looked very pleased when he talked about his healthy-looking grapes. Charles Philipponnat at the eponymous small prestige house in Mareuil-sur-Aÿ […]
“China started making good wines in 2015,” Lens Moser, from Austria, said when I met him a few days ago in Yinchuan, in the Gobi desert, in China. He thinks that Ningxia, the autonomous region where this is located, with its almost 40,000 ha of vineyards, is perhaps the most promising region and that is […]
Congratulations! On September 25, 2019 it is 200 years since the first vine was planted in New Zealand. An anniversary well worthy of a celebration, don’t you think? It was the Reverend Samuel Marsden, Chaplain to New South Wales, Australia, who on this day in 1819 planted vines in Stone Store in Kerikeri in the […]
David Hohnen is a renowned winemaker. He first founded Cape Mentelle Vineyards in Margaret River in his native Australia. He then moved to New Zealand and founded Cloudy Bay in Marlborough. The year was 1986. It was a stroke of luck (probably not only luck). Cloudy Bay is today one of the most famous (the […]
The fact that you make wine in Sweden often surprises foreigners. This is understandable. It is not an obvious wine country. David Morrison, in his blog The Wine Gourd, has taken a closer look at the wine “industry” in Sweden. David is originally from Australia but lives in Sweden. He’s made a good summary of […]
How to best prepare for climate change is a major topic of discussion at vineyards around the world. Some people talk about changing grape varieties, to ones that can better withstand heat and drought. But some are very attached to their grapes. The University of California has therefore started an interesting research project. The idea […]
On October 5 and 6 this year, the wine is the big star in Chisinau, the capital of Moldova. It’s time for the annual National Wine Day. This is actually the eighteenth time this event is being held in Chisinau. It has grown in size of course. It is now an eagerly awaited opportunity for […]
There is a new report on New Zealand’s vineyards and grapes. The area has increased by 2% and the country now has 38,680 hectares (~a third of Bordeaux) of which 30,921 hectares are white grapes and 7,758 hectares are red grapes. Sauvignon blanc is still the most important grape with 26,850 hectares, which is 69% […]
Rioja is experiencing something of a renaissance right now. To some extent, it is thanks to young, dynamic producers who think it is time to refresh Rioja’s image in the world. Therefore, we have recently seen several changes introduced. Many producers are now keener to put on the label the geographical location of the vineyard […]
It can be tricky to read statistics on viticulture in different countries. It is important to know whether the statistics apply to both grapes grown for wine production and for eating. The world today has 7.4 million hectares of grapes. Five countries account for 50% of the surface: Spain (13%), China (12%), France (11%), Italy […]
Natural wine is here to stay. And although the EU has said that there will be no official rules for this category, it does not prevent private groups from setting up their own. As, for example, Vinnatur in Italy (www.vinnatur.org) has done. Now Sébastien David, winemaker in Saint-Nicolas-de-Bourgueil in the Loire Valley, is trying to […]
We congratulate Fredholms Vingård! It is not often we have the opportunity to write about a Swedish wine winning medals internationally… This small winery in the south of Sweden has once again obtained medals in an international wine competition. Elsa, a white wine made from the grape solaris, received a gold medal and the red […]
We’ve all seen them. (Or perhaps not.) The egg-shaped tanks in concrete or in terracotta. A few years ago, they were a sensation, now it feels like every other winemaker is investing in at least one. But does the shape and material of the fermentation tank really play a role in the character of the […]
It is difficult to convey a sense of what it is like to travel in a wine district. It is just as difficult to convey a sense of what you may experience when reading a book. But at least we want to try. Earlier this year, our tenth book was published, a new book on […]
Yes, turruntés, not torrontes. Rioja is best known for its red wines. But that is no reason to ignore the whites. You can find them in different styles. They can be seriously full-bodied wines with lots of mouthfeel or fresh and floral everyday wines. To put white wine in oak barrels is an old tradition […]
The discussion about the future of glyphosate continues. It is very contested if glyphosate is dangerous or not at all dangerous (when properly used). In 2022, it will again be on the EU agenda, until then it is allowed. But France (at least the government, but not all farmers) wants to ban glyphosate before that. […]
We came to New Zealand in March earlier this year, just when the 2019 harvest was about to begin. We saw lots of fine grape bunches and we had the feeling that it would be a good harvest, a great vintage. And it was. In fact, 2019 is an exceptional vintage, in all regions, from […]
No summer without rosé wines? Well. Anyway, people will drink a lot of rosé wine this summer, worldwide. World rosé consumption increased by 32% between 2002 and 2018. France drinks the most. One-third of all rosé wines made in the world is drunk in France (don’t forget there’s a lot of tourists in France). France […]
Hail storms can be violent and the 20-minute storm that affected Crozes-Hermitage and part of Saint Joseph on June 15 was exceptionally violent. Some winegrowers saw their future harvest reduced by at least 50%. The hail storm then continued to Savoie and into Switzerland where the damaged continued. The hailstones were of a size that […]
Champagne’s largest cooperative Nicolas Feuillatte is getting even bigger. Feuillatte recently bought the champagne brand Henri Abelé, which, since 1985, has been owned by the huge Spanish cava producer Freixenet. Henri Abelé sells around 300,000 bottles annually. The house has beautiful cellars in Reims. It does not own any vineyards. Instead, it has long-term contracts […]
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