Will champagne hit the wall?

Carol Duval-Leroy, owner of Champagne Duval-Leroy, producing some 6 million bottles per year, is worried about the future with rising champagne prices and looming financial crisis. Prices of grapes as well as of champagne as gone up recently. Grape prices are up 11% over two years and the price of a bottle have gone up 10% per year in some cases. At the same time, the most recent export statistics show a sagging market: down 22% in the US, down 4.4% in the UK, down 18% in Spain… “We are entering a difficult period, and I'm not sure consumers will put up with excessive price hikes” says Duval-Leroy. Perhaps a welcome touch of reality with the champagne producers? Read more on Bloombergs.com

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Chapoutier expands in Portugal and/or Beaujolais

The famous Rhone wine producer Michel Chapoutier was on the brink of signing the deal to acquire a 15 ha property in Beaujolais, but when the seller suddenly raised the price from 90 000 euro per hectare to 120 000 euro Chapoutier pulled out. Chapoutier is most famous for his hermitage and for his enthusiasm for organic and biodynamic winegrowing. Instead of the Beajolais Chapoutier is now looking the the Douro valley in Portugal for a potential acquisition. Lyonmag.com

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Youthful American MW to pull for French wines

Sopexa is the name of a French marketing and promotional organisation focusing on wine (and other agricultural products). for example, they run www.wines-france.com. Their latest initiative is to recruit Sheri Sauter Morano to popularise French wines. Her focus will primarily be to promote everyday French wines – top-of-the-range luxury products like classed growth bordeaux and champagne don’t have the same problems on the export market. Ms Sauter Morano comes from North Carolina, is 33 years young, don’t speak French, and is the youngest master of Wine ever. and only the second female MW in the US. You can read her blog here: www.wines-france.us. Read more Bloomberg.com

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The owner of Ch Carbonnieux dies

Anthony Perrin, owner of Chateau Carbonnieux in Pessac-Léognan / Graves, died in September of lung cancer aged 68. It was his father who bought the property in 1956 and passed it on to Anthony in 1982. Under his leadership Carbonnieux has regained its place as one of the leading chateaux in Graves/ / Pessac-Léognan. Decanter.com

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Didier Dagueneau dies in flight crash

Didier Dagueneau was a winemaker in Pouilly-sur-Loire (Pouilly-Fumé wines) who has contributed much to putting Pouilly more clearly on the map for wine lovers. He started making in 1982 and became famous for his very concentrated sauvignon blanc based wines (Pur Sang, Silex). A contributing factor may also have been his very original cave man-like appearance with long hair and wild beard. Dagueneau died in September in a crash when flying an ultralight aircraft. WineSpectator.com and Vitisphere.com

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Bordeaux voted most popular wine tour destination

The 7 million members of TripAdvisor.com have selected the world’s most popular wine tour destination. On top came Bordeaux, in front of Tuscany, Napa, South Africa and all the others. Bordeaux certainly seems to be doing something right. Visitor numbers are up 21% compared to last year. Read more on The New Bordeaux and on prnewswire.com

(And if you feel like testing the recommendation we can suggest a Bordeaux tour with BKWine… )

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Book on Portuguese wines wins prestigious prize

”The Wine & Food Lover’s Guide to Portugal” is an excellent book onn Portuguese wines and wine districts full of tips and recommendations of how to travel, where to stay, and of course what to eat and drink. It has now won a well deserved prize, the Louis Roederer International Wine Book of the Year 2008. “This book absolutely makes me want to jump on the next plane to Portugal”, enthused one of the judges. The authors are Charles Metcalfe and Kathryn McWhirter who wrote their first book about Portugal 20 years ago. Read more about the book in our book review that you can find here (scroll down on the page). There you can also find links to where to buy it. (And if that makes the urge to go to Portugal too strong to resist we can recommend that you take a look at our next Portuguese wine tour: in March 2009 to the Alentejo (click for more info). )

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New issue of the ezine Fine Wine

A new issue of the internet magazine Fine Wine has been published. In it you can read about e.g. Domaine Bertagna in Burgundy and about the city of Bordeaux. You can download it here: www.finewine.nu

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New wine video on Madiran

We have published a new wine video on the Madiran district in the south-west of France. It is a region that has undergone somewhat of a renaissance over the last decades. Today you can fins many exciting, and good value wines there. This is an interview with one of the vignerons in the regions. The language is French. Here's the interview with Denis Degache: Madiran, an introduction.
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Top ten wines at Systembolaget

Systembolaget is the monopoly wine retailer in Sweden and (as a consequence) one of the largest wine and spirits retailers in the world. Here are some top-ten sales lists for January to August 2008:

Red wines sold in bottle:
- Hidden Rock Petit V Cab S 410,105 bottles
- Penfolds Rawson's Retr Shir Cab 356,099 bl
- Viña Maipo Carmenere 334,663 bl
- Selvarossa Salice Salentino 322,752 bl
- Campolieti Ripasso 288,846 bl
- Monterosso Sangiovese 257,254 bl
- Mauro Primitivo 257,111 bl
- J P Chenet Cabernet-Syrah 248,955 bl
- Ecologica Shiraz 241,595 bl
- Jacob's Creek Shiraz Cab 232,751 bl

White wines sold in bottle:
- Lindemans Chard Bin 65 295,579 bl
- Ecologica St Florent Tor Chard 276,918 bl
- Foot of Africa Chenin Bl 251,697 bl
- Black Tower Rivaner 212,453 bl
- Jacob's Creek Chardonnay 197,881 bl
- Fontana Candida Frascati 179,182 bl
- Penfolds Koonunga Hill Chard 171,406 bl
- Hidden Rock Colom Verdelho 167,509 bl
- Chapel Hill Riesling Sauvig Bl 165,156 bl
- J P Chenet Colombard Chardonnay 161,093 bl

If you take the top ten regardless of colour, seven are reds and three are whites. Looking at it from an ‘Old World’ perspective, the top ranking French red wine is in seventh place and in tenth place for the whites.

Top ten wines, counted in units sold (bottle, bag-in-box, tetrapak,…):
- Aussie Great White Chard papp 1l WHITE WINE 1,221,348 units
- Castillo de Gredos Blanco papp 1 l WHITE WINE 1,213,074 units
- Aussie Kangarouge Shiraz papp 1 l RED WINE 1,091,421 units
- Castillo de Gredos Tinto papp 1 l RED WINE 1,048,891 units
- California White papp 1 l WHITE WINE 933,450 units
- Foot of Africa Chenin Bl Box 3L WHITE WINE 649,117 units
- J P Chenet Cabernet-Syrah box 3 l RED WINE 618,517 units
- Chapel Hill Riesling Sauv Bl box 3l WHITE WINE 512,009 units
- Mauro Primitivo box 3 l RED WINE 491,802 units
- Spanskt Lant tetra 1 l RED WINE 459,413 units

And if you instead count in volume (total litres sold):
- Foot of Africa Chenin Bl Box 3L WHITE WINE 1,947,351 liter
- J P Chenet Cabernet-Syrah box 3 l RED WINE 1,855,551 liter
- Chapel Hill Riesling Sauv Bl box 3l WHITE WINE 1,536,027 liter
- Mauro Primitivo box 3 l RED WINE 1,475,406 liter
- Chill Out Sunset CS box 3 l RED WINE 1,344,075 liter
- Aussie Great White Chard papp 1l WHITE WINE 1,221,348 liter
- Castillo de Gredos Blanco papp 1 l WHITE WINE 1,213,074 liter
- Barone Ricasoli Formulae box 3 l RED WINE 1,151,562 liter
- Podium Pinotage 3 l box RED WINE 1,134,219 liter
- Drostdy-Hof Cape Red box 3 l RED WINE 1,129,458 liter

Curiously, the balance between red and white is almost 50/50 when it comes to these volume sellers.

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BKWine in Alsace on French television

When we recently were in Alsace the big French television channel France 2 took the occasion to make a program for its News at One (Journal de 13h). It features our visit to the famous Alsatian wine producer Domaine Weinbach (Mme Faller & Filles) with Catherine Faller. It was featured in the “journal de 13h” on October 7. It is still available on the FR2 web site. Here’s what you need to do if you want to watch it:

a) Go to http://jt.france2.fr/13h/
b) Choose Tuesday 7 October: “Mardi 7”
c) Click on the table of contents (that starts with Générique début”) in the video player on ”FEUILLETON 2/5 Vendanges à l’alsacien 00h30min14s”.
d) Wait until the program reaches 31min 40sec, and there you go…
(and if you want to watch more wine videos you can visit BKWine TV on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/bkwine)

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Fifteen new Masters of Wine

Master of Wine, MW, is a very prestigious title in the wine world. It is only held by 227 people today. The latest “promotion” of MW students added 15 new titulars, the first ever Asian MW, the first Brazilian, and the second Swedish.

Here’s the full list: Sarah Abbott, 37, UK - Joanne Ahearne, 46, UK - Francisco (Pancho) Campo Carrasco, 46, Spain - James Cluer, 38, Canada. James passed his Dissertation and became a Master of Wine in May this year. - Martin Hudson, 53, UK - Jeannie Cho Lee, 40, Hong Kong, originally from Korea - Benjamin Lewin, 62, USA - Christophe Macra, 36, France - Debra Meiburg, 47, Hong Kong, originally from USA - Sara Muirhead, 37, UK - Lisa Perrotti-Brown, 41, Singapore, originally from USA - Jennifer Simonetti-Bryan, 35, USA - Madeleine Stenwreth, 40, Sweden - Dirceu Vianna Junior, 40, UK, originally from Brazil - Tim Wildman, 38, UK.

BKWine says a big hooray to all of them!

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BKWine Brief nr 63, October 2008 out - more on the harvest etc

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That done, it’s been an unusual autumn. But a very interesting one for wine and the harvest. Here are some summaries of what people have told us about the vintage in some of the places we’ve been:

In Alsace growers were over all very happy. Slow ripening (cool weather) and late harvest but excellent weather in September for the harvest. Most winegrowers were looking forward to a very successful vintage.

In Burgundy opinions were more divided. Here too they’ve had a quite cool summer, leading to a late harvest. They were just beginning when we were there, around September 24-25. But even if the summer has been cold it’s been quite dry so there has not been too much problems with rot during summer. But then came rain in the beginning/middle of September and people feared the worst (one grower said that at that time he was ready to start crying). This, if it continued, would inevitably lead to rot problems. But the rain quickly passed and was followed by sunshine, strong winds and more cool temperatures, so the fears for the worst were dispelled. But all the same, opinions seem to vary. Some, a bit more pessimistic, say that there is actually some rot problems and also that there is a problem with uneven ripeness, meaning uneven ripeness on bunches: parts of a bunch can be ripe and other parts unripe. Unusual and difficult to remedy with sorting. And also saying that the low temperatures are not doing much for ripening the grapes. Others are much more optimistic: they say that the cool weather will minimise rot problems and that the strong winds will contribute to keeping the vineyards dry and to concentrating the juice in the grapes. As a conclusion there seems to be a good chances for a quality harvest with mainly very healthy grapes. Even if we did see some threatening dark clouds on the horizon some days… We keep our fingers crossed.

In Portugal’s biggest wine district, the Alentejo, most growers had finished the harvest by the end of September (except some, like e.g. Quinta do Mouro, who waits until the very last moment to have super-ripe grapes and who don’t fear a few raindrops). Most people in Alentejo say it will be a good vintage. Quantity will be a bit less than usual but quality will be very good. There was some rain during flowering which for some has led to a 30-40% drop in volume. The whole year there’s been quite a lot of rain in Alentejo, so much so that they have almost not needed any irrigation at all this year.

In Champagne: Considering the circumstances, after a summer that left much to be desired, quite a good vintage seemed to be the general consensus for the harvest.

And soon we will go down to Bordeaux where harvest is in full swing (we’ll come back with a report later). We have a trip planned this week with a group of wine lovers and one part of the program is that we will hand out secateurs to everyone and drop them off in the vineyards at Chateau Paloumey in Margaux. “And don’t come back until the bucket is full…” Perhaps it will be a Cuvée BKWine?

Now is the time to plan for a wine tour the coming season. The winter/spring program is now available and registrations have started to arrive. Take a look and see if there something on our tour plan that may tickle your palate!

Britt

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

Here's the full issue of the Brief!

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Barca Velha 2000 – a new release of a mythical Portuguese wine

Barca Velha was long thought of as the only Portuguese table wine in the top quality echelons. Today, there is much more company in that category in Portugal thanks to the fabulous renaissance that Portuguese winemaking has seen over the last few decades. But Barca Velha undoubtedly retain it’s status as an almost mythological wine. It is made in the upper Douro valley and belongs nowadays to the Sogrape Group, one of Portugal’s biggest wine producers. The vintage 2000 has just been released in 26,000 bottles and 1500 magnums. The release price is €75. wine-business-international.com

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Avignonesi in Tuscany sold to Belgian investor

One of the top producers in Montalcino In Tuscany has been sold to the Belgian business woman Virginie Saverys. The Falvi family will retain a 10% shareholding. Avignonesi has 109 ha of vineyards split on four estates, Le Capezzine, I Poggetti, La Selva and La Lombarda in Montalcino, just south of Chianti. www.wine-business-international.com

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Beaucastel buys Tourelles in Gigondas

Or to be more precise, the Perrin family, owners of the famous Domaine de Beaucastel in Châteauneuf-du-Pape, has bought the Domaine des Tourelles in Gigondas. Tourelles is a highly regarded Gigondas vineyard with 9 ha of vines. www.vitisphere.com

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Champagne harvest started on September 15

On September 15 the harvest began in Champagne. They have had a cool but reasonably dry summer so the expectations are for a comparatively small quantity but with healthy grapes. The maximum yield has been agreed to 13,600 kg grapes per hectare (exactly what that translates to in hl/ha is difficult to say but it should be around 80-90 hl/ha). http://www.winealley.com

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Truffles and Pata Negra? - “It doesn’t get much better!”

For sure, it makes you happy. We launched the BKWine spring travel program last week and it’s always nice if someone notices it, especially if it’s a Google Page Rank 8 or Alexa Rank 86 site (for the non-nerds, this means one of the web’s most popular travel sites). James Martin, one of the travel editors on About.com GoEurope picked up our information on our truffles tour and our Portuguese tour (with pata negra ham) - ”It Doesn't Get Much Better Than This!”. But it will be difficult to fit both the pata negra and the truffles on the same trip so you’ll have to go on both wine tours. Here’s the GoEurope story: http://goeurope.about.com

Here’s a new BKWine TV video from our last truffle hunting tour. And it’s on the schedule again in February so if you’re tempted to go ‘hunting’ and tasting some wine you know where to find it: www.youtube.com/truffles

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Draught in California

California is seeing the lowest water levels in 30 years in some of its water reservoirs. If the lack of rain continues 2009 is likely to be the driest year in Californian modern history. What consequences that will have for California’s vineyards remain to be seen. www.sfgate.com

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2008 – hot and dry in Roussillon

Many European wine regions have had a cool and dreary summer, even if it has not been too wet. Almost the opposite is the case in Roussillon in southern France. They have had a hot and dry summer leading to an unusually early harvest. Some wineries started picking as early as August 11 but the harvest will continue for another few weeks (as we are writing in the first half of Sep). There were a few rain showers on the last day of August and the beginning of September but nothing that had any substantially negative effect, thanks to the healthy grapes in the vineyards. Overall they expect to have a moderate volume but excellent quality.

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BKWine TV: [F] Domaine de l'Ancienne Cure

Interview with Christian Roche, third generation owner of the property Domaine de l'Ancienne Cure.

Domaine de l'Ancienne Cure is a family owned vineyard in the Bergerac and Monbazillac appellations, a top quality producer in this too little known region in south-west France, which is also a very gastronomic part of France with all the specialties of the Perigord.

L'Ancienne Cure makes a range of wines: dry white, sweet white and reds.

Le Classique, L'Abbaye and L'Extase, sometimes made from overripe grapes.
Sauvignon gris & blanc and muscadelle.

12 hectares of red wine, cabernet (franc & sauvignon), malbec and merlot.

The sweet wines are made both from grapes with noble rot (pourriture noble) and grapes starting to dry on the vine (passerillage).

Christian talks about the different wines he makes, his philosophy of winemaking and tells us about his vineyard.

Language is French.

Entretien avec le vigneron Christina Roche, le propriétaire du Domaine de lancienne Cure à Bergerac.

http://www.domaine-anciennecure.fr

By BKWine, http://www.bkwine.com

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Burgundy information

Are you looking for information about Burgundy? Or perhaps thinking of making a trip? They it can be worth your while to visit the BurgundyEye.com site with lots of tourism and wine info: http://www.burgundyeye.com/

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Champagne Light?

Champagne is bottled in heavy, solid bottles so that they will not burst from the pressure inside the bottle. A typical champagne bottles weighs in at around 900 grams, almost double a regular bottle. CIVC, the champagne producers’ association, has asked Mumm Champagne to trial a lighter bottle, weighing only 835 g, a reduction by a massive 55 g… The light weight bottles should make transports easier and cheaper (you can fit more bottles on a lorry if they weigh less). The trial has now been successfully concluded and Champ Light might now be adopted by more producers, according to a report in the Financial Times. However, Pommery/ Vranken already uses the lighter 835 g bottle and the empty Heidsieck bottle that we unfortunately had at home (unfortunately, since it was empty) was at 845 g, so it does not seem that much of a revolution. But according to Pommery there would be 3000 fewer trucks on the roads if everyone used the lighter bottle. Just think of what savings there would be with an aluminium bottle. www.ft.com

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EcceVino.com – new French wine site with tasting notes

David Cobbold is a well known English wine writer based in Paris. Together with a French colleague, Sebastien Durand-Viel, he has launched a new French language site featuring tasting notes and commentaries as well as longer articles on wine and also a wine encyclopaedia. Read more here: http://www.eccevino.com

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