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The St Emilion circus continues…

>> Thursday, August 28, 2008

050527-204-0436Well, you cannot call it much else but a circus… At the beginning of July a court decided that the ‘new’ Saint Emilion classification should be annulled. This was the third court to deal with the issue and was thought to be the final word. Not so. The French Senate has now decided that those chateaux that were classified in the previous classification will be allowed to use that classification “until such time as a new classification has been established”. Initially this is valid for the vintages 2006 to 2009. It is part of a package called “the law for the modernisation of the economy”. Believe it if you will. Perhaps they should care a bit more about the consumers instead of internal jockeying and questionable prestige labels. winealley.com


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UK retail chain Oddbins sold. Again

>> Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Oddbins used to be a leading British retail chain known for a good wine selection and unusual shops. A few years ago it was sold, following a period of difficulty due to the tightening of the UK retail scene, to the French company Castel, itself one of France’s biggest wine producers. However, Castel have struggled to develop Oddbins and make it profitable. In a surprising move Oddbins has now been sold to Ex Cellars, an English company with currently only two wine shops. wine-business-international.com and winealley.com


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Pernod Ricard to sell wine assets?

>> Tuesday, August 26, 2008

According to a report in the Financial Times, Pernod Ricard plans to sell large portions of its wine portfolio in a streamlining of its brands following its acquisition of the Swedish wine and spirits company V&S Vin & Sprit (including the Absolut vodka brand). Also the very long standing and traditional own-label cognac called Grönstedts is expected to be sold. However, analysts expect that PR will keep its Australian wine brand Jacobs Creek. Financial Times and Vitisphere.com


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French government launches unsuccessful anti-alcohol campaign

>> Monday, August 25, 2008

The French government has launched a campaign targeting youngsters that wants to discourage young people from drinking. According to reports in Decanter, the reactions from youngsters seem to indicate that the campaign has had questionable success. They report reactions as ranging from ‘I have not seen it and I don’t care’ to ‘I have seen it and I don’t care'. The video shows a beach party that as the evening progresses degenerates into violence, rape, drowning and vomiting… Watch it here.


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Chateau Montelena in California to be sold to a Frenchman

Michel Reybier already owns the famous Chateau Cos d’Estournel in Bordeaux. Now he is extending is chateau collection with Chateau Montelena in California’s Napa Valley. The vineyard covers some 80 hectares and is perhaps best know for having produced one of the American wines that were part of the “Judgement of Paris” tasting that took place in 1976 and where the two American wines came in front of many famous French wines. The price of the transaction is not known but is rumoured to be in excess of $100 million. pressdemocrat.com and SFGate.com and Vitisphere.com


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The world’s oldest Veuve Clicquot

When Chris James bought the Torosay castle on the Scottish isle of Mull it came with the furniture. In a cabinet that had no key but that he eventually managed to open James found what is believed to be the oldest bottle of Veuve Clicquot. The vintage on the bottle was 1893. Vitisphere.com


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Italy may allow DOC in bag-in-box

>> Friday, August 22, 2008

Italian authorities have decided to allow wines of the quality appellation DOC to be packaged in bag-in-box. The top level wines with DOCG designation will still have to be bottled in, well, bottle. New York Times


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Wine is good for your health – especially with food

Researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have discovered that wine is particularly good for your health if you drink it with food. It has previously not been quite understood why wine is good for you. Wine, in particular red wine, contains polyphenols, which are powerful antioxidants that can counteract cancer and heart disease. But why that is so has been a mystery since little of the antioxidants find their way into the bloodstream. The researchers, led by Dr Joseph Kanner, have discovered that the secret may be in the stomach. When you eat fat food, e.g. red meat, harmful oxidising toxins are released, in particular one called malondialdehyde (MDA). MDA is thought to contribute to various diseases, such as arteriosclerosis, cancer, diabetes and others. Dr Kanner's research has shown that if you drink wine at the same time as you eat this “bad” food (a juicy steak perhaps) the amount of MDA released is much reduced compared to if you don’t drink any wine with the food. Fruit after dinner has a similar effect. So it is in the stomach rather than in the blood that the wine does its good work. At least according to the experiments done on mice. As reported in The Economist.


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World’s biggest selling spirit brands

>> Thursday, August 21, 2008

- Smirnoff – 24 300 (thousand cases @ 9l) (ägs av Diageo)
- Bacardi – 19 200
- Johnnie Walker – 16 050 (owned by Diageo)
- Absolut – 10 730 (owned by Pernod Ricard)
- Jack Daniel’s – 9 075
- Captain Morgan – 7 800 (owned by Diageo)
- Baileys – 7 700 (owned by Diageo)
- Cuervo Tequila – 7 260 (owned by Diageo)
- Ballantine’s – 6 170 (owned by Diageo)
- Jim Beam – 6 140
(Source: The Drinks Business)


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World’s biggest selling champagne

a0617-217-1770- Moët & Chandon – 2640 (thousand cases @ 9l) (owned by Moët Hennessy, LVMH)
- Veuve Clicquot – 1658 (owned by Moët Hennessy, LVMH)
- Nicolas Feuillatte – 750
- GH Mumm – 600 (owned by Pernod Ricard)
- Piper-Heidsieck – 588
- Laurent-Perrier – 571
- Taittinger – 458
- Lanson – 417
- Pommery – 417
- Perrier-Jouët – 200 (owned by Pernod Ricard)

Which means that LVMH, who owns the top two brands, sells more than all the others on the list put together.
(Source: The Drinks Business)

The top ten sellers add up to 100 million bottles. From memory (and this may not be entirely accurate - we're on vacation without library access), 300 million bottles are sold each year. If so, the top two LVMH brands (not counting other brands they own) account for 15% of all champagne sales.


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World’s biggest selling wine brands

- Gallo – 19 250 (thousand cases @ 9l)
- Hardys – 11 000 (owned by Constellation)
- Yellow Tail – 11 000
- Concha y Toro – 10 465
- Beringer – 9 900 (owned by Foster’s)
- Robert Mondavi – 9 800 (owned by Constellation)
- Lindemans – 8 600 (owned by Foster’s)
- Jacob’s Creek – 8 200 (owned by Pernod Ricard)
- Blossom Hill – 6 400
- Banrock Station – 4 000 (owned by Constellation)
(Source: The Drinks Business)


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Welcome to the BKWine Brief nr 61, August 2008

>> Wednesday, August 20, 2008

The sports hysteria is now in full bloom. The Olympic Games have just started… and what has that to do with wine, you may ask? Not much, but it serves as an excuse to talk about China and that it is becoming one of the world’s larger wine producers even if statistics are still quite unreliable. Some Chinese wines have even started to appear on the export market: Dragon Seal, Great Wall Winery and others. A couple of years ago I had the opportunity to visit several wineries in China when I was in Beijing to be part of the jury in a Chinese wine competition. Some were completely local organisations but many had Western involvement, either having a European winemaker or in some cases being part-owned by foreigners. The wines were still far from being world class wines but many were well made, showing that there may be greater things to come. So if you have the opportunity to taste a Chinese wine I can certainly recommend that you try it.

We had recently more opportunities to taste ‘Olympic wines’ when we were on a wine tour in Greece. We’re spending vacation this summer in Sweden and we’ve taken that as an opportunity to do a follow-up and go through the selection of Greek wines here in Sweden. They have quite a long list of Greek wines in the monopoly stores ‘Systembolaget’. Unfortunately when you want to order this or that wine it often turns out to be out of stock. They joys of a monopoly market. But we’ve managed to go through a decent selection of the Greek wines and some of them are certainly very good. Surprisingly, it is often the whites that have been most interesting. And it certainly is not retsinas! (As a matter of fact, during our ten days in Greece we didn’t taste a single retsina. Perhaps we should have…) If you can find some Greek wines at your local wine merchant now is certainly the time to try it. Why not organise an Olympic dinner. And you can enjoy some good food and wine and forget about the television.

One of the great joys of wine, at least for me, is to try new wines – wines that I have never tried before. I’ve never quite understood people who every day drink the same wine. Seems just a touch boring. Like eating the same food every day. Or always watching the same episode of a television program. On the first day of our vacation (that is soon over) we went to the local monopoly outlet and bought a box of wine – not the ‘box wine’ (bag-in-box that accounts for more than 50% of sales in Sweden) – but a real case, with 12 bottles. And not two bottles of the same wine in the selection. So this month’s recommendation from me is to buy a case of wine and make sure that every wine is different. And don’t worry too much about what some wine critics say about the wines or what their “rating” or “score” are. Just get what you think might be interesting or fun and see how it turns out. I am sure that you will get some pleasant surprises (and an enjoyable time).

Britt

PS: Recommend to your friends to read the Brief or forward it to them !

Read the whole BKWine Brief here!


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