On my bedside table is a brick-size book with the title “Wine & Spirits – From Politics to Market” (”Vin & Sprit – Från Politik till Marknad”). On almost 450 pages, the author Hans De Geer describes Swedish alcohol policy between 1917 and 2008. Got a tip from Per Karlsson to read this and it […]
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) […]
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. […]
Despite persistent attempts by France to bring about a ban, it is still permissible for Californian winemakers, under certain circumstances, to call their sparkling wine “California Champagne” (but not within the EU of course!). At the French Trade Minister’s visit to Napa Valley earlier in June, however, the wine growers there made it clear to […]
The copper doses are a constant headache for organic growers. The French authority ANSES (a food and health authority) and the European Commission want to reduce the permitted level from 6 kilogram per hectare and year to 4 kilo The organic growers say that they are not able to cope with such a reduction. On […]
France makes serious (?) attempts to cut down its large state and municipal administration. One step has been to merge a number of regions. This merger took effect on January 1st, 2016. France had previously 22 regions. These have now, after many heated discussions, merged into 13. And now the merged regions are supposed to […]
A few years back China became Bordeaux’s biggest export market. Over a few years the Chinese market grew from almost nothing to become the market that Bordeaux could not live without. How this happened is the subject of a new book, Thirsty Dragon, China’s Lust for Bordeaux and the Threat to the World’s Best Wines, […]
Wine lovers often tend to simply ignore wine co-operatives or even look down at them as sources of not so good wine. This is a mistake. It is true that many co-operatives are not tuned for making small batches of high quality wine. And even worse that wine co-operatives are often very poor at marketing. […]
The biggest IGP appellation in France, the IGP Pays d’Oc, has allied itself with the two largest European manufacturers of concentrated grape must. Together they will fight against chaptalization and the unbalanced competition the they believe exist between the wine producers that are allowed to chaptalize (adding sugar) and the wine regions that instead add […]
We have in recent years seen more and more champagnes made by small producers who own their own vineyards. But this trend seems to have been a little bit interrupted lately. Between 2008 and 2014 sales of grapes to the big Champagne houses increased with the equivalent of 2644 hectares. The association for young growers […]
This year we congratulate the INAO which was founded in 1935, 80 years ago. Then it was called Institut national des appellations d’origine. Nowadays the name has changed to the Institut national de l’origine et de la qualité. But fortunately they kept the handy abbreviation. INAO is a public body working under the French Ministry […]
If by any chance you thought it was easy to be a politician, I can tell you that it is not. Alain Juppé, mayor for many years in Bordeaux and also a presumptive presidential nominee in 2017, angered feelings in Champagne when he promised Bordeaux producers to serve Crémant de Bordeaux at official events. The […]
There is a vicious power game going on behind the beautiful chateaux façades of Bordeaux. At least according to Isabelle Saporta, a French journalist who has written an intriguing book about this particular subject. Among the most famous and prestigious chateaux, vino business is deadly serious and, just as in love and war, all methods […]
We recently wrote about the Swedish State monopoly Systembolaget’s Code of Conduct for “ethical” wines. We were, however, not totally correct when we said that “Systembolaget […] adopted a few years back a so-called code of conduct. This means that they demand that wines purchased from risk countries come from producers who comply with certain […]
Are there any differences in wines made by female winemakers and male winemaker? Do women make different wines? Maybe that was the hypothesis, or maybe it was just a (good) excuse to invite a number of talented female winemaker to a work-shop on the International Women’s Day. BKWine’s Anette Zellen Soderstrom investigates and reports on […]
The annual press conference of CIVB, Conseil Interprofessionnel du Vin de Bordeaux (the Bordeaux producers’ joint organisation for development, control, lobbying and political actions), with Bernard Farges, president, and Allan Sichel, vice-président and president of Fédération des Négociants, two of the most influential persons on the Bordeaux wine scene currently, took place yesterday in Paris. […]
The planting rights in the EU were supposed to disappear. The decision was taken. And then it would have been possible for wine growers to plant more grapes if they thought they could sell more wine. The end of the planting rights would give the slow moving European wine industry a dynamic injection. But in […]
I wish this heading would be about Sweden but it is not. It is about Pennsylvania where a new law was almost passed that would abolish the existing monopoly on alcohol (wine, beer spirits) sales in the US state: Privatization Is Political Victim in Pennsylvania. Apparently it is likely that the law will instead be […]
Bringing it all together: conclusions on the world wine industry situation 2000-20012 Europe is slowly losing its dominant position both as a vine grower, wine maker and consumer. The New World is gaining share. The over-supply of wine that existed some years back has disappeared and we may be heading for a wine “shortage”. More […]
Global wine consumption: who drinks the most wine? Global wine consumption was stable in 2012 at 243 Mhl. Since 2000 wine consumption has increased somewhat, up 8%. After a peak at 255 Mhl in 2007 it went down but with the stable figure for 2012 the downward trend seems to be stopped. The European countries, […]
Global wine production down in 2012, Europe declining, most others growing. Is Europe strangling its wine sector? Global wine production decreased 6% in 2012 to 252 million hectolitres. This was partially due to a very small harvest in Europe but also a longer term trend. France, Italy and Spain are still the biggest producers. But […]
How Systembolaget subsidises luxury wines From time to time a few bottles of Romanée Conti, Domaine de la Romanée Conti (DRC), arrive in Sweden. This Thursday Systembolaget will launch this wine in a “new” vintage (2010). There will be in total four bottles available of Romanee Conti in Systembolaget’s “web launch” (wines only sold on […]
10 or 12 producers in Alsace recently formed a group called Groupe Transverse Alsace 2015. The group believes that the wine industry in Alsace needs to be reformed. The members are well known producers such as Jean-Michel Deiss, Paul Blanck, Jean-Pierre Frick, Marc Tempe, Jean-Claude Rieflé and others. Alsace is an old-fashioned wine region, they […]
The usual infighting between French appellations… Renaming the French table wines to Vin de France was an ingenious move. They were formerly called vin de table, wines without geographical origin. “France” is a brand name that goes down well in most countries and big wine firms with a flair for marketing have been quick to […]
Americans must learn to respect names of origin. The Champagne Bureau USA has tried before to teach them and now it is trying again. A new advertising campaign has just been launched in the United States. The idea behind the campaign is to show Americans that it is wrong to call American bubble Champagne. To […]
“Planting rights” is an archaic system that limits the rights to plant new vines and protects the incumbent wine producers from competition. In this article Per Karlsson explains why it is bad for wine consumers and also bad for the long term health of the wine industry as a whole. My primary interest in wine […]
A new kind of insurance for the wine producer: “The individual supplementary volume” Many things can happen in a vineyard. Weather problems are frequent. Diseases can reduce quantity and destroy quality. A small harvest could be disastrous for the producer. On the other hand, the change of character in a wine according to the specificities […]
After much anguish and agony the new classification in Saint Emilionhas been unveiled. But will it stick? This time? It was already overturned four times – or was it seven? – in courts and in parliament in earlier versions. Pierre Carle at Chateau Croque Michotte says it is illegal and invalid. He points to a […]
Illegal and invalid classification, says Chateau Croque Michotte It seems we have not seen the end of the debate around the new Saint Emilion classification (read our story). It was probably not very far from a classification that everyone could be happy with and not complain about. (Almost) no-one was downgraded. Lots of chateaux were […]
The Systembolaget alcohol monopoly in Sweden has been given green light by the government to start a trial with home delivery of alcohol. There has been an intense debate in Swedish political circles on this issue for some time; not even the government coalition parties have been in agreement. Some say it would be a […]
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