THIS BLOG HAS MOVED


This blog has moved to a new location.


You can now read it on BKWine Magazine.


Please change your bookmarks and RSS feeds accordingly.


And do subscribe to our free wine newsletter, the BKWine Brief!


All info on our wine and food tours are now on BKWineTours.com.


American wine exports pass the $1 billion

>> Tuesday, March 31, 2009

$1,008,259,000 is the number, so the billion was passed with a whisker. That’s the value of American wine exports in 2008 which was an increase with 6%. More than 90% of the wine comes from California. Wine is, according to Linsey Gallagher, marketing director at The Wine Institute, California's second largest export product. USA is now, according to the WI, the world’s fourth larges exporter of wine. Half of the exports go to the EU and a quarter to Canada. The Wine Institute seems particularly proud of the fact that they have reached second position in the ranking of wine suppliers to the UK, relegating France to third place (Australia is biggest). Fifteen years ago exports were a modest $196 million.


More from BKWine:
- Watch our wine videos
- Come on a wine tour
- Wine news on your site
- Subscribe to updates to this blog
- Subscribe to our monthly newsletter
- Put a pin on our map

© Copyright BKWine (text & photo)

Read more...

Wine MBA

If you want to combine wine and business you can do a wine MBA in Cirencester in England. At the Royal Agricultural College they offer a course in “wine business management”, including some wine tasting and wine making knowledge of course, but mainly focused on the business aspects of wine: about the industry, business planning, retail and distribution etc. The next program starts in October so now is the right time to take a closer look if you are interested. More info rac.ac.uk


More from BKWine:
- Watch our wine videos
- Come on a wine tour
- Wine news on your site
- Subscribe to updates to this blog
- Subscribe to our monthly newsletter
- Put a pin on our map

© Copyright BKWine (text & photo)

Read more...

Cocaine cheaper than wine

>> Monday, March 30, 2009

British authorities report that it is now cheaper to get your kicks from cocaine than from quality wines or beer. Perhaps this can lead to that those who consider wine to be a hateful drug focus their attention on other substances instead. More on Telegraph.co.uk


More from BKWine:
- Watch our wine videos
- Come on a wine tour
- Wine news on your site
- Subscribe to updates to this blog
- Subscribe to our monthly newsletter
- Put a pin on our map

© Copyright BKWine (text & photo)

Read more...

Albariño comes to France

The albariño grape variety is best known from Spain and Portugal (alvarinho) where it produces refreshing wines with a citrus tang. But it is not allowed in France. This is about to change. Earlier this month the new list of permitted grape varieties was published and albariño is on it, one of the surprise newcomers. It has been added on the initiative of some Languedoc producers who put it up for inclusion (rumour has it that it was added in record time – not much more than three weeks!). It is hoped that this may become a new signature grape for the Languedoc. The well known négociant house and winemaker Laurent Miquel is one of the producers who is in the starting blocks to plant it in 2010, so we can perhaps expect a first taste in 2012.


More from BKWine:
- Watch our wine videos
- Come on a wine tour
- Wine news on your site
- Subscribe to updates to this blog
- Subscribe to our monthly newsletter
- Put a pin on our map

© Copyright BKWine (text & photo)

Read more...

BKWine Pick: Chateau de l’Engarran 2005, Languedoc, Grès de Montpellier

Britt’s French wine of the month
Chateau de l’Engarran 2005, Languedoc, Grès de Montpellier
Very nicely balanced with good fruit and good structure and body. Excellent to drink now but can be kept for another few years in the cellar. It is dominated by syrah, but there’s also some grenache, carignan and mourvèdre. Château l’Engarran is a beautiful 18th century chateau just west of Montpellier. It is run by the sisters Constance Rerolle and Diane Losfelt and is a producer of consistently well made Languedoc wines.


More from BKWine:
- Watch our wine videos
- Come on a wine tour
- Wine news on your site
- Subscribe to updates to this blog
- Subscribe to our monthly newsletter
- Put a pin on our map

© Copyright BKWine (text & photo)

Read more...

BKWine Pick: Pojer e Sandri Nosiola 2007, Trentino Alto Adige

Åsa’s Italian wine of the month:
Pojer e Sandri Nosiola 2007, Trentino Alto Adige
Now is perhaps not the right time for white wines, in particular with the cold weather we’ve had. But if you want to brave the climate and have a white, for example as aperitif or a lighter fish dish you can try this wine from Trentino alto Adige in northern Italy: Nosiola 2007. The wine is made from a grape variety with the same name and is very fresh and fruity, light and elegant with aromas of apple. It also has an interesting touch of hazel nut on the finish. Hazel nut is ‘nocciola’ in Italian, which explains the name. The producer I Pojer e Sandri, a name worth taking note of.

- Åsa Johansson, BKWine’s taster in Italy


More from BKWine:
- Watch our wine videos
- Come on a wine tour
- Wine news on your site
- Subscribe to updates to this blog
- Subscribe to our monthly newsletter
- Put a pin on our map

© Copyright BKWine (text & photo)

Read more...

BKWine Pick: Restaurant La Forge, Antibes

>> Wednesday, March 25, 2009

In the old city in Antibes you find this newly opened restaurant. It is small, nicely and traditionally decorated and the welcome is warm. It is mainly the Mediterranean kitchen that is on the menu of course (mussels, fish, vegetables…) and the kitchen’s ambition seems to be to be well ahead of the average local restaurant. Price levels are moderate and the overall impression is very good. Expect 30-35 euro for a dinner. The wine list is not exceptional but has a few interesting items, reasonably priced.

Click here for address and more recommendations.


More from BKWine:
- Watch our wine videos
- Come on a wine tour
- Wine news on your site
- Subscribe to updates to this blog
- Subscribe to our monthly newsletter
- Put a pin on our map

© Copyright BKWine (text & photo)

Read more...

BKWine Pick: Le Bon Bec, Wine Restaurant Bistro, Paris 15

A wine restaurant/bistro that offers a wide selection of wines by the glass (indeed rare in Paris), sometimes even some very exclusive wines. The couple who runs the restaurant happens to be great wine lovers and has invested in one of the big (and expensive) “wine organs” that allows you to keep opened wines under neutral gas so that they keep well even if not finished in a day. The food is very good in a classic French bistro style. Expect 30-40 euro for a meal. Well worth venturing to this far corner of Paris 15, if, for example, you happen to be at the big exhibition area near Porte de Versailles, to discover this small neighbourhood restaurant (‘resto du quartier’) with wine ambitions (she who is in charge of the wines happens to also be a Korean wine writer).

Click here for address and more recommendations.


More from BKWine:
- Watch our wine videos
- Come on a wine tour
- Wine news on your site
- Subscribe to updates to this blog
- Subscribe to our monthly newsletter
- Put a pin on our map

© Copyright BKWine (text & photo)

Read more...

Anteprima – BKWine goes to Italy to taste Chianti Classico

>> Tuesday, March 24, 2009

By Åsa Johansson, BKWine’s reporter in Italy

BKWine recently participated in the annual tasting of to-be-released Chianti Classico wines. The tasting is held in Florence in February every year in an ex-railway station called Stazione Leopolda, a beautiful setting for a wine tasting. 148 producers were presenting their wines to the trade and press, showing more than 358 different samples.

The vintages on show were Chianti Classico Reserva 2006 (at least 24 months aging before release), and Chianti Classico 2007 (can be sold after October 1 the year following the harvest). Some 70 producers also brought tank/barrel samples of the 2008. (It will be released at the earliest the coming autumn.)

The 2008s were very promising. The growing season was excellent and very healthy grapes were brought in at the harvest, with good levels of acidity and good quality. What remains is that the winemakers nurture the infant wines to a finished wine before anyone can really declare it to be “an outstanding vintage”.

Here is our pick of producers to look out for:

Castellinuzza e Piuca
A very small winery with only 2 ha at 300 metres altitude not far from Greve in Chianti. Giuliano Coccia, the father, and Simone, the son, stick to the local traditional grape varieties, such as sangiovese, canaiolo and colorino. Winemaking is also traditional indeed, in concrete vats and with no barrel aging. This results in a splendidly drinkable food wine with plenty of fruit that, without being overly complex, will give you pleasure at the table.

Villa di Geggiano
They farm their vines organically. They only make a Chianti Classico in years when they consider the fruit and quality to be sufficiently good and rather skip a vintage than make an average wine. Chianti Classico Geggiano is made from 90-95% sangiovese with a small addition of cabernet. The wine is aged in ‘tonneau’ (500 litre barrels) for 18 months. An elegant and complex wine to drink for example with game or matured cheese.

Fattoria Le Filigare
They make a wide range of wines. Filigare’s Chianti Classico is excellent value for money. The owner, Carlo Burchi, explains that one of his biggest problems is that he has named his wines after all his grand-children and there are more and more of them. He has run out of cuvees and don’t know what to do for the youngest grand-daughter…

-Åsa Johanson, BKWine's reporter in Italy


More from BKWine:
- Watch our wine videos
- Come on a wine tour
- Wine news on your site
- Subscribe to updates to this blog
- Subscribe to our monthly newsletter
- Put a pin on our map

© Copyright BKWine (text & photo)

Read more...

BKWine Pick: Monte de Penha, Portalegre, Alentejo, Portugal

To the north in Alentejo you can find Monte de Penha. Francisco and Veronica Fina made their first vintage in 1999. The winery is not far from the town of Portalegre, 100 km from the famous city of Evora. The region is mountainous and the vineyards are at high altitude on granite soil. The climate is a bit cooler than the rest of Alentejo. Monte de Penha use traditional regional grape varieties. “Why would we use grape verities that everyone else has?” as Francisco puts it. One of my favourites is Monte de Penha Reserva made from trincadeira, aragoñes and alicante bouschet. Their 2002 has wonderful fruit, very good structure and pronounced but smooth tannins. Long and elegant.

Click here for address and more recommendations.

Read the whole Brief here!


More from BKWine:
- Watch our wine videos
- Come on a wine tour
- Wine news on your site
- Subscribe to updates to this blog
- Subscribe to our monthly newsletter
- Put a pin on our map

© Copyright BKWine (text & photo)

Read more...

Welcome to the BKWine Brief nr 68, March 2009

>> Monday, March 23, 2009

Last month we suggested that you try a wine from a not so well known wine region every once in a while. So, here are some suggestions for wine regions that can be worth discovering (and that merit more attention from wine lovers):

Chenin blanc, but primarily the dry white wines from the middle Loire Valley (they often have more personality than the South African versions, even if they can be good too). For example: Vouvray, Savennières or quite simply a dry white Anjou. One of the most underrated white grape varieties.

Red wines from the south west of France, le Sud-Ouest, with the two major districts Madiran and Cahors. Powerful wines that in modern winemakers’ hands also has lots of fruit and flavour.

Jurançon. Jura-what? No. Jurançon is a small district on the edge of France towards Spain, not far from the Atlantic Ocean. They make wonderful white wines, quite full-bodied with a very refreshing acidity from the grapes petit manseng and gros manseng. They come in both dry and sweet versions. You must try a dry one. Excellent and original.

Jura. Yes, why not also mention Jura, a mountainous region in eastern France. Know for its vins jaunes (yellow wines) made in an oxidative way reminiscent of sherry (with flor). But they also make “normal” white wines from chardonnay and savagnin. They too often have a hint of the nutty sherry style, but not as much. Perfect with a gruyere cheese or the local comté.

Sherry. Let’s jump to sherry then. A hidden gem. Above all the magnificent dry fino and manzanilla, and the somewhat more full-bodied amontillado. Make sure you serve it very dry and well chilled, to, for example appetizers (tapas, of course) or perhaps a flavoursome starter, say smoked salmon or gravlax. (Or have it on its own a sunny summer afternoon.)

Greece, but forget the resiny retsinas and look for one of the small and ambitious quality producers. You can even find excellent white wines (albeit reds are more common) from e.g. the assyrtiko grape. We’ve written about them before here.

Austria: Supposedly a very trendy wine country at the moment but wine lovers seem not yet to have discovered it. A great pity since they make excellent whites from gruner veltliner and other grapes. (see more further down)

Lombardy: a neighbouring district to Piedmont, not at all as well known. They also make splendid reds from for example the nebbiolo grape.

Galicia in north-west Spain, which is virtually the origin of the albariño grape, producing interesting and refreshing whites (see more on the grape further down).

Or if you prefer to be more classic and less exotic:

“Petits châteaux” in Bordeaux: Put the “great” châteaux, costing a fortune, to the side and look for smaller, less well known producers. There are many that make excellent wines, both reds and indeed whites that are good value for money in the range of €5-20. E.g. in Premières Côtes de Bordeaux, Entre-deux-Mers, Graves (not Péssac-L), Côtes de Bourg etc.

The southern Rhône Valley: “simple” Côtes du Rhône is a big district and there is a wealth of good producers making wine at a fraction of the price of the famous Rhône appellations (forget Cote Rotie, Hermitage, Chateauneuf... for the moment). You can also try some of the lesser-known appellations such as Vacqueyras, Gigondas and Costières de Nîmes, or simply the Cotes du Rhones.

And this is just a few suggestions. There are many more.

The only challenge with this is that you need to know which producers to choose. Not all wine producers in (for example) Greece are worth your attention. You have to choose your supplier/wine producer with care. But you already read the BKWine Brief (and no doubt other recommendations) so you’re well on your way to finding new discoveries. We try and help you find the most interesting wines instead of the run-of-the-mill producers.

We also try and help you find the best producers more literally, which leads me to our wine tours. We put a great deal of attention into choosing which producers to include on our tours. (And we’re there on the tours ourselves, and we certainly don’t want to go to any not-so-interesting places.) It’s easy to find a producer to visit but it’s not obvious that it will be a good visit (just like it’s easy to buy a bottle of wine, but requires a bit more of attention to make sure it’s good). We visit both of us (both Britt and Per) some 200 wineries each every year. (We sat down and counted and, yes, that’s about the right number.) And then we meet perhaps as many other producers on wine fairs, tastings etc. And we taste perhaps some 3-4000 wines in a year. So we have a bit of research to lean on when we plan our tours.

Take a look on the autumn program further down.

Britt & Per

Read the whole Brief here!


More from BKWine:
- Watch our wine videos
- Come on a wine tour
- Wine news on your site
- Subscribe to updates to this blog
- Subscribe to our monthly newsletter
- Put a pin on our map

© Copyright BKWine (text & photo)

Read more...

91 % of all wine cost less than 9 euro

>> Thursday, March 12, 2009

Or to be precise: 91 % of all wine sold in Sweden through the government owned monopolist Systembolaget (having a 50 % market share!) cost less than 9.32 euro (less than 100 kr; 1 krona = 0.932 euro). Here are the ranges:

-39 kr: 0.1 %
40-49 kr: 5.1 %
50-59 kr: 24.1 %
60-69 kr: 26.7 %
70-79 kr: 17.6 %
80-89 kr: 10.5 %
90-99 kr: 6.8 %
100 kr - : 9.1 %


More from BKWine:
- Watch our wine videos
- Come on a wine tour
- Wine news on your site
- Subscribe to updates to this blog
- Subscribe to our monthly newsletter
- Put a pin on our map

© Copyright BKWine (text & photo)

Read more...

Best selling countries in Sweden

>> Wednesday, March 11, 2009

This is the top list of wine origins, from the sales statistics from the Swedish government owned monopoly retailer Systembolaget. The stats concern wine :

1. South Africa, 16.6% market share (change: +10.7 %)
2. Italy, 16.3 % (+10.9 %)
3. Australia, 15.5 % (-1.9 %)
4. Spain, 13.7 % (-1.7 %)
5. France, 9.4 % (+1 %)
6. Chile, 7.1 % (+3.8 %)
7. USA, 4.8% (-0.7 %)
8. Germany, 4.6 % (-0.2 %)
9. Argentina, 3.4 % (+41.8 %)
10. Hungary, 3.1 % (-5.1 %)


More from BKWine:
- Watch our wine videos
- Come on a wine tour
- Wine news on your site
- Subscribe to updates to this blog
- Subscribe to our monthly newsletter
- Put a pin on our map

© Copyright BKWine (text & photo)

Read more...

Biggest wine importers in Sweden

>> Tuesday, March 10, 2009

It’s only a partial truth since the state owned monopoly retailing chain Systembolaget AB only accounts for 50% of sales of alcohol in Sweden (yes, actually true), but this is the top list of their wine suppliers in 2008, with their respective market shares.

1. V&S Vin & Sprit Group, 20%
2. Fondberg, 7.6 %
3. Oenoforos, 5.9 %
4. Bibendum, 4.5 %
5. Hjo Grosshandel, 3.9 %
6. Vinunic, 3.7 %
7. Enjoy Wine & Spirits, 3.5 %
8. Pernod Ricard, 3.4 %
9. Giertz Vinimport, 3.4 %
10. Tegnér Hermansson, 3.2 %
11. Other, 40.7 %

In 2009 Pernod Ricard will move into first place, having bought V&S Vin & Sprit.


More from BKWine:
- Watch our wine videos
- Come on a wine tour
- Wine news on your site
- Subscribe to updates to this blog
- Subscribe to our monthly newsletter
- Put a pin on our map

© Copyright BKWine (text & photo)

Read more...

Famous Languedoc winery sold to a Russian

>> Monday, March 09, 2009

Prieuré Saint Jean de Bébian is one of the most famous wine estates in the Languedoc and one of the first to be recognised as a quality wine producer. The wine guru Robert Parker has called it one of the greatest wines in Languedoc, but one has to admit that Parker is perhaps not very up-to-date on the Languedoc of today. The Prieuré St Jean de B has bee sold to a Russian investor (oligark?) via a company called Sinara (that according to some sources is Swiss and to others is Russian). Perhaps we can hope for renewed investments in the Prieuré that in recent years seems to have mostly coasted along. Vitisphere.com


More from BKWine:
- Watch our wine videos
- Come on a wine tour
- Wine news on your site
- Subscribe to updates to this blog
- Subscribe to our monthly newsletter
- Put a pin on our map

© Copyright BKWine (text & photo)

Read more...

Australian wine course

Wine Australia, a government financed promotional organisation, has launched a new web site that includes a very ambitious wine course. It contains thirty modules where you can learn (not quite) all about grape varieties, wine making, regions etc. With a focus on Australia of course. Here’s the course: www.wineaustralia.com


More from BKWine:
- Watch our wine videos
- Come on a wine tour
- Wine news on your site
- Subscribe to updates to this blog
- Subscribe to our monthly newsletter
- Put a pin on our map

© Copyright BKWine (text & photo)

Read more...
The blog has moved. Here is the new location: BKWine Magazine Blog.

  © Blogger template Webnolia by Ourblogtemplates.com 2009

Back to TOP