BKWine Blog

South Africa’s biggest export markets

2011-08-16T10:07:00.000+02:00

Here are the top export markets for South African wines:
UK 104 million hectolitre

Germany 72 Mhl

.......

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Half a million hectares of vineyard land for sale

2011-08-08T09:56:00.000+02:00

If you are really aiming to be a volume producer this might be your chance. 989,000 acres, around half a million hectares, of land is for sale in Argentina. It is claimed that it is the biggest patch (patch?) of land ever for sale, but can that really be true? Were not some of the US states incorporated into the nation through sales for example?......

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So how did the Bordeaux primeurs 2010 taste?

2011-08-05T10:06:00.000+02:00

Tasting primeurs is not as difficult as it is sometimes said. Wines that young, just barely six months after harvest (tasted in April), can be wonderfully attractive: lots of fruit, hopefully ripe tannins and not too much wood (they have only spent six out of 18-24 planned months in barrel). But there are three things that are very difficult: having the stamina to go taste all the wines (no one can), being able to write something descriptive and useful about it (only a few does), and above all being able to make some judgement on the future of the wines you are tasting.

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2,000,000 visitors on BKWine.com

2011-07-29T10:12:00.000+02:00

Congratulations dear visitor number 2,000,000 on BKWine.com. The site recently counted its two millionth visitor!

Statistics on the internet is always a bit tricky. First, there is not really and totally (totally!) accurate way to measure web statistics. Secondly, most statistics is “private” so you just have to trust those who talks about their stats. Or not. There is no way to check and no “official” numbers.

In our case, at BKWine, we use among other things...

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10 microbes that you may (or may not) want in your wine

2011-07-18T10:12:00.001+02:00

There are many different types of microbes (minuscule organisms) that contribute to making the wine into what it is. Many of them are desirable and even essential to the making of a wine. some only exist during the vinification process while other may survive into the bottled wine.

Many microbes have been studied in detail and it is well understood what they do, but for others their roles and effects are less clear. And in many cases it is not a clear cut answer if they are good or bad. Some may be both good and bad, depending on the situation and depending on your tastes. As often in the wine world things are not so easy as black and white. [...]

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Le Bistro de l’Hôtel de Beaune – BKWine Pick

2011-07-13T11:52:00.000+02:00

A newly opened bistro-chic owned by Swede Johan Björklund, previous owner of London based wine company Cave Cru Classé. But Johan started his career as a chef and now he is the happy owner of this high-class bistro and luxury hotel with seven rooms in the center of Beaune. The food is well prepared and [...]

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Midsummer – the peak of Scandinavian boozing

2011-07-09T20:35:00.000+02:00

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La Chablisienne – a high quality cooperative

2011-07-07T12:00:00.000+02:00

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Vine planting rights: a return to protectionism?

2011-06-08T10:08:00.000+02:00

A few years back all EU countries agreed to a reform of the agricultural policies concerning the wine sector. One element was to abolish the existing system with planting rights, that decrees that a grower has to ask for strictly controlled planting rights from the authorities. One consequence is e.g. that a successful producer cannot expand his production, unless he can get some strictly limited planting rights. Earlier this year the AREV (an organisation that often is against progress and liberalisation in agricultural reforms) started a campaign to change the agreement to abolish the planting rights. They have managed to get the French minister of agriculture to support their view (France doesn’t exactly have a history of supporting an open market for agriculture) as well as nine out of 26 countries, according to Vitisphere.

To keep the system with planting rights would be, as far as we can see, primarily a way for the established producers to get protection from new competitors and from more dynamic producers. It would certainly be a step against a market economy and liberalisation – badly needed in the wine sector. And it would hardly benefit the consumer who can expect wine prices to be kept higher.

At La Vigne they have published a few interviews with a few advocates of the planting rights, but they don’t make us much wiser. At least it is apparent that their primary concern is not the wine consumer, or increasing the competitiveness among wine producers. Rather a question of keeping competition out.

- An interview with Christian Paly from the CNAOC

- Interview with Catherine Vautrin who has written a report on planting rights, that is certainly confusing (or totally confused), since she seems to mistake planting rights for the AOC geographical delimitations.

We certainly hope that the EU sticks with its agreement to abolish the planting rights and make the wine sector more open to competition, thus paving the way for a healthier wine industry with better conditions for the growers as well as for the consumers. Instead of a return to protectionism.

Mas du Soleilla, La Clape, Languedoc

2011-06-08T09:44:00.000+02:00

Soleilla means sun in Occitan, the ancient language langue d'oc. Mas de Soleilla is beautifully situated, close to the sea, in the region of La Clape in Languedoc, not far from Narbonne. The climate is hot and dry, the soil very chalky and stony. The wines, which are both red and white, are generally of good quality. There are a total of 24 estates here in La Clape and all of them can find traces on their properties that go back to Roman times, "says owner and winemaker Peter Wildbolz at Mas de Soleilla.

Mas de Soleilla was created in 2002 by Peter and his wife Christa Derungs, both from Switzerland. Peter worked at the time already as a wine maker. When he found an isolated vineyard of 8 hectares in the middle of the garrigue in the La Clape area, he knew he wanted it. 2002 was the first vintage and now the surface has increased to 22 hectares.

The white wine in La Clape is made of a minimum of 50% of the unusual grape Bourboulenc. There are only 500 hectares world-wide of this grape and 300 of them are here in La Clape. Mas de Soleilla Sphinx Blanc is made with Bourboulenc and 30% Roussanne. It has a lovely aroma of flowers, apricot and a little honey and the oak is well balanced.

For the red wines Peter uses Syrah, Grenache and a little Mourvèdre. I particularly like Mas de Soleilla Les Chailles, a fresh, fruity wine with no oak ageing. Grenache dominates and the aroma of black berries, spices such as mint and rosemary and the good structure makes it a superb wine to combine with Mediterranean food. Mas de Soleilla Les Bartelles has been 15 months in oak barrels and here the Syrah grape is very evident on the nose. A complex, high class wine. Clot de l'Amandier is a blend of syrah and grenache. Full-bodied, with pleasant spicy aromas and with a good balance. A wine to be enjoyed with lamb, duck or game, says Peter.

Languedoc La Clape Mas du Soleilla - stock photo samples - Images by Per Karlsson

Well-crafted writing online on wine: Born Digital Wine Awards

2011-06-03T09:35:00.002+02:00

The Born Digital Wine Awards is a “competition” for writers, and video producers, professional or not, on the internet. The first edition of the BDWA has just been completed and the winners were announced a few days ago. Congratulations!

- Best Wine Tourism Feature: Wink Lorch Wine Days Out in the French Alps
- Best Editorial Wine Writing; Tim Atkin Towards a New Chile (Part 1)
- Best Winery Self-Produced Content: Randall Grahm On a Mission: The Germ of an Idea
- Best Investigative Wine Piece: Richard Ross Phylloxera– the English connection
- Best Wine Themed Video: Jay Selman (Directed by Mark Ryan) The Scent of Black

(We too participated in the BDWA, in the category Best Investigative Wine Piece, with an article called “VinNet: An exciting new news site about wine?” (translated by BDWA from Swedish). We were shortlisted but did not win…)

Why not participate yourself if you write about wine?

More info on BDWA. The listing of all category winners an runners-up: borndigitalwineawards.com

Interesting interviews with top chateaux in Bordeaux

2011-06-03T09:23:00.002+02:00

I’m not quite sure why they have done it but it is a very ambitious effort. The Swedish wine importer Hjo Grosshandel has published a dozen video interviews with a handful of the great and glorious chateau in Bordeaux. The interviews were done (it seems) at the primeur tastings earlier this year, and the main theme is the 2010 vintage. They have managed to get a quiet moment with the heads of each chateau and the result is exceptionally interesting (and ambitions) compared to much of what you see on wine online. Well done! You can see all the videos on Hjo Grosshandel’s YouTube channel. (And, yes, they are in English!). These are the chateaux they cover:

- Château Pontet-Canet
- Domaine de Courteillac
- Château Margaux
- Château Pichon Longueville comtesse de Lalande
- Château Cheval Blanc & Château d´Yquem
- Château Mouton Rothschild
- Château Beychevelle
- Château Picque-Caillou
- Château Cos d´Estournel
- Château Pétrus
- Château Pichon-Baron
- Ets. Jean-Pierre Moueix

Vineyard area in Austria

2011-06-02T11:57:00.000+02:00

Austria has around 46,000 hectares of vineyards. That is roughly one third of Bordeaux (and some). There are four main regions: Burgenland, Niederösterriech, Steiermark and Wien. Niederösterriech is by far the biggest region with 60% of the total. Here are the details for all the wine districts in Austria:

Wine Growing Region: Surface in ha, % share

- Südburgenland: 498, 1.08%
- Mittelburgenland:2,117, 4.61%
- Neusiedlersee-Hügelland: 3,576, 7.79%
- Neusiedlersee: 7,649, 16.66%
Burgenland: 13,840.00, 30.15%

- Traisental: 790, 1.72%
- Carnuntum: 910, 1.98%
- Wachau: 1,350, 2.94%
- Thermenregion: 2,196, 4.78%
- Kremstal: 2,243, 4.89%
- Wagram: 2,451, 5.34%
- Kamptal: 3,802, 8.28%
- Weinviertel: 13,356, 29.10%
- so. NÖ: 30, 0.07%
Niederösterreich: 27,128, 59.10%

- Süd-Oststeiermark: 1,400, 3.05%
- Südsteiermark: 2,340, 5.10%
- Weststeiermark: 500, 1.09%
Steiermark: 4,240, 9.24%

- Wien: 612, 1.33%
Wien: 612, 1.33%

Italy world's largest wine exporter, followed by Spain and France

2011-06-02T11:31:00.000+02:00

According to the latest statistics from the OIV Italy is the world’s largest wine exporter. 20.6 Mhl went to the international wine market in 2010, an increase with 7% from 2009. The second biggest exporter is Spain with 16.9 Mhl, up 15%. France is in third place in the wine export league with 13.5 Mhl on export, which is an increase with 7%, just like Italy.

High Constantia, South Africa

2011-06-01T10:13:00.002+02:00

At High Constantia winemaker David van Niekerk makes an exceptional Cap Classic (sparkling wines made by the traditional method) that gets at least three years of ageing on its lees (sur latte). The grapes grow up in the mountains where the climate is fairly cool. Whole bunches are pressed and he gets 400 liters out of 1000 kilos of grapes. The wine is a Brut Zero, no dosage is added.

David has 14.5 hectares in total and makes also very interesting red wines. He likes to experiment. He looks for balance in the wines and he works hard to avoid harsh tannins. In order to emphasize the fruit, he is experimenting with unoaked Cabernet Sauvignon, which is unusual when it comes to high-quality cabernet. The region of Constantia is known for its Sauvignon Blanc and David's Sauvignon Blanc 2009 Nova Zonnestraat, with its lovely citrus flavors is a good example. In addition to MCC (Méthode Cape Classic), Sauvignon Blanc and Cabernet Sauvignon, David also makes interesting Viognier and Cabernet Franc.

Welcome to the BKWine Brief nr 94, May 2011

2011-06-01T10:01:00.000+02:00

The competition in the wine world today is tough whatever the price segment. It means a lot to have your wines or your domaine mentioned in the press. But that means capturing the interest of a journalist. Just a short while ago it was the organic wines that got the headlines. Today it is not enough to be organic. You should be at least biodynamic as well or producer of so called natural wines. Given that these wines represent just a tiny fraction of the world wine production they get a lot of attention from the journalists. And what is the moral of this? Well, you should not be like everyone else. It is not enough to make a good, or even very good, affordable wine, you must also be different. Maybe putting up a solar panel on the roof or hiring a horse for ploughing every now and then will do the trick. Knowing how to promote you wine is as important as knowing when to harvest.

You will read more on organic wines (and the various cousins) here in the future, as well as on marketing.

And we also have to mention that it is urgent to act if you are interested our autumn wine tours:

- Bordeaux, October 5-9
- Burgundy October 19-23

Register NOW! Don’t wait. Otherwise it might be too late.

Britt & Per

PS: Recommend to your friends to read the Brief or forward it to them !
PS2: Read the wine newsletter here

A short story on travelling in Champagne, Chablis and Burgundy

2011-05-26T09:32:00.000+02:00

Quite a few kilometres over three days, that’s what you get if you come on our “Three Classics” tour. And quite a few wine producers and wines to taste too! We have written a short story on what we do on that kind of trip, based on the Three Classics we did in April: visit to a few champagne houses, with a delicious lunch at one of them (with some ’04, ’03, ’02, and ’00 for lunch, the ’00 being the famed Grand Cru Clos des Goisses, so you can guess where we were!); a day in Chablis, with dinner at a Michelin star restaurant; and a day in Burgundy. Our favourite quote from the trip was the Burgundy producer who said “we only have 12 bottles left of our 2003 Corton Charlemagne Grand Cru. When you leave we will only have 10”. It was very good! Read the whole story here: Three classic wine regions in three days: summer weather in Champagne, Chablis and Burgundy

Why we don’t see more videos with Jancis Robinson, or wine tasting is not a spectator sport

2011-05-25T09:43:00.000+02:00

Jancis Robinson is one of the wine world’s super-stars. She recently published a new video with herself, one of only two she has made with herself. And the whole point of the video is to explain why she does not do more. “Wine tasting is not a spectator sport” she says, explaining that watching someone sniffing, spitting and talking about a wine is not her idea of an interesting wine video. Watch the video with Jancis Robinson here! We absolutely agree. Is it really interesting watching others taste wine? Jancis says she rather lets the wine makers talk about what they do. Great, we say! Totally in line with our philosophy with BKWine TV, where we primarily publish interviews with winemakers and reportage from wine regions. Watch our videos here: interviews and reportage from wine regions with BKWine

The US overtakes France as the biggest wine consumer

2011-05-23T09:38:00.000+02:00

As expected, the USA as overtaken France as the biggest wine consuming nation in the world, according to a report by Gomberg, Fredrikson & Associates. According to GF&A 330 million cases shipped in the US last year, compared to “only” 320 million cases for France. If you count in consumption per capita the US is still lagging far behind the big consuming nations, France included. GF&A estimates the size of the US wine market to $ 30 billion in 2010. But perhaps it is only a question of time before the US is overtaken by China? Read more: Bloombergs.com

New Zeeland: bigger volumes, lower prices

2011-05-17T09:14:00.000+02:00

The latest statistics show that New Zealand is producing more wine but getting less money for it. That is perhaps a confirmation of the fear that new plantings risk leading to an over-production and a glut of wine. Total production for the recently finished 2011 harvest was 310,000 tonnes, an increase with 15% and a new record. (That would be around 2 million hl of wine.) But prices are falling: in 2010 1.56 M hl was exported to a value of 550M euro. the average price was NZ$ 6,90 per litre (around 3.78€) which is a price decrease with 12%. Can we expect further falls in the prices following the big harvest? More info Vistisphere.com

Sangiovese to be planted in Languedoc

2011-05-16T09:35:00.002+02:00

One of the effects of the wine sector reform that has recently been done in France is that it will become somewhat easier to plant unusual or untraditional grape varieties. According to Vitisphere.com 40 hectares in Languedoc will be planted with sangiovese. The Italian vine nursery Vivai Cooperativi Rauscedo (VCR) has sold some 150,000 vines to a buyer in the Languedoc (whose name is not disclosed). The motivation is that sangiovese has a better resistance to dry climate and a higher production, according to the sources. Read more Vitisphere.com

Wines from Istria in Croatia, part 5: An Austrian in Istria explains

2011-05-16T09:09:00.001+02:00

Guido Schwengersbauer has lived in Croatia for many, many years. Today he runs a charming small hotel called La Parenzana in the small village of Buje on the Istrian peninsula. One of his passions is the Istrian wine and food.

We met Guido recently when we were travelling in Istria and talked about the Istrian wine and food the he so loves. Watch the video interview here: Guido talks about wine and food from Croatia

(BKWine organises a – bespoke – wine tour to Istria in the autumn of 2011, including a fabulous truffles lunch.)

Wines from Istria in Croatia, part 4: with an international reputation: Markezic and Degrassi

2011-05-10T14:59:00.000+02:00

One of the most established and well known producers in Istria is Marino Markežić at Kabola. He wants to go back to the roots. And his way of doing this is to ferment and age his malvazija in clay amphoras with the skins. “The wine breaths and because it stays in contact with the skins for seven months you get everything out of the skins!" It is definitely an interesting wine, as are all Kabolas wines, it is very dry, nutty and powerful and it has a beautiful amber colour.

Moreno Degrassi is also quite well known. He wants to show the world that it is possible to make wines in Istria from other grapes than malvazia och teran. Therefore he grows 16 different varieties: Chardonnay – quite exotic and fruity – the only Viognier so far in Istria, cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc, pinot noir, petit verdot and many more. He likes the local varieties however, and he thinks Istria must keep its special terroir style to be able to compete. But the wines should be made in a soft and accessible style, he thinks. The temper of Teran in tamed with oak ageing, “it softens the acidity”, he says. You can tell that he adapts to the international market. His wines are very well made but not as typical Istrian as the wines from Tomaz, Matosevic and Kozlovic. For the moment he sells most of his production of 130 000 bottles in Croatia but more and more bottles are exporter.

Wines from Istria in Croatia, part 3: Breaking new ground; Kozlovic & Tomaz

2011-05-09T09:28:00.000+02:00

Gianfranco Kozlovic is also experimenting with acacia wood. His Acacia malvazija is aged for nine months and he likes the result so far. And he thinks it is important to do something different. The wine is very good, it has personality and character. And an incredibly long aftertaste. And the acacia is there, definitely, but if it comes from the barrels or from the grape…He also makes a malvazia with 12 hours of skin contact. It is more powerful, of course, with hints of peach and ripe apples, but the freshness and the flowers are still there. I love the high acidity in these wines. malvasia could easily become my favourite white grape, a shame that it is so difficult to get outside of Croatia.

It has not been easy for the young quality-minded growers in Istria. “I didn’t start at zero”, says Klaudio Tomaz in Motovun, “I started at minus 20! The big coop here has made a lot of damage to our reputation.”

Klaudio and Daniella Tomaz is a young couple with 8 hectares of their own and another 10 on lease. The town of Motovun has a long wine tradition but for a long time the coop only focused on mass production. The Tomaz couple makes quality wine and they want to make their personal style of Malvazija. “We have a different climate and soil here, compared to other places in Istria”, says Klaudio. His basic Malvazija is very pleasant and floral, quite powerful and very fresh and dry. He also makes another Malvazija, with two weeks of skin contact, which is a traditional way of making Malvazija in Istria. This wine is aged in mulberry wood (!). His sweet Malvazija is a remarkable wine. The grapes are dried for 100 days after the harvest. They are pressed and the must ferments slowly in 2 year old oak barrels for 3 months. The alcohol reaches 16,8 % and the nose is smoky with a certain bitterness and aromas of dried figs. Definitely interesting!

Wines from Istria in Croatia, part 2: Acacia and Ivica Matosevic

2011-05-07T11:00:00.000+02:00

Ivica Matosevic is the first one to make wine in his family. “You can’t make a lot of money in wine” he says, but it is a nice job! And people like my wines, think they are very drinkable.” He used to work as a landscape architect and 1996 was his first vintage. He is, as most producers in Istria, specialized in malvazia. But he also makes good red wines from the local Teran. Like malvazija, this is a grape with a strong personality and he prefers to blend it with Merlot to get a better balance.

His bestseller is the clean and fresh malvazija Alba. It is bottled early after fermentation on stainless steel tanks. “I want to keep the freshness, this should be an easy-drinking product”, he says. It expresses beautifully the fresh and floral character of malvazia. There is a pleasant bitterness at the finish, also very typical.

Another typical aroma of the malvasia is the acacia flower. Maybe that is why Istrian producers are experimenting with ageing in acacia wood. “We have a local cooper who works with acacia wood, it is quite hard to work with and it gives a strong taste”, says Ivica. “I use 15 % of acacia barrels but never new wood. The acacia gives smoky notes to the wine and also some honey but it allows the wine to keep the extraordinary freshness that Malvazia is capable of.”

Wines from Istria in Croatia, part 1: Magnificent Malvazia

2011-05-06T09:49:00.000+02:00

Are you looking for something different, out of the ordinary? Wines that don’t taste like everything else? Go to Istria and taste their extraordinary malvazia (that can also be written malvazija or malvasia)!

Istria is a coastal region in the north of Croatia. Italy is just around the corner and you can’t help noticing. For one thing the whole of Istria is a bilingual region, so everybody speaks Italian and Croatian. You also have a strong Italian influence in the gastronomy and the architecture.

Istria has a long wine tradition but during the time of Yugoslavia good quality wines were not the order of the day. New producers and a new generation are now struggling to make the world realize that the quality has gone up. Most of the Istria wines are still sold in Croatia but export is increasing. We wish them luck because their wines are really worth it! Istria has 5000 hectares of vines (approx. like Saint Emilion) and around 120 producers. “Many of us are young, small producers from same generation and we all look for quality”, says Ivica Matosevic who has a vineyard outside the town of Pula.

Germany’s most grown grapes

2011-05-06T09:34:00.000+02:00

In our last Brief we wrote about the most popular grape varieties grown in Germany. The figures came from a print magazine but after looking at them a little more closely we thought they looked a bit peculiar (as did some of our readers!). So we checked instead the statistics from Deutsche Weininstitut:

These figures are from 2008 and in % of total area.

-- White grape varieties
Riesling: 21.9%
Müller-Thurgau 13.4%
Silvaner 5.1%
Ruländer 4.4%
Weissburgunder 3.6%
Kerner 3.6%
Bacchus 2.0%
Scheurebe 1.6%
Chardonnay 1.1%
Gutedel 1.1%

Total area for white grapes: 63.6%

-- Red grape varieties
Spätburgunder 11.5%
Dornfelder 7.9%
Portugiese 4.3%
Trollinger 2.4%
Schwarzriesling 2.3%
Regent 2.1%
Lemberger 1.7%
Acolon 0.5%
Merlot 0.4%

Total area for red grapes: 36.4%

FINE The Wine Magazine free to readers of the BKWine Brief

2011-05-05T11:53:00.000+02:00

FINE Magazine is a super-exclusive magazine on wine. It is enough to look at who their advertisers are and you understand: Aston Martin, Brioni, champagne houses, auction houses, Piaget etc. And it costs 120 euros to subscribe to four issues (or 60€ for the electronic version). The articles are in the same category. In the latest issue: Angelo Gaja, Bordeaux 2003, Chateau Palmer 1870-2006, Dom Perignon Rosé 1959… But it is not any superficial pieces, on the contrary. A lot of contents, a lot of text. And many beautiful pictures. As a reader of the BKWine Brief we can now offer you the latest issue for free. You can find it here: FINE The Wine Magazine

Born Digital Wine Awards shortlisting

2011-05-04T15:20:00.000+02:00

Good news! We're shortlisted for the "Investigative" category for the 2010 Born Digital Wine Awards.

It's for a piece we wrote on what seems to be a wine importer that deliberately is disguising marketing and advertising as as journalism in what apparently is a blatant effort to deceive consumers.

The article was titled "VinNet: Spännande ny nyhetssajt om vin? Eller olaglig marknadsföring?" (so it's in Swedish - but Google Translate works fine!), which means "VinNet: Exciting new news site on wine? Or illegal marketing?". it was originally published in our December 2010 newsletter.

There was a follow up article called "”Nyhetssajten” Vinnet: när saker inte är som de verkar. Eller är de? Journalistik eller reklam?", ("The 'News site' VinNet: When things are not as they seem. Or are they? Journalism or advertising?")

Now we're just waiting for the 18th of May when the winners will be announced!

Cognac makes new sales record: 1.86 bn euro

2011-05-04T09:51:00.000+02:00

Things are apparently going well for cognac, in spite of the financial crisis. 2010 was a record year for cognac sales: 1.86 billion euro in sales, which is an increase of almost 30% compared to 2009 (which was a bad year though). That means shipments of 153 million bottles, which is an increase of 18%. The best performance is in the premium segments: VSOP and XO. They now account for more than half of all sales (54.5%). According to the press release frowm which thse numbers come cognac is drunk less and less as a digestif, after dinner with coffee: 70% of all cognac ends its life as a component in drinks or on ice. 97% of all cognac is exported from France (cognac is only produced in Cognac, in a small region north of Bordeaux called Charentes). Asia is now the biggest market with 33.2%, marginally ahead of N+S Americas (32.2%) and Europe (30.5%). Where the remaining few percent goes is not specified. (Angels’ share?)

Ten year anniversary for Champagne des Vignerons.

2011-05-04T09:40:00.000+02:00

Traditionally champagne is made and marketed by the big ”houses” in the region, with all the well-known champagne brands. Quite few champagnes come from individual growers and bottlers. Some say that the fabulous success of Champagne in recent decades can be attributed to the dominance of the houses. Others say that they mainly produce rather average wines without too much individuality. Ten years ago the individual growers created a sort of “umbrella brand”, called Champagnes des Vignerons (“growers’ champagne”), to be able to better collectively market their wines. In other works, this years marks the tne year anniversity of this brand. today almost a third of all champagne is made and sold by individual growers. Read more on Le Journal du Vin. Congratulations!

Asa's Wine of the Month: Paolo Scavino, Barbera d´Alba 2010

2011-05-03T10:37:00.003+02:00

We recently did a wine tour to Piedmont and visited Paolo Scavino. He makes many interesting wines: Barolo, Langhe Nebbiolo, Barbera etc. Most (or all) would merit a mention under WotM but I will choose one that is a good food wine.

Most Italian wines are made to go with food rather than as “cocktail wines” (drunk on their own as a social drink). Scavinos Barbera d’Alba is a good example. It is also very affordable, around 15 euros. The acidity is quite high – a characteristic of the barbera grape. But it is balanced by a good fruit and good structure. It is quite low on tannins but is very refreshing and goes excellently with some “simpler” Italian dishes, like pasta and charcuteries, for example the dried prosciutto ham or a slightly spicy salami. www.paoloscavino.com

5e Cru - Cave à Vin & Table d‘hôtes, Paris 5e

2011-05-03T10:23:00.000+02:00

It looks like a wine store and it is a wine store. But also a very inspiring place for a lunch or a dinner, amongst wine bottles and wine cases. The selection of wines is amazingly good, if you – like us – like small, ambitious producers with a penchant for terroir and organic viticulture. For lunch there is a small menu, you can choose between two or three courses (entrée and main course is 13,90 euro). Nothing fancy or complicated, but very good and well prepared.
For dinner there are mostly charcuteries and cheeses but also foie gras and various patés and terrines. And desserts. You will have no problem in finding a wine to go with your meal. Just to mention a few of my favourites: Morgon from Jean Foillard, Moulin-à-Vent from Paul Janin, La Clape from Domaine d’Anglès, Chinon from Philippe Alliet and Vacqeuyras from Domaine Monardière. Very nice atmosphere and service. Booking recommended for dinner.

5e Cru - Cave à Vin & Table d‘hôtes
7 rue du Cardinal Lemoine
75005 Paris
tel : 01 40 46 86 34
http://www.5ecru.com/

BKWine Pick: Champagne Tarlant

2011-05-02T10:41:00.001+02:00

You find Champagne Tarlant at the top of the small village of Oeuilly, a few kilometres west of Epernay. The view from their house is magnificent, as is their champagnes. Not only are they of high quality, they also have personality. “It is thanks to our passion for le terroir”, says Benoit Tarlant, the winemaker. The family Tarlant has in total 14 hectares of vineyards but everything is not in one single plot, on the contrary. They actually have 60 different plots, which means a lot of different types of soil and terroir. And this adds complexity to their champagnes. “It is important”, says Benoit, “to point out that champagne is actually also a wine, not only a drink for festivities”. He makes a great deal of effort to obtain a base wine of high quality. “Normally we have an alcohol degree between 10.8 and 11 % in the base wine and a high acidity, 8 grams per litre. The acidity should be high, it gives a back bone to the wine”, he says.

Tarlant’s best seller is something unusual. It’s a Zero Brut, admittedly something that is in fashion right now, but for most producers the Zero Brut is a special cuvee, not their volume champagne. Champagne Tarlant Zero Brut Nature is made with a third each of Chardonnay, Pinot Meunier and Pinot Noir. It is a lovely fresh champagne, with hints of citrus and it goes perfectly with shellfish or just on its own, as an aperitif. I also recommend La Vigne d'Antan from 100 % Chardonnay from non-grafted vines. The Rosé Zero is also very unusual and something you must try if you are a rosé champagne lover. Tarlant was actually the first to make a totally dry rosé champagne. I also have to mention the complex and full bodied cuvee prestige Cuvee Louis, a champagne that spent ten years in the cellar on the lees.

Web site: http://www.tarlant.com/

Chateau Grillet, a mythological appellation and chateau, sold

2011-05-02T10:27:00.000+02:00

Chateau Grillet is one of these French appellations that most wine lovers have heard about but few have tasted. It is sometimes said to be France’s smallest appellation (it depends on how you count) and it is one of the rare districts where all wine is made by a single producer. Both the appellation and the wine estate are called Château Grillet. For many generations, since 1830, it was the property of the Neyret-Gachet family but they have now sold it. The new owner is already a winemaker. His name is François Pinault and he also owns Château Latour in Bordeaux. Winemaker is perhaps an exaggeration. He is one of France’s richest persons, owing e.g. PPR. Chateau Grillet is a region in the northern Rhône Valley. the vineyard is 3.5 hectares, planted exclusively with viognier grapes, making an aromatic but full-bodied white wine. Just like its neighbour Condrieu. Read more: www.decanter.com

The Indian wine magazine Sommelier India writes about BKWine’s wine tours

2011-05-02T10:12:00.000+02:00

Sommelier India is a glossy (in the nice sense of the term) wine magazine that also has a web site full of wine information. They recently ran an article called “Information You Can Use – Wine Tours” where they show-case three wine tour operators. And one is BKWine! Anther tour operator they talk about is Shivani Dogra who organises wine tours in India! Read the full article here www.sommelierindia.com

Welcome to the BKWine Brief nr 93, April 2011

2011-04-30T10:47:00.000+02:00

Our new site on wine travel is now up and running. All information about our wine tour activity will in the future be found on www.bkwinetours.com. Our wine tour programs will of course be published there (take a look at Bordeaux and Burgundy!), but we will also publish a lot of other travel-related information on that site. First we have a “Travelog”, or travel blog, that talks about things that happen on our wine tours, visits we do, people we meet etc. But it will also talk about other things that have to do with wine travel. On that site there will also be various other “useful” information, for example city guided to some of the places that we visit on our wine tours (e.g. Beaune in Burgundy), or short introduction to the wine regions that we travel to. You can find all that under the menu ‘resources’.

If you want to be up to date on what we do on the travel side it is a good idea to subscribe to the RSS feed for www.bkwinetours.com, or specifically to the RSS feed for the travelog.

(There will be quite a lot of talk about travel in this Brief and elsewhere – as you can imagine, we have been quite immersed in travel things having launched our two new sites (one in Swedish too) and also finalising this autumn’s program.)

The wine travel season has now started in full speed. You can for example read more on Istrian wines in this Brief – we were in Croatia not very long ago.

We have also been to Champagne, Chablis and Burgundy (our “Three Classics” tour). We enjoyed a weather that was almost like summer and we visited several interesting producers – and tasted many wines. And then we went to northern Italy, both to Piedmont (amazing how many different styles of Barolo and nebbiolo wines there are!), to Soave and to Valpolicella. Interesting mix!

At this time of the year the activity is low in the winery but in the vineyards things are very busy. Buds are bursting so that you can almost hear a pop-pop-pop among the vines. And soon you have leaves and tendrils everywhere. Apparently, a vine can grow 20 or 30 centimetres per day when it is as most vigorous. This time of the year is really a wonderful time to come out into the vineyards: there are different shades of pale green everywhere, fruit trees are blooming and even between the vines you often see flowers. These days growers often let the grass and other plants grow between the vines so you can sometimes get amazingly colourful patterns in the vineyards. Another big advantage of travelling at this time of the year is the long and bright evenings!

Weather has been excellent (amazing!) in many parts of Europe so far this spring. In Paris we have had two weeks of summer weather – with lunches on the balcony. Some wine growers tell us that the growing season is two weeks ahead of normal. One producer said pragmatically “well, we just have to adapt”. How true. However, in some wine districts it has not been so fun: in Sauternes they had hail. How much damage it has done, or if the vines will be able to recover, we don’t know. We will have to wait and see – just like always with wine.

Britt & Per

PS: Recommend to your friends to read the Brief or forward it to them ! More on wine:
Guest writers on BKWine.com
Wine videos: BKWine TV
Wine photography

Read the full BKWine Brief here!

Wine tours brochures now available for download

2011-04-26T14:07:00.000+02:00

The wine tours this coming autumn have now downloadable e-brochures. You can download the pdf and print it or share it with your friends on email.

You can find the list of wine tours (Bordeaux, Burgundy) here.

A six-Michelin-star dinner!

2011-04-22T09:43:00.000+02:00

I went to a very interesting dinner the other day, the Dîner des Chefs at Park Hyatt Paris Vendôme. The dinner was organised for the 6th time (and always during the Paris Book Fair), by the publishing house Glénat. One of the specialities of Glénat is cook books and books written by famous chefs, so for this dinner they had gathered 5 different French chefs for an extremely creative dinner who together had six Michelin “Red Guide” stars!

A creative dinner, yes. What we were served was French cuisine haute couture. Fascinating, delicious but, as often is the case with haute couture, sometimes a bit too complicated and even strange. Read the details on this Dîner des Chefs på Park Hyatt Paris Vendôme

-B

France’s best sommelier competition now open for entrants

2011-04-22T09:38:00.002+02:00

Every two years the French sommelier organisation (UDSF, l’Union de la Sommellerie Français) organises a competition for young wine waiters, open to anyone who is working with or studying sommellerie and is under 26.

Anyone who wants to participate should register before April 25 by contacting the l’Union de la Sommellerie Français. The competition is sponsored by Champagne Duval Leroy and the finals will take place at their winery on 27 and 28 November.

CIVB on the 2010 vintage in Bordeaux

2011-04-21T09:41:00.001+02:00

Beautiful and sunny summer and an exceptional autumn gave us a very successful vintage in the whole of Bordeaux. Good maturity and fine, healthy grapes. 2009/2010 is now being compared to the successful duo of 1989/1990.

White, dry wines

The sunny days with cool nights kept the acidity and the freshness in the grapes. Sauvignon Blanc started to be harvested end of August and Sémillon, always later to mature, in the end of September. The wines have a fine balance.

Red wines

Merlot was picked from September 20 and Cabernet Sauvignon from end of September and all through October. All grapes reached a very fine maturity and a good acidity. The ageing potential is very good. The year is also characterized by soft and ripe tannins and high alcohol levels.

Sweet wines

Very good and even botrytis. The firsts grapes were picked end of September and the harvest continued until end of October. Sémillon, especially, had very concentrated and intense flavours this year. An exceptional year for this grape.

Bordeaux plans for the future - CIVB's view

2011-04-20T09:22:00.001+02:00

Georges Haushalter, the president of the CIVB (Conseil Interprofessionel du Vin de Bordeaux) was in Paris recently to talk about the new vintage 2010 and also in general about Bordeaux’s plans for the future.

Bordeaux has more or less recovered from the crises of 2008/2009 when they lost about 20 % of their sales. But the crisis is not totally gone. Some chateaux still have problems, especially many petit chateaux – small, unknown chateaux in (mainly) AOC Bordeaux – and some of these will probably soon disappear from the scene. One of CIVB’s priorities is to reorganise the sales in bulk to be able to more effectively fight against low prices that harms the image of Bordeaux and, of course, harms the financial situation of the winegrowers. The beautiful vintage 2010 will help to us to take one further step out of the crises, says Georges Haushalter.

Bordeaux is a wine region with enormous differences in prices. You have everything from very simple wines that nobody wants to pay for; to the extremely expensive ones that are more like luxury products comparable with a Louis Vuitton handbag. If you have wines that nobody wants to pay for, well, then something has to be done. The only way to fight against low, image harming prices, however, is to make the wines more attractive, in taste and in presentation. If you can’t do that, stop making the wines.

Georges Haushalter also wishes to make Bordeaux more accessible, to make people understand that they don’t have to be afraid of Bordeaux. This is probably a very wise way of thinking. Too many people think of Bordeaux as a region with high prices and prestigious chateaux and nothing more. It is important to make people realize that Bordeaux has so much more to offer, in very reasonable prices. In Great Britain a marketing campaign is running at the moment, with the slogan "With good food we drink Bordeaux”. More campaigns to stress the fact that Bordeaux is the food wine par excellence (so true) is being planned.

Georges Haushalter also wants to make Bordeaux easier to understand. ”We have many different appellations”, he says, ”around 50, and that is our richness and strength and we don’t want to change that, but we need to make it more easy to understand.”

Easier said than done, but then that goes for the whole of France.

The strange story of the Languedoc classification

2011-04-19T10:17:00.000+02:00

Is the purpose of a classification to benefit the consumer or to benefit the producer? That is one of the questions one can ask when reading about the new (yet to come) classification in the Languedoc. It was recently launched officially at a trade event in the Languedoc. The answer to the question seems to be the producer, but only the incumbent and well behaved.

Here are the principles.

There will be three levels in the classification:

-- “plain” AOC Languedoc wines costing 3-4 euro per bottle

-- mid-range wines costing 3.5/4 to 7/10 euros per bottles. This will include the appellations Corbières, Minervois, St Chinian, Faugères, Picpoul de Pinet, Malepère, Cabardès and various sub-appellations such as Languedoc St Georges d’Orques and Languedoc-Montpeyroux

-- expensive wines, above 7/10 euro per bottle, including Corbières-Boutenac, Minervois La Livinière, La Clape, Limoux blancs, St Chinian Roquebrun and Berlou as well as Languedoc -Grès de Montpellier, Pézenas, Pic Saint Loup and Terrasses du Larzac

If we recall correctly, the mid range is to be called Grand Vin and the top level Grand Cru. Or was it the other way around? Is the distinction obvious to you?

We fail to see the point in this. If the classification is just a function of the prices, what good does it do? Is it difficult for the consumer to look at the price tag? What if someone in Saint Chinian makes a very ambitious wine, costing more than 10 euro, what will happen? Or if someone in Terrasses du Larzac chooses to make a rather simple volume (or makes a promotion to get into a market) wine for only 3 euro?

The CIVL (the producer control organisation) says, according to Vitisphere, that they have no means to sanction those producers who don’t respect the price levels defined. At the same time Jerome Villaret responsible at the CIVL says, according to Vitisphere: “we will only give promotional funds to those who respect the rules”. More from Vitisphere

Languedoc is one of the most exciting and most dynamic wine regions in France and this classification scheme seems designed to stifle that dynamism. To us this seems just another way of trying to do collective price fixing. Is that really acceptable today with EU open market and competitions rules (banning e.g. price fixing among competitors)? And it also seems to be a way of confusing the customer, rather than making it more transparent. And at the same time putting up artificial barriers that will make it more difficult for innovative and entrepreneurial winemakers to succeed. But perhaps we have misunderstood the point?

Update: After we wrote the above we found some more information on the Love That Languedoc by Ryan O'Connell (with an interesting but hard to understand video). But it just seems to confirm what we said. First they create a labyrinth of appellations, sub-appellations, terroirs etc. Then they hope to “simplify” by creating yet another layer of terminology, thinking it will simply for the consumers. Read our more detailed comments on the O’Vineyards blog

Champagne Brut Nature – the new trend?

2011-04-18T11:26:00.000+02:00

Dry champagne goes under the name of ‘brut’ (French for raw, unprocessed). Half-sweet and sweet are, confusingly, called sec and demi-sec. Even if ‘brut’ linguistically means “in its original state, sugar has been added to the brut champagnes, at bottling with the so-called dosage. Up to 12 grams per litre for brut. (12 grams is around 2 table spoons of sugar, or a half filled espresso cup) Perhaps more than what one would think? In recent years a new category has entered the champagne scene: ‘brut nature’, sometimes called brut zero, brut integrale or other things. The most extreme variant of this is when no sugar at all is added. It has even become a bit of the in thing to ask for. “The drier the more luxurious”, “the sugar hides the quality” etc. To some extent it is true, excessive sweetness can hide defects, but a bit of sugar can also give a more balanced and harmonious wine, especially if the acidity is very high. So one should not exaggerate “totally dry is best”.

Ideally one should taste (blind preferably) and decide for oneself. But even if it has become trendy with brut nature it is far from being a big seller. Yet. In 2003 shipments to the UK of brut nature was 180 bottles (according to CIVC). In 2006 it reached 474 bottles and in 2009 a dizzying 4,770 bottles. But it is a hardly noticeable drop in the champagne ocean compared with the 32 million bottles of brut shipped in 2008.

UK is biggest export market for South African wine, Sweden in third place

2011-04-18T11:17:00.000+02:00

The United Kingdom is by far the biggest market for South African wine exports. A bit more surprising is perhaps that Sweden, with only 10 million inhabitants, is the third biggest market, far ahead of e.g. the USA. South Africa is actually the biggest supplier of wines to the Swedes. Here are the top-ten export markets for South Africa (May-09 to April-10, source: Drinks Business and DOAFF/SA):

- UK: 121 million litres
- Germany: 72 Ml
- Sweden: 39 Ml
- The Netherlands: 28 Ml
- Denmark: 16 Ml
- USA: 14 Ml
- Canada: 12 Ml
- Belgium: 9 Ml
- France: 9 Ml
- New Zealand: 6 Ml

The French catch the bag-in-box bug: 25% of wine sold in Bib

2011-04-12T09:46:00.000+02:00

2.23 million litres of wine was sold in bag-in-box in the big retail chains in France in 2009. This represents 24.4% of the volume! It is an increase of 17.5% compared to 2008. Evidently the bib wines are getting more expensive: the value of sales reached 530 million euros which was an increase with 20%.

The figures include sales in “grandes surfaces” and excludes direct sales and specialised wine shops. Grandes Surfaces represent the majority of the sales though. (Source: La Vigne, France AgriMer)

Lavinia opens new shop in Paris

2011-04-12T09:38:00.000+02:00

It is not an exaggeration to say that Lavinia has revolutionised the wine shop scene in Paris. Their wine shop is very centrally located, close to Place de la Madeleine. There you can find 6000 wines and spirits (for comparison, three times as many as the Swedish monopoly Systembolaget offers). The shop extends over three levels with 1500 m2 surface. Around 2000 of the wines are non-French!

Lavinia has recently opened a new shop in Paris, this time in the business district La Defense. It is a much smaller shop, but still has 260 m2 and some 1000 references. There is even space for a small tapas restaurant where you can drink any wine from the shop at no extra charge (over shop prices). They also have a wide selections of wines by the glass, served in 3cl, 5cl or 10 cl portions. A must for a lunch time pause if you are in La Defense!

More facts about Lavinia: Lavinia France turned over some 13 million euro in 2010; the whole group 40 M euro, with 200 employees (49 in France). They have a wine club with 6000 members – the members account for 50% of the shop’s turnover. They have shops in Paris, Geneva, Barcelona, and Madrid, and franchises in Kiev and Odessa. http://www.lavinia.com/

Three new French appellations: Fiefs Vendéens, Côtes-du-Brulhois and Gros plant du Pays Nantais

2011-04-11T10:15:00.000+02:00

The story starts with the reform of the French appellation system. Since a long time back there has been a small intermediate group called VDQS, just below the highest quality category AOC.

VDQS stands for Vin Délimité de Qualité Supérieure. The new rules will eliminate the VDQS category by the end of this year. In February the INAO, who sets the rules, decided to ‘upgrade’ three current VDQS to appellations. Not to AOC but to AOP. (AOC changes name to AOP…)

The three new appellations are: Fiefs Vendéens, Côtes-du-Brulhois and Gros plant du Pays Nantais. There now only ten VDQS to be dealt with before the end of the year. Read more in www.lavigne-mag.fr

Growing Gruner - part 4: Still not a sign of life...

2011-04-06T15:28:00.000+02:00

Still not a sign of life on my cuttings from gruner veltliner that I got at the European Wine Bloggers Conference in Vienna last October.

Here is how they look now:

and

In contrast, here's how another vine looks - from a cabernet franc (or merlot?) from our balcony. I put this one in water just a little bit before the GV!

Shall I give up? Or give it another week or two?

Bordeaux Primeurs, part 4: tasting notes on some 2010s

2011-04-06T10:16:00.000+02:00

Some interesting wines of vintage 2010. Some new names, worth remembering.

Château Puygueraud, Francs – Côtes de Bordeaux
Very fruity, really easy to taste and juicy.

Château Puygueraud, Cuvée George, Francs – Côtes de Bordeaux
This wine is made of 45 % Malbec and 35 % Cabernet Franc (the rest is Merlot) so an exciting and unusual Bordeaux blend. The wine feels a bit old fashioned with a somewhat rustic feeling to it (but in a positive sense). Quite tannic and structured.

Château La Prade, Francs – Côtes de Bordeaux
A very fine structured wine full of finesse from 6 hectares of old Merlot.

Château Gigault, Blaye – Côtes de Bordeaux
Cuvée Viva. Very fruity and stylish from an very good terroir in Blaye.

Château Magdeleine Bouhou, Blaye-Côtes de Bordeaux
Good structure, soft tannins, classic style with 90 % Merlot and 10 % Malbec.

Château Clarisse, Puisseguin – Saint Emilion
The very first vintage for this chateau with a 5,30 hectare vineyard.

Château Haut Ballet, Fronsac
Generous fruit in this wine with a 100 % merlot.

Château Saint Paul, Haut-Médoc
Closed on the nose. Full of flavours and structure on the palate.

Château Vrai Canon Bouché, Canon-Fronsac
Fine fruit, elegant, good potential.

Château Côte Montpezat, Castillon – Côtes de Bordeaux
Cuvée Compostelle
“An exceptional vintage med good balance and freshness that makes you want to have another glass”, says owner Dominique Bessineau. And thhis wine is just like that, soft, round, fresh and with a certain elegance.

Domaine de l’A, Castillon – Côtes de Bordeaux
Very ripe, dark fruit, a bit sweet, seems very extracted.

Château des Fougères, La Folie, Graves
Nice fruit, easy to drink and elegant – the cool nights preserved the aromas and the freshness, in the whole of France, says owner Benoit Labuzan.

Château Berliquet, Saint Emilion Grand Cru Classé
Good, classic Bordeaux style.

Bordeaux Primeurs, part 3: A head start with Stéphane Derenoncourt

2011-04-06T10:14:00.000+02:00

We tasted primeur wines already this week (last week, when this comes on the blog) here in Paris. Monday this week Bordeaux consultant Stéphane Derenoncourt invited to a tasting of 2010 from all the chateaux where he and his team work as consultants, in total over 100 chateaux and some domains from outside of Bordeaux and France. It is an impressive selection of big, famous names and less famous but very high class chateaux.

Stéphane Derenoncourt about 2010: “It was a year with a long and balanced growing season, giving grapes with aromatic intensity, good acidity and an exceptional ripeness. The only problem in the vineyard turned out not to be a problem at all. The cool weather during the flowering caused some coulure to occur but in the end that was a good thing because it naturally lowered the yield.”

Bordeaux Primeurs, part 2: wines difficult to taste

2011-04-06T10:12:00.000+02:00

It is not easy to taste the primeur wines and judge the potential quality and taste. Bordeaux is a wine blended from different grape varieties and at the moment they are kept separately in the barrels. For the primeur tastings the cellar master makes a blend that resembles as much as possible the final blend (although some say that they instead make a blend that is easy to taste, but we don’t really know if that is true). The malolactic is sometimes not finished, or just finished, which doesn’t help and furthermore, the wine at this stage is not always very stable so it can matter when, during the week, you taste one particular wine.

But all these difficulties apart, of course you can get an idea of the quality and the characteristics of the vintage (maybe more difficult when it comes to individual chateaux). Anyway, for 2010, really all you have to do is read about the weather conditions and you know the vintage is successful.

And then you buy your favourite chateaux (if you can award them!)

Bordeaux Primeurs, part 1: Let the circus begin, ed. 2010

2011-04-05T10:32:00.000+02:00

The week of the primeur tastings in Bordeaux is approaching fast. Next week it starts (first week of April - current week when this is published on the blog). Wine merchants and journalists will, during one week, taste and spit hundreds of Bordeaux wines of the new vintage 2010.

The wines that are being tasted are far from ready; they have barely finished their malolactic fermentation and will spend another 15 or 18 months or so in oak barrels before being bottled. But the big and famous châteaux in Bordeaux sell an impressive quantity of their production en primeur. Next week wine merchants are supposed to get an idea of the quality of the vintage and of the different chateaux so that they later on can decide what to buy. Prices will be released in May or June and starting now there will be, as always, a lot of speculations.

Pricing is a bit complicated. Often the chateaux release a certain amount of cases at a certain price and after a few weeks another batch is released, maybe at a higher price. And what determines the price? Well, to some extent points given by important wine journalists are taken into account. But more important, the chateaux probably know what they can expect from the market. We have seen some staggering increases in price during the last years but this is mostly from the most famous chateaux. A lot of very good chateaux (even some Grand Cru Classé) keep their pricing quite stable.

Publish and be damned! Or should we have a plan economy for Bordeaux wines?

2011-04-04T10:18:00.000+02:00

In an article last week Jancis Robinson advocated a freeze period for comments and reviews on wines tasted at the Bordeaux primeur circus next week (presentation and trade tasting of the new 2010 vintage) until after the chateaux have announced their prices. She argued that holding off on comments may have a dampening effect on the wine prices. She says she is starting to feel like a pawn manipulated by the wine trade. It has sparked a lot of debate on the internet and elsewhere. Michel Bettane, one of France’s most influential wine critics, has also been very negative about this years Primeur campaign, but with a reasoning that more sounds as if he is bitter because some other journalists have been given priority access.

Robert Parker, the Wine Spectator, Decanter and others have been sometimes sympathetic but generally not supportive. Dr Vino (Tyler Colman) on the other hand seems to like the idea. BKWine is not going to the primeurs tastings but in any case we do not think Jancis’ let’s-all-keep-a-secret journalism collusion idea is good. Nor is it something that is likely to have much effect on the market. Read our more on the proposal and our detailed comments in this article: “Is the market for Bordeaux wine a market economy or should it be a plan economy?”

What do you think?

Germany’s most popular white grapes

2011-04-04T10:16:00.001+02:00

Here is the list of the most popular white wine grape varieties in Germany, counted in volume:

- Muller thurgau, 14%
- Riesling, 13%
- Gruner veltliner, 7%
- Chardonnay, 5%
- Pinot gris (rulander), 4%
- Silvaner, 4%
- Other, 53%

White wine still dominates production but merlot is actually the second most used variety, after M-T. Quite a surprise, as is the quantity of chardonnay. Source: Drinks International.

UPDATE: This listing looks very strange. For an update from the German Wine Institute look here.

”World’s Best Wine Book for Professionals 2010” is awarded to BKWine for The Creation of a Wine! - from the press release

2011-04-04T10:13:00.000+02:00

We are immensely proud! This is the beginning of the press release:

“The Swedish wine book “The Creation of a Wine” was awarded the prize “World’s Best Wine Book for Professionals 2010” in the international book competition Gourmand World Cookbook Awards 2011. The Creation of a Wine is written by Britt Karlsson, with photography by Per Karlsson, published by Carlsson Publishing (Stockholm). The award ceremony took place at Folies Bergères in Paris on March 3. The book is an in-depth description of vineyard vine growing and wine making in the cellar. The book is not yet translated into any foreign language. Britt and Per are Swedish wine journalists based in Paris and also operate a wine travel business called BKWine Tours…”

BKWine Pick: In Vino Veritas, Montpellier

2011-04-04T10:10:00.000+02:00

In Vino Veritas, Montpellier

In Vino Veritas is a small wine bar and restaurant hidden on a narrow street just behind the opera in central Montpellier. The wine list has a good selection of wines, mainly local for the region, at reasonable prices. Many good producers are represented; some examples: Domaine Gauby, Mas de l’Ecriture, Grand Moulin, Chateau Lascaux etc. Food is uncomplicated – typical for a small French bistro-café: steak tartare, entrecôte, magret de canard etc. A good place to go if you are looking for a friendly welcome, simple food and good wines.

Click here for address and more recommendations.

BKWine Pick: Domaine des Terres Dorées, Beaujolais

2011-04-01T10:56:00.000+02:00

Domaine des Terres Dorées, Beaujolais

One of our favourites in Beaujolais is Domaine des Terres Dorées. The owner and wine maker is Jean-Paul Brun and he has worked hard to make his wines some of the best in the region. The domain is situated in the south of Beaujolais, in the little village of Charnay-en-Beaujolais, not so far from Lyon, in the middle of the beautiful countryside called ”Le Pays des Pierres Dorées”.

Jean-Paul has 30 hectares, all organic, and 11 of them are in Beaujolais Cru, in Brouilly, Moulin à Vent and Fleurie, some 300 kilometres from Charnay. ”Up there, in the northern part of Beaujolais”, says Jean-Paul, ”the granite soil gives more minerality to the wine compared to the lime stone soil here”.

Jean-Paul is not your traditional Beaujolais grower; he works more like someone in Burgundy would. He does not use carbonique maceration at all. He destalks and ferments in the traditional way, with crushed grapes. He never adds sugar; he prefers to have a lower alcohol level. Which is not a bad thing in Beaujolais, he says, here the fruit is the most important thing. He is looking for balance and character. One way to get character is to use only the natural yeast. “This is very important for the personality of the wine”, he says. He uses very small doses of sulphur.

He is also unusual in another way. He makes a lot of white wine. This is a very good region for chardonnay, he thinks. If you see his wines, red or white, don’t hesitate. Buy.

Click here for address and more recommendations.

News on Wine Tours from BKWine

2011-04-01T10:48:00.000+02:00

"World's Best Wine Tours" - Travel + Leisure Magazine, on TravelAndLeisure.com

BKWine offers you two possibilities to go wine travelling this autumn:

Wine Tour to Bordeaux, October 5-9, 2011

For a wine lover a trip to Bordeaux is a must! In Bordeaux you find world famous châteaux and world famous wines but also a lot of new exciting initiatives (less famous but maybe more important for the future of Bordeaux!) and young enthusiastic wine makers.

On this trip we will visit both some big, famous Grand Cru Classé-châteaux and smaller ones that are less known, but very quality conscious. More info on our wine tour to Bordeaux here!

Burgundy wine tour – exclusive, elusive, enchanting, October 19-23, 2011

Some of the most unique wines in the world – reds and white – come from Burgundy. A well made red Burgundy, made from the elusive pinot noir, is a wine of elegance, hardly found anywhere else. You find them in the Côte d’Or, the golden slope, the heart of Burgundy. More info on our Burgundy wine tour here!

For more information please contact us on email or on phone (we're on French time). Visit our video channel http://www.youtube.com/bkwine to meet some of the producers we visit.

Visit our brand new wine travel site on www.bkwinetours.com!

What do people think about a wine tour with BKWine?

That is of course a question that we think is very important. We want it to be a wonderful and memorable experience for everyone. Here are some of the comments we’ve had from customers this season:

“Many thanks for a fantastic trip. You are so keen to make everything the best for your guests and you are so knowledgeable about wine. A pleasure to travel with you.”, W-A

”Thank you for a wonderful trip to Umbria and southern Tuscany. Wonderful in many ways – our initial ideas for the trip on food and wine in Umbria and Tuscany – and discovering sagrantino and sangiovese – were more than fulfilled”, I & P in Umbria and Tuscany

“After last year’s fantastic trip to Champagne, Chablis and Burgundy our expectations were set very high. But this trip to Bordeaux was even better than we had hoped for. What lunches! What dinners we had! And what wonderful and personal wineries and chateaux we visited. We hope to come back on a new tour with BKWine!” A-M & S in Bordeaux

”You surpassed all the expectations that we had on the tour before we came. The organisation was without a glitch and the tastings was far beyond any similar things we’ve been to previously. It whet our appetite and we already look forward to our next tour!”, B & T in the Rhône Valley

Custom wine tours

We also make custom designed wine tours – on-demand tours for you and a group of friends, for your company (maybe to scout new winegrowers?), for a special event… We can combine winery visits and wine touring with other activities: gastronomic workshops, visit to an oyster farm, truffles hunting, cheese making, and more. We’ve done tours for wine clubs, for sommelier educations, for corporate events, for wine importers, for wine course study groups… just to mention a few.

You'll get a tour designed exactly according to your requirements and tastes, made by one of the most experienced wine people in the business. We personally visit some 200 wineries and taste thousands of wines every year; we write on wine for various wine magazines (we had more than 30 articles published last year); in 2007 we published a ground breaking book on the wine of the Languedoc and in 2009 we published a book on vine growing and wine making - unique in its kind. And we have organised hundreds of wine tours over the years.

More info on the custom designed and bespoke BKWine wine tours and travel here!

Wine tours in Finnish

More info on the Finnish wine tours here: Viinimatkoja

Welcome to the BKWine Brief nr 92, March 2011

2011-04-01T10:41:00.000+02:00

It feels like ages since the last issue of the Brief. So many things have happened since. A few:

World’s Best Wine Book!

We won the prize “World’s Best Wine Book for Professionals 2010” in the international book competition Gourmand World Cookbook Awards! The book had already been named “best wine book of the year 2010” in Sweden and we knew we were nominated at the GWCA. But we also knew that we were up against books from for example Spain, Italy and China. So when we were at the awards ceremony at the Folies Bergères theatre in Paris (nice place!) we did not really have much hope to be on the podium. And then we win!! Dumbstruck is not an exaggeration.

We are immensely proud and very glad the book is appreciated even internationally. We just regret that it is not (yet?) available in English! We have made a big effort to make the book unique and informative – there are not that many comparable texts on the subject for the enthusiastic ‘amateaur’ or dedicated wine professional. More info further down in the Brief!

The World’s Best Wine Travel Site?

That may be stretch, but it is FINALLY there. Our new site on wine and food travel: www.bkwinetours.com. It is an entirely new site with all information on our wine tours (English language tours). We have spent a lot of time and effort to create a site that has lots of information and where it is easy to find what you are looking for. And that gives us a better tool to really show you what our wine tours are about: more exciting text, beautiful pictures, and even a few videos.

The site also has a brand new dedicated travel blog – the TRAVELOG – that you definitely should subscribe to if you are interested in wine and food travel. Subscribe on RSS here: http://www.bkwinetours.com/category/travelog/ (If you’re not familiar with subscribing with RSS, send us an email and we will explain. It’s easy!)

And later this spring we promise much more news too!

Visit our wine and food travel site here: www.bkwinetours.com !

World’s Best Wine Travel Destinations

(Have to stop this silly ‘world’s best’!)

On the tour program schedule for this autumn’s wine tours we have one trip to Bordeaux and one to Burgundy. You can find the full details on the NEW site! ;-) More will come soon!

Register NOW for an autumn wine tour! On our new wine travel site www.bkwinetours.com !

And don’t forget that we also do custom tours for small or larger groups.

A few interesting reads

(Look! I managed!)

In this issue of the Brief we have quite some debate and discussion. For example: on the new Primeurs Circus in Bordeaux or the curious new classification in the Languedoc. Some of the texts became so long that they did not fit here, so you will have to read them on our blogs. Follow the links in the Brief below!

Britt & Per

PS 1: Do let us know what you think about our new site!

PS 2: If you write a blog: we’d really appreciate your help in getting the word out about our new wine travel site. If you had the possibility to write a line or two about it we’d really appreciate it! Launching a new url is not easy…

You can read the full newsletter, BKWine Brief #92, here!

More on wine:
Guest writers on BKWine.com
Wine videos: BKWine TV
Wine photography

Is the market for Bordeaux wine a market economy or should it be a plan economy?

2011-03-31T16:12:00.000+02:00

Jancis Robinson, the heavy-weight British wine critic, wrote an article last week about the imminent Bordeaux Primeurs circus called “Bordeaux 2010 – when to publish?” It has sparked an intense debate both on her site and on the internet in general. Read it all here: http://www.jancisrobinson.com

In her article Jancis advocates that wine journalists and critics should hold off on publishing the tasting notes, or at least the ratings (scores), until after the primeur wine prices have been set. She went on to contact several of her most prestigious colleagues (Robert Parker of the wine Advocate, Thomas Matthews, executive editor of the Wine Spectator, Guy Woodward, editor of Decanter and probably several more) to get their reaction to her suggestion. Predictably, most of the journalists whom she has contacted seem to decline her proposal, whereas many others, both journalists, bloggers and other commentators on the internet seem to think it is a great idea.

So, what would the point be in holding off on publishing? Well, Jancis says that she is starting to feel as if she is manipulated by the Bordeaux trade: “I do increasingly feel like a pawn in a game designed to part you with as much money as possible”. So her idea is that if there is a co-ordinated effort among journalists not to publish notes until after the prices have been set, maybe the price increases will be less dramatic and less unreasonable.

I see several weaknesses in this reasoning and I don’t really think it’s a good idea.

Firstly, if a journalist is reluctant to have an impact on consumers and producers, then it is better not to publish at all. It is inherent in the role as a journalist or critic to have an influence. That, to a large extent, is the whole point of it! As a journalist you cannot choose to write only for one type of audience (e.g. only for the benefit of “consumers”). You have to accept that what you write can be read, and used, by anyone.

And perhaps it is even to some extent based on an exaggeration of the influence that journalists have. Is it really due to journalists’ and critics’ writing that some exclusive Bordeaux wines have become outrageously expensive? (“Outrageously” from some people’s point of view. Others think they are good value.) I suspect that the journalists, and in particular the primeur ratings, only have a very limited impact on Bordeaux pricing and that in reality it is other factors that have much more influence. (You can of course find the odd counter example, like the Parker effect on the Lafite prices last year.)

Then one has to take into account how the trade functions. The wines are released only in ‘tranches’, so the producers are drip-feeding the market. So should the let’s-keep-a-secret agreement be valid until just the first tranche has been released or until all has been sold? If the former, what will be the point? The prices can easily be changed for the subsequent trances.

Then you have the fact that the “release prices” are just the initial price that the chateau sets to the first level of the trade. If the market is ready to pay the very high prices it is currently doing then limiting the price rises at the producer level will just move the wind-fall profits to later stages in the selling chain, to e.g. wholesalers, importers or retailers. Perhaps that is one of the reasons whey some trade voices have seen this as a good idea?

But the most basic reason not do such a thing is that it seems to be an unreasonable type of collusion between journalists (as Parker says) – refraining from communicating with the readers. And that prices are set by the market – what the customers are willing to pay.

The highly respected French journalist Michel Bettane has also chimed in with a similar issue. he has written an open letter to the UGC (Union des Grands Crus – one of the organisers of the primeur event). His argument is that it is unfair that some journalists are given the possibility to taste the primeurs before others, and that this gives them the possibility to publish their comments earlier tham others. But this too is a curious argument: First, who has said that journalism and in particular the primeur event is supposed to be “fair”. The organisers can do as they please and the journalist can participate or not, as they please. Secondly, the letter more seems to be a case “why is he given access when I am not allowed to come?”.

Or to quote from his open letter:

"il est insupportable de voir James Suckling délivrer ses commentaires deux ou trois semaines avant tous les autres et d’imaginer mes collègues de la RVF avoir des conditions spéciales de dégustation"

Envy of not having been given the front row in this event? One can only wonder how many times M Bettane has been given privileged access to events and tastings that many other journalists have not had equal access to? Was Bettane threatening to boycott those events too, when he was on the other side? There is of course nothing that says that all journalists are supposed to be given equal access or equal opportunity to report, nor that they should have the opportunity to publish at the same time. An online journalist will always be able to publish faster than a print journalist, per definition (just as an example).

Read the open letter from Michel Bettane here: http://bonvivantetplus.blogspot.com and more on his views on the issue here http://www.decanter.com

One other voice who seems to support the case (but perhaps I am mistaken) is Tyler Colman at the Dr Vino blog http://www.drvino.com. There are many interesting comments on that post.

So, in conclusion:

No, journalists should not keep secret the tasting notes on Primeurs until a later, mutually agreed date
If one does not like how it is organised, then the only real solution is not to participate. If you don’t like the Primeur Cricus and the skyrocketing Bordeaux prices: don’t review the wines, don’t write about it.
It is doubtful that the tasting notes have any significant long term effects on the price of the wines. (Many journalists rate other wines just as high as Bordeaux wines but those wines don’t reach the same astronomic price levels.)
The market is open: the wines will cost whatever the consumers are prepared to pay. And today it seems that there is almost no limit to how much (some) consumers, i.e. the market, is willing to pay for the most expensive Bordeaux wines (dare I say claret?)

What do you think? Is there a right or wrong?

(And then there is of course the question of how relevant it is to taste the Bordeaux wines en primeur. Can you really give a fair and accurate judgment of how the final wine, which may be a quite different blend, will be? But that’s a different question!)

-Per

Dîner des Chefs at Park Hyatt Paris Vendôme

2011-03-31T11:42:00.000+02:00

Jean-François Rouquette from Pur’ Restaurant at the Park Hyatt where we had the dinner (1 Michelin star)
Patrick Jeffroy from l’Hôtel de Carantec in Bretagne (2 Michelin stars)
Sébastien Bontour from Palace Es Saadi in Marrakech
Davide Bisetto from Casas del Mar in Corsica (2 Michelin stars)
Nicolas Masse from Les Sources de Caudalie in Bordeaux. (1 Michelin star)

And I should also mention Pier-Marie Le Moigno, chef-patissier at Pur’, responsible for one of the desserts, called simply Le Cube, although it was probably not that simple to make.

A creative dinner, yes. What we were served was French cuisine haute couture. Fascinating, delicious but, as often is the case with haute couture, sometimes a bit too complicated and even strange.

I give you here the menu in French; I will not even try to translate it into English:

Langoustine froide avec gelée de soja et pamplemousse (Jean-François Rouquette)

Served with Chablis 1er cru Vaillons 2008 from Joseph Drouhin. A full bodied wine the a minerality and freshness that matched the grape fruit.
Saint-Jacques fumée et queue de bœuf frite, émulsion de raifort (Patrick Jeffroy)

Here the Chablis did very well with the horse radish and the smoked scallop.
M’hamsa safrané à la tchekchouka parfumé aux fleurs de coriandre, écrevisse snackée à la fleur de sel, Caviar de l’Ambassadeur (Sébastien Bontour)

Served with Puligny-Montrachet 1er Cru Chalumaux 2007. A very clean and complex wine that did well with all these different flavours. Caviar de l’Ambassadeur is a new and delicious Iranian caviar
Tortellini d’ossobuco, fondue d’ubriaco, balsamique 25 ans d’âge (Davide Bisetto)

Served with Château Batailley 1998, Pauillac. Ready to drink now, a very classy and classic Bordeaux. Very nice with these very tasty tortellini. I wanted more of them!
Bar épais Rossini, pomme de terre onctueuse et compotée d’oignons doux (Nicolas Masse)

Again, the Paullac was superb.
Le Cube (Jean-François Rouquette et Pier-Marie Le Moigno)
Fine gelée à l’infusion de Naâna & granité à la menthe poivrée

Beautifully combined with exceptional Sauternes wine Clos Haut-Peyraguey 2006

So indeed a star studded dinner!

-Britt

Growing Gruner - part 3: I'm getting worried.

2011-03-28T10:25:00.001+02:00

Continuing the story of growing a gruner veltliner vine from cuttings that I received at the European Wine Bloggers Conference in Vienna.

I am starting to get a bit worried. Weather has been nice. We have not had any hail on the kitchen window sill (where the vine is standing).

But is it growing?

Will my new vine fail?

It seems noting is happening. It is now two and a half week since I put the cuttings in water. Not a sign of a root, not a sign of life. I hope I am just a bit too impatient. I will wait for some time more. Here's how it looks currently.

In contrast, here's how a cutting looks that I took from one of the old vines we have on the balcony, admittedly a little longer ago, when we were doing winter pruning:

How to dig a deeper and deeper hole. Or: "A Prima Donna shouts too loud"? - A Portuguese challenge

2011-03-23T20:08:00.002+01:00

First of all I want to apologise to all my Portuguese friends, winemakers and others. And to all other who love Portugal and its wines.

I had wanted to leave this debacle with the 1º Encontro e Prova Internacional de Vinho / 1st International Wine Meeting and Tasting in Portugal (Celorico, Beira Interior) organised by Maria Joao de Almeida (and vinho.tv) behind me and focus on constructive work.

(Update: read my first post on this subject here: An experience in how not to market Portuguese wines: the 1st International Wine Meeting and Tasting (in Portugal))

However, I cannot do that when again and again the organiser Maria Joao de Almeida comes back with untruths and insults.

There has been criticism from several people, some public and some only private, of the organisation of the First International Wine Meeting and Tasting in Portugal.

The reaction from Maria Joao de Almeida has been limited, but surprising.

The first reaction (not counting when I talked to her at the conference) can be read in the comments on the blog post by Luiz Alberto on the Wine Hub blog: What were you thinking Maria João de Almeida? What she says there is already quite astonishing.

Subsequently she has posted on Facebook and on her own site, specifically addressing us who have discussed the event online.

On Facebook she says this (unofficial translation from Portuguese):

The Prima Donna Tantrums

Dear friends, it seems that a group of international journalists is very bothered by not having participated in the tasting of fortified wines and decided to write their dissatisfaction on their respective blogs. So that it’s real clear: Nobody invited them to participate in the tasting, they have been invited only to attend the press conference about it. The tasting was done for sommeliers and the international orators, nothing more. Some people consider themselves more important than they really are.

(Click on the image for a larger size.)

In a “statement” that has been sent out but that I have not received but that is available on her site she says this:

Statement

The organization of the 1st International Meeting and Tasting (vinho.tv Turismo da Serra da Estrela, Câmara Municipal de Celorico da Beira e a APM – Associação Portuguesa de Management DRS) regrets everything that has been written in recent days on the issue of fortified wines Tasting, and regrets even more that many people who doesn’t know us or did not participate at the event giving opinions about facts they do not know.

In order to restore the truth and to make it clear, national and international journalists never were invited to participate at the fortified wine tasting. Two press releases were sent earlier this year (on January and February): the first to explain that there would be a fortified wine tasting on March 19th with international sommeliers, and the second completed with the names of the participants. Not enough, the book of the congress had the same information repeated at the end. The only participants who were not sommeliers were international speakers Sarah Ahmed, Tim Atkin and Jamie Goode who were invited to participate in the wine tasting.

The national and international journalists were invited to participate at a press conference where information would be revealed about the wines in the competition, because naively I thought it was interesting to them to be present. Instead, I found a true manifestation of discontent on the part of several journalists who wanted to stay inside the tasting room where they were never told to participate.

I regret that journalists / bloggers use their «power» to attack someone just because they wanted to participate in a historical tasting to which they were not been invited! I wonder how important are these journalists to give such nasty opinions just because they feel themselves offended by not participating in a wine tasting? Which "disaster” is this that makes the whole event into question? What credibility do we have to give to such people who do not know us, did not attend the event, and speak in the name of others without their consent?

Finally, what importance should the producers give to this kind of communicators? I must also say that I also received very positive reviews about the Congress, not only from national and international speakers, but also from sommeliers, winemakers and producers, not to mention the international journalists who also sent me e-mails thanking for having been invited.

I do not recall seeing an event in Portugal that has assembled such important personalities in the sector to discuss key topics. Do we need to improve? Yes we do, certainly, but you can never please everyone, especially those who are prepared to throw the first stone. Finally, I want to thank everyone who believed and participated at the event, thank those who supported me in this moment of tension and inform that we will continue to organize events within the wine sector, and we are now preparing the 2nd International Meeting and Tasting.

Maria João de Almeida

I have to respond more in detail.

I have a small issue with this debate on the “historical tasting” since it detracts from the real issue: that the whole three day conference was lacking in organisation, in professionalism and in contents.

I may not have the experience in organising big international events that Maria Joao de Almeida has. But I do have some little experience – in addition to being a wine writer I also run a wine tour and travel business (named as “World’s Top Wine Tours” by Travel and Leisure Magazine) so organising travel and events is part of my profession, and I have organised three international wine fairs.

To come back to the issue, the “historical” tasting was just the tip of the iceberg, or the straw that broke the camel’s back.

The Historical Tasting

But let’s start with that. If one reads between the lines in the conference invitation, yes, then one can with good will interpret it as Maria Joao de Almeida does. However, I for one was told by the organisation that the tasting was a very good reason to stay also the Saturday, since it was such a special event. So, on their recommendation I stayed. Secondly, if one reads the conference program and invitation documents in a way that any normal person would then it is clear that the tasting is indeed part of the program. And finally, if it is as Maria Joao de Almeida says, why is it then the case that we were a whole group of people who were standing there, stunned that we had been invited to a press conference about a tasting rather than a real tasting? Apparently we were all incapable of reading a simple conference program.

Maria Joao de Almeida tells me that on many occasions she, in her work as a journalist, has attended press conferences about tastings, where she has not participated in the tasting – and that she has found it useful. I wonder what kind of wine journalism that results in? Writing about other people tasting wines that you know nothing about how they taste? Unfortunately, that is not a type of journalism I am capable of doing.

But, as mentioned, the ‘historic’ tasting was only one of many details. So, for the record, I am not in any way "attacking" anyone only because I felt spurned, as you say, in a tasting. No, you are wrong on this too, Maria Joao de Almeida.

What is more important is that the organisation, the management and the contents of the conference was not good, simply not acceptable.

To me.

Others may have different opinions. Others may have had different expectations.

I invested a lot of time in this event, others invested a lot of money in it. I feel that we did not get what could be expected from it.

I feel I have an obligation to let you know Maria Joao de Almeida (as the person ultimately responsible), as well as the people who gave you money to organise it (providing funding for this and possibly future events), even if you do not want to listen. So there is no reason to say "they are just jealous because they were not in the tasting". That is not true at all.

Let me take a few examples:

Conference Goals

It is very unclear to me what the goal of the conference was.

Was it to promote Portuguese wines to an international audience? Very little of the presentations seemed to be aimed at that. Was it to help Portuguese winemakers market themselves more effectively on an international market? As a foreign visitor it appeared to me that that was target. Several presentations were geared towards such themes. But if that was the case, why bring in 20 or 30 international delegates for whom such presentations had little value?

It seems to me that the conference wanted to be all things to all people. This was not possible so instead it became a disappointment for everyone. Or at least for some. I cannot speak for others of course but my impression was that many journalists found little of interest in many of the presentations. (Why else did so many walk away during the presentations?) My impression was also that the attending wine producers and other delegates did not quite get what they expected from it. But again, that is just my impression.

Conference contents

This brings us to the core of the conference, the contents: There was a long list of very illustrious names. The speaker names were surely one of the main magnets for those who came there. And yes, some of the speakers did have interesting things to say, but frankly, in total, not much I can write about as a journalist.

Let me take a few examples:

Jancis Robinson, the star speaker, spoke about what could be called “tips and tricks on how to market your wines internationally”. Interesting in a way but not really much that I can write about. Perhaps more relevant tips for wine producers.

Jamie Goode gave what was basically a quick introduction to the internet and to social media – what it is and how to use it. Again, any journalist worth his salt knows very well what social media and online communications is about, wouldn’t you think? (We (BKWine) have been writing about wine on the internet since 1996.)

Salvador Guedes talked about the history of Sogrape and the story of Mateus Rosé and recent corporate developments. Interesting in a way but to do something about such a theme one really has to sit down with him and do a proper interview, as well as taste the Sogrape wines.

Dirk Niepoort talked about how he sells wine with original labels, different in different countries. Curious example of branding and marketing, but again, without sitting down with Mr Niepoort and doing a proper interview, and perhaps visit the vineyard and, importantly, taste the wines, not much I can write about. And also perhaps more geared towards giving tips and inspiration to wine producers.

Etc etc. It was indeed a very impressive list of speakers, but they did not really get the possibility to put their cases forward and to create something solid that I can write about.

Wines – where were they? Only cheese!

You had a captive audience in the conference facilities (there was nowhere to go!) so there could have been plenty of opportunities to have people taste wines (when they choose not to listen to presentation). But during two full conference days there were virtually no wines to taste! Two days of wine conferencing and no wines to taste!?

Yes, there were a few wines to taste with the dinners. But as a professional wine journalist you must be aware of that if you want to taste wines seriously and comment on them, doing it over dinner is not ideal.

A great missed opportunity to have a lot of people, hungry for information and knowledge, taste your wines.

The tasting show and exhibition

This was probably the most valuable part of the event, as it turned out: a wine show / tasting with some 50 wine producers presenting their wines. But again, the organisation was botched.

First, it was very unclear in the communications before the conference what this was all about. Secondly there was no information given to us before we came to the conference on what producers would be there. You must know, Maria Joao de Almeida, that if you have 50 producers in a room, each with 10-15 wines you cannot meet all wine producers and taste all wines. You have to do your homework before and make a shortlist of who to go and meet. Walking around from one table to another without a plan is a waste of time. But how could we plan, without any information at all?

And why plan it so that it coincided with the ‘historic’ tasting? That meant that many of the sommeliers and wine journalists who participated in that tasting did not come to the wine show at all. Did they? It would be interesting to know if the exhibitors thought that they had a good crowd of visitors, both general public and professional journalists and sommeliers.

The location, the venue, the hotels

The location of the conference was 2 hours (or more) from Porto and 3 hours from Lisbon (I’m told). In the mountains of Portugal. Very difficult to reach. Sparsely populated.

An “International” conference needs to be in an “international” location, relatively easy to reach. And a “national” conference / wine show needs to be in a place where there are many people who can come and visit. The actual conference facility was a sports arena – freezing cold, poor sound, sanitation facilities that were a joke, video screen hard to see etc. And no internet and wifi connection; in a conference that talks about internet and social media and wants to show the way to the future!? Do you really think that was appropriate international conference facilities?

The three (or four?) hotels where people were staying were far from the conference and far from each other – half an hour bus drive or more. Terrible planning, terrible for networking and making contacts, terrible for getting to and from the conference. Yes they were nice but with all the bussing needed we were hardly in the hotels at all. (And I was told that one did not have wifi – for a journalist meeting!? Correct or not I don't know.)

Not to mention the Friday evening when we were told at 9PM over dinner: “you have to check out by 8.15 tomorrow morning because you will be moving hotel”. Why were we moving hotel? No one could answer. To which hotel were we moving? No one could answer. (Yes, we did ask several times.) Not that that we left at 8.15. Rather 8.50...

Logistics and planning

This may be seen as a question of personal comfort that there is no reason to bring up, but it is typical for the whole organisation: lack of organisation, information, coordination. Examples:

Many had to wait for hours at the airport to be picked up, some waited three hours, before leaving for the hotel, a two-two and a half hour drive away, which meant arriving at 1.30 at night. Were there no better way?

Going back: we were a small group of people going to the airport on the Sunday morning – a two and a half hour drive. I had been told that my transport left at 6.45. Another person was told 7.00 – and we were taking the same flight. By chance we bumped into one of the staff very late the evening before and asked. None of us had the correct time. Now it was supposed to be 6.50… At 7 AM we still sit waiting for the bus but there is no bus. A few more people arrive who were supposed to take the same bus, it turns out, but had been given a different (later) time. 20 minutes after we were supposed to leave there was still no bus. And nor was there someone from the organisation there who could find out what was happening. When I called the contact phone number I had for the organisation there was just voice mail… (I left a message but no one ever called back.) 25 minutes after the time we were supposed to leave the bus arrived. I arrived at the airport five minutes after check-in closing time.

This was just two examples, but typical of the whole - a continuum of lack of information, contradictory information, and misinformation.

Each time I asked the staff what the planning was (When will we be leaving? Which hotel are we going to? What’s the schedule? etc) no one knew. “I will have to check and come back later to you.”

Showcasing Beira Interior

I have understood that this too was one of the objectives. (I have been told that it was the region who financed or co-financed the event. I do not know if that is true.)

What I saw and learned about Beira Interior told me that it was beautiful region. But I really saw very little of it and learned very little about it – not enough to give me any substance to write about it or see much of it. A great shame. Most of the time we were sitting in the gymnasium, where we did watch a video, yes. Or we were driven between hotels when it was dark outside. So unfortunately I did not learn much about it. Perhaps I will have the chance to come back and visit some day, to learn more about it! Oh yes, we were given a book about Beira (well, Celorico) in our visitors’ pack. A nice book with the town’s history. Unfortunately it’s only in Portuguese so I can’t read it.

Another great missed opportunity for Beira.

A lot of money must have gone into this effort of which am am very uncertain of its value, especially for the Beira Interior region.

It goes on and on and on.

Maria Joao de Almeida, you may think I am a Prima Donna or an amateur or someone who does not know what I am talking about, or that I write inelegantly. But you might at least respect my opinion and listen to what I have to say.

Again, I am deeply embarrassed by having to say all this. But having been challenged publicly I feel I have no choice.

I love the wines of Portugal and the wine regions that I have visited. I wish I had seen more of the country and Beira Interior is certainly on my wish list of regions to learn more about for the future. The winemakers and the people that I have met are all very welcoming and they have plenty of interesting and exciting wines to taste.And are often longing to tell the world about them.

I will be more than happy to come back to Portugal again and again.

But perhaps not to the 2nd International Wine Meeting and Tasting in Portugal organised by Maria Joao de Almeida.

I imagine I won’t be invited....

-Per Karlsson

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An experience in how not to market Portuguese wines: the 1st International Wine Meeting and Tasting (in Portugal)

2011-03-22T10:37:00.002+01:00

This post is really a comment on a blog post by Luiz Albert over at The Wine Hub, but for some mysterious reason the full commentary refuses to publish on that blog.

Last week there was the 1st International Wine Meeting and Tasting (1o Encontro e Prova Internacional de Vinho) in Portugal.

It was a three day thing: two days of conferences and one day with tasting.

You can't really find much information online about it (although one of its objectives seems to have been to talk about social media and the internet) but here is its page: http://www.encontroeprovainternacionaldevinho.com/.

It was organised by Maria Joao de Almeida, who has a site here: http://mariajoaodealmeida.clix.pt and who also, if I understand it right, runs Vinho.tv: http://www.vinhotv.clix.pt/.

There were a number of "international" (i.e. non-Portuguese) wine journalists present, probably between 20 and 30, from all around the world: Europe, North America, South America... All expenses paid for. I was one of the invited.

Unfortunately it was an event that more showed how not to market a country and its wines rather than the opposite.

I have been debating with myself whether to talk about this debacle in public or not. Will discussing it publicly only put Portugal and Portuguese wines in a bad light and be unproductive? Or will it be constructive?

In any case, Luiz Albert at The Wine Hub as brought it out in public in his post What were you thinking Maria João de Almeida?

Luiz mainly talks about one of the remarkable things at the conference: when we were brought to a tasting room for a 'historical' tasting of fortified wines, but where the only thing that we were allowed to do was to listen to a press conference presenting the tasting that would be done by other people; where we were not allowed to participate.

However, that tasting was just the tip of an iceberg. The other parts of the conference were no better (albeit perhaps less insulting).

I have tried to post my comment on it on Luiz' blog but it won't stick... (Google Blogger magic?)

So here is my comment in full to Luiz' post:

It pains me very much to say this, because i love the wines of Portugal and the Portuguese wine regions that I have visited. I could wish for nothing better than an opportunity to write something positive that would entice more people to taste Portuguese wines and to come to Portugal.

But I will say it here anyway.

It has to be said.

The total failure of the "historic" wine tasting that Luiz talks about was just the tip of the iceberg. (It will certainly go down in history as the biggest insult to wine writers.) A reflection of the whole.

The rest of the event was not much better: the organisation was virtually non existent. The contents were of not much real interest to visiting journalists.

It failed to give me much good new material to publish.

(No, I don't come home empty-handed; I do have some good info. But that was thanks to individual initiatives (of me and others) that were possible to do in spite of the organisation.)

It failed show Portuguese wines in a favourable light.

It failed to show case the region, the wine and the food of Beira Interior, which apparently was one of the objectives.

When I talked to Maria Joao de Almeida about this she tells me:

- “Perhaps you should check your spam folder. We have sent out information about this tasting and the organisation to you by mail”

So, I am so incompetent that I don't read my email? And so is every other visiting journalist?

- “Oh, you know, it is very difficult to organise this kind of event, have you ever done any such thing?”

As a matter of fact I have – my business (apart from journalism) is to organise wine travel and events. I have also organised three international wine fairs, so yes, I do know what it takes to do it. And if anyone who worked for me was in charge of a project and it failed so dismally as this they would be fired on the spot.

- "It must be my staff that has not done their job to inform you properly...”

What kind of manager reacts in that way? In front of a "customer" and a journalist?

- “Were you not glad to listen to Jancis Robinson and Jamie Goode?”

Well, it was my first meeting with both of them, so yes, it was good to meet them. But Jancis talked about some basic ideas of how Portuguese winemakers can market their wines more effectively internationally. Not of use to me as a journalist, no. Jamie's talk was a basic introduction to the internet and social media. Perhaps also useful for wine producers unfamiliar with the internet? I have been writing about wine on the internet since 1996 so, no, not really useful for me or anyone else who knows a bit about blogs, facebook etc.

- “You know, I’m a journalist too so I know what it is you need to work”

Well, I very much doubt that, on both counts. And what does it help me (and her) to tell me that I apparently do not know what I need to do my work, and apparently do not know either how to do my work as a journalist?

Maria Joao de Almeida also told me that I was insulting the organisation with my critical comments. Really?!

Unfortunately, my conclusion is that the whole of the event, the full three days, plus two travelling days, was of not much use. Not for me. It was not “just” the historical tasting that went wrong; far from it.

I have not, ever, experienced a similar thing. I can only guess what the other visiting journalists thought.

I would love to write more about the lovely wines and regions of Portugal but this event did not help. There was very little there to give me any new information that I could use. And at every step of the way the organisation of it was inept, inadequate and in..., well, not quite what could have been expected or hoped for.

You may think that my writing is clumsy or inelegant, just like what you think of Luiz’, but that is beside the point. The point is the quality of the organisation and the contents of the three day conference.

If anything it has made it more difficult to write about Portugal and Portuguese wines. But I will not give up!

I will stop here with my comments.

Anyone who wants to know what I thought about it in more detail is welcome to contact me, e.g. here: http://www.bkwinetours.com/contact/ or directly on email: firstname dot lastname at bkwine com.

-Per Karlsson

Portugal is one of the really interesting up and coming new/old wine countries. There are many exciting wines and winemakers. But this was not the way to showcase them.

I can make a long list of what did not work at the conference, from letting us wait three hours on arrival at the airport before driving us two hours into nowhere in the middle of the night to arrive at 1.30 in the morning at the conference hotel. To the very last thing when we were supposed to go back to Porto (another two hour+ drive) and the bus never arrived (it did, but 30 minutes too late) and I arrived at the airport 5 minutes after check-in closing time - with no one from the organisation there see to that things worked as planned, nor answering the designated contact phone.

But more important than these "practicalities" was the lack of substantial and useful contents at the conference. Yes there was some, but very little.

So, in conclusion, a conference that did not have form (organisation) nor contents of a quality or professionalism to show Portugal and Portuguese wines in the positive light that it/they deserves. We, the visiting journalists, suffered from it. From what I hear, the wine producers who participated suffered just as much (and undeservedly felt embarrassed about it).

We, BKWine, will nevertheless continue to be very enthusiastic about Portuguese wines and Portuguese winemakers. We will continue to write about them, publish text, photo and video. We will continue to organise wine tours to Portugal's wine regions. We will not give up.

The Portuguese wine regions are spectacular and there are many, many exciting and excellent wines!

We will be back! It's a promise or a threat, depending on how you look at it.

Growing Gruner - part 2: tiny, tiny roots?

2011-03-16T15:15:00.000+01:00

After about 5 days in water there is maybe, maybe the beginning of tiny roots on the gruner veltliner cuttings. I've had to change the water several times, to keep it fresh. Here's how it looks right now:

Tiny roots starting on the gruner veltliner cutting?

If you look closely you can see a little white spot on what looks like a bud. You see it best on the right hand cutting.

"The original gruner veltliner from the Danube region"!

The name of the vineyard and the soil is more important than the grape variety in Burgundy, according to BIVB

2011-03-15T09:26:00.000+01:00

Representatives from BIVB - Bureau Interprofessionel des Vins de Bourgogne – were in Stockholm recently and BKWine took the opportunity to talk to Raphaël Dubois, wine grower with his sister in Premeaux-Prissey, and also responsible for communication at the BIVB. The theme for the Stockholm event was terroir och climats. The objective was to put forward the unique notion of terroir in Burgundy and especially in Côte d’Or. Thanks to the great variation in soil and micro climate in the Bourgogne we have hundreds of different climats och lieu-dits, that is separate vineyards or part of vineyards, often mentioned on the label. It can be a grand cru, a premier cru or just a parcel of land that deserves being vinified separately.

It was the monks during the middle ages that started it all. They noticed the differences and they divided the land in the Côte d’Or into all these different climates. It is easy to see Burgundy as a very traditional wine region but Raphaël Dubois says that the young generation of wine growers is very open minded and modern. ”The last ten years we have seen a lot of young people taking over from the parents but also growers coming from outside, from other parts of France and from other countries. They are all fascinated by the possibilities that our unique terroir gives them but they also want Burgundy to be seen as a dynamic wine region”, he says.

”It is important that we can explain to the consumers the big differences we have in terroir. But this word, terroir, is difficult for certain consumers to understand. Sometimes they ask, why can’t you just put the grape and the signature of the producer on the label?!” But of course Raphaël, or any other producer in the Côte d’Or, would never simplify things like that. It would make life easier, he says, instead of making, say 20-25 different wines from 15 hectares, but much more boring.

”Burgundy is not a beginner’s wine”, says Raphaël, ”our target group is consumers that already know something about wine. If people already know our wines and our grape varieties, then you can start talking about terroir and climats.”

Premium wines from Trivento in Mendoza

2011-03-14T09:45:00.000+01:00

We recently had the occasion to taste a range of premium wines from Trivento in Mendoza, Argentina. The wines have just been launched in the “on special order only” range at the Swedish monopoly but our comments may be of interest also to other than our Swedish readers.

Trivento was created in 1996 and is today one of the five biggest exporters of wine from the Mendoza. They have 1289 hectares spread over several different vineyards. The vines are around 15 years old. The name Trivento means “three winds” and refers to the three winds that are frequent in Mendoza: the cold polar wind, the warm zonda, and the wind from the south-east called sudestada, that often brings with it storms and sometimes hail. “The winds are a challenge for us, but also a part of Mendoza”, says Maximiliano Ortiz, the winemaker.

Like many other in the Mendoza today Trivento are keen on finding new and better locations for their grapes. They are buying land in the Uko Valley and they will plant new vines to make new wines. 2005 was the first vintage of their premium cuvee Trivento Eolo, made from almost 100% malbec (there is also between 2 and 10% of syrah). The grapes grow in stony soil but in a well protected area close to the Mendoza river. The vines were planted in 1912! Therefore the yield is low and they give a concentrated wine. The 2007 is very good, with good yet elegant structure; a touch of oak; ripe, dark berries, and a fresh acidity. It a wine to drink with food. It has been aged in French oak barrels in their brand new winery cellar, inaugurated in 2008. They have 4200 oak barrels, 60% of which are French, the rest being American. “The American oak gives more sweetness and softness to the wine”, says Maximiliano. “The French oak gives more elegance, but the wine needs to stay longer in the barrel.” They are doing test with aging the same wine in both types of barrels to see what works best.

They have also been successful at Trivento with torrontes, chardonnay and syrah. A favourite of ours is Trivento Golden Reserve Syrah 2007 made from grapes coming from the Uko Valley. The wine has a good syrah style with quite a lot of black pepper in the finish and a very good an generous fruit, and just the right amount of tannins. Also delicious is the Trivento Amado Sur Torrontes made from 75% torrontes, 15% viognier, and 10% chardonnay. Maximiliano Ortiz, the winemaker, likes the combination of viognier and torrontes: “Viognier adds aromas of apricot and peaches to the flowery style of torrontes.”

Growing Gruner - part 1: in water

2011-03-12T12:34:00.000+01:00

This is not at all about 'green' vine growing. It's about gruner veltliner, the star white grape variety of Austria.

Last November I visited Austria for the European Wine Bloggers Conference (#EWBC). At one of the tastings we were given cuttings of gruner veltliner to take home (easier to carry than wine bottles!) with simple in structions: "Put in water for two weeks. Plant in earth. Let us know what happens!"

Gruner veltliner planting instructions

Winter was coming so it was not really the best time to plant new vines. Especially this winter. But we already have some chasselas, cabernet franc and merlot on the balcony so adding a gruner veltliner would be nice.

Now temperatures start to warm up so I though now would be a good time to do it.

I don't know if the cuttings will have survived a dry and warm apartment winter climate, but we will see.

This is the first post to see what happens, if it goes well.

So I have put the cuttings in water, as the (very quick) viticultural training told me to do (view from above):

My two gruner veltliner cuttings from Austria

This is where (I hope) the roots will start developing:

Gruner veltliner, where the roots will sprout

And this is where the bud will sprout, and grapes will come - in time the source for a lovely peppery gruner veltliner wine (one can always dream):

A gruner veltliner bud?

I will be back with progress reports!

Tasting 20 years of Vacqueyras: 1989-2009

2011-03-11T09:28:00.000+01:00

-- Vacqueyras 1989 Signature
Domaine des Amouriers
Mature, long taste with aromas of the garrique and some dried fruit. Very well preserved och very tasty.

-- Vacqueyras 1990 Traditionelle
Domaine la Garrigue
Intense nose of tobacco and cedar wood. Good concentration, length and balance.

-- Vacqueyras 1991 Cuvée Prestige
Le Clos des Cazaux
Quite light in style but a nice wine with some elegance. A difficult year with rain in August and September.

-- Vacqueyras 1993 Vincilia
Domaine de Montvac
Good, intense aromas of ripe fruit, autumn leaves and mushrooms. Still very fresh.

-- Vacqueyras 1993 Classique
Domaine des Amouriers
An elegant and well balanced wine with soft tannins. Very good.

-- Vacqueyras 1994 Traditionelle
Domaine la Garrigue
Light, elegant and tasty. Spicy aromas of the garrique, some tannins. Good.

-- Vacqueyras 1994 Vieilles Vignes
Domaine la Monardière
Good and well balanced with aromas of dried plums. The end is a little bit short.

-- Vacqueyras 1995 Lopy
Domaine le Sang des Cailloux
Very concentrated, powerful but still with a good balance. Tobacco and autumn leaves in the nose. Very good wine from a powerful and warm vintage.

-- Vacqueyras 1996 Lopy
Domaine le Sang des Cailloux
Refined and elegant with mature aromas and a freshness that is typical of the vintage.

-- Vacqueyras 1997 Traditionelle
Domaine la Garrigue
Powerful wine with a good acidity and some tannins. A well preserved wine, still young in style.

-- Vacqueyras 1998 Lopy
Domaine le Sang des Cailloux
Young in style, a lot of fruit and vitality. Soft tannins. Very good.

-- Vacqueyras 1998 Les Genestes
Domaine des Amouriers
Quite light in style and soft to begin with but a bit hard at the end. With food this shouldn’t be a problem.

-- Vacqueyras 1999 Cuvée des Templiers
Le Clos des Cazaux
A pleasant wine, a bit on the light side but still with a good concentration and length.

-- Vacqueyras 2000 Vieilles Vignes
Domaine la Monardière
Young aromas of black berries, very intense and powerful without being too much. The balance is there. A great wine.

-- Vacqueyras 2001 Vieilles Vignes
Domaine la Monardière
Some oak, roasted coffee and tobacoo on the nose. Good fruit but a bit too oaky.

-- Vacqueyras 2001 Vincilia
Domaine de Montvac
Complex aromas of ripe fruit. Quite young in style. Red berries on the palace and well balanced. Very good.

-- Vacqueyras 2002 Grenat Noble
Le Clos des Cazaux
Light, elegant and rich in taste. Red berries on the palate, almost a bit like a Pinot Noir. A very pleasant wine.

-- Vacqueyras 2003 Cuvée Prestige
Le Clos des Cazaux
Full bodied and very warm in style (alcohol) but with a dry finish. Lots of ripe and dark berries. A well made wine with some balance from a very hot year.

-- Vacqueyras 2004 Cuvée des Templiers
Le Clos des Cazaux
Round, soft with a pleasant nose. Good fruit and some oak aromas. Tannins are present. The finish is a bit too thin.

-- Vacqueyras 2005 Ceps d’or
Domaine la Fourmone
The nose is a little bit closed. But I like the style which is quite light with good tannins and freshness.

-- Vacqueyras 2005 Le Clos
Domaine Montirius
An easy to drink wine with elegance and structure.

-- Vacqueyras 2006 Sélection Maître de Chais
Domaine la Fourmone
Round, soft and fruity, quite unpretentious. .

-- Vacqueyras 2007 La Ballade des Anglès
Domaine du Bois de Saint Jean
A young wine, complex, very powerful with aromas of medicinal herbs. Almost like a port wine in style, maybe a bit over extracted?

-- Vacqueyras 2008 Cuvée Templier
Le Clos des Cazaux
A nice, young and full bodied wine already with a good balance between oak and fruit.

-- Vacqueyras 2009 la Tour aux Cailles
Domaine de la Brunely
Intense, fruity aromas, a good concentration and balance. Already a very good wine.

Happy 20 Year Anniversary, Vacqueyras!

2011-03-11T09:25:00.000+01:00

The AOC Vacqueyras is celebrating its 20th birthday. It was in 1990 that Vacqueyras was upgraded to an Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée. Before that it was “only” a Côtes du Rhône. A wine tasting in Paris recently of the 20 vintages made during these first twenty years as an appellation show that Vacqueyras indeed is a worthy AOC. The quality throughout was very good and the oldest wines well preserved. Most of the time it is wines that go very well with food. They are well structured with tannins and a fresh acidity.

Vacqueyras is in the region of southern Rhône, 30 kilometres northeast of Avignon and quite close to the beautiful mountains of the Dentelles de Montmirail. Some of its illustrious neighbours are Gigondas, Séguret, Sablet, Beaumes-de-Venise, Cairanne and Rasteau. The vineyards of AOC Vacqueyras cover an area of 1390 hectares and they are the most part situated around the small towns of Vacqueyras and Sarrians. The climate is Mediterranean with the northern Mistral wind blowing frequently and sometimes furiously. It is well liked though, because it keeps the vineyards dry and healthy. The garrigue is omnipresent in Vacqueyras. The perfume of wild herbes de provence is in the air and gives the wines a distinct spicy character. The soil is often extremely stony. A Vacqueyras must be made of at least 50 % Grenache and between 20 and 50 % of Syrah and/or Mourvèdre. Cinsault is also used, but sparingly.

We asked some of the producers who were present at the tasting in Paris about their impressions about the first 20 years as an appellation.

”It was a bit difficult in the beginning, the first 5-6 years”, says Frédéric Vache at Clos des Cazaux. ”We went from being one of the best Côtes-du-Rhône-wine to become an unknown AOC. But in the end of the 1990s there was the big boom for Châteauneuf-du-Pape which resulted in high prices which meant that we got our chance. Consumers that didn’t want to pay over prices for a Châteauneuf turned to Vacqueyras instead.”

And soon Vacqueyras was a well known name. Today Vacqueyras has its share of famous wine producers you can read about in all wine magazines, like Sang de Cailloux, Montirius och Monardière.

An important development during these 20 years is the increase in the number of private wine producers. In 1990 there were only 20, now there are 60-65. “There were a lot of young people who left the cooperatives in the 90s and started to make their own wine”, says Christian Vache at Domaine la Monardière.

Serge Ferigoule at Domaine Sang de Cailloux points out another important development:”We are better now at taking care of our land”, he says.” Organic and sustainable culture is growing.” His own Domaine Sang de Cailloux (which means the blood of the stones…) will be biodynamically certified next year. “My wines have gained in finesse since I started in biodynamics and the terroir and the vintage is more obvious.”

Towards a European definition of organic wine: CEVinBio?

2011-03-10T09:56:00.000+01:00

Last year the EU project to agree on a definition of what “organic wine” would be was discarded. There was too much disagreement on what substances and what technologies should be allowed in the wine cellar. So the wine world is left with “wine made from organically grown grapes” because it is well defined and agreed what is allowed and what is not allowed in the vineyards.

Some of the organic organisations in Europe have now launched an independent project to agree amongst themselves what ”organic wine” should mean, i.e. what should be considered organic in the cellar. The charter is called CEVinBio. It defines a (positive) list of accepted substances and additives in the vinification that are of agricultural origin and that are certified organic. It gives a (negative) list of a number of techniques that are not allowed, e.g. heating the must above 65 degrees C, very fine filtration (“ultra and nano” filtration), dealcoholisation, to mention some.

Remains to be seen how this will be accepted in practice. (Source: La Vigne)

Wine in Istria in Croatia. And food.

2011-03-09T20:55:00.000+01:00

A short updated on what we saw, drank and ate on our recent wine and food trip to Istria in northern Croatia on our Travelog.

Lots of interesting wine and food!

Britt's Wine of the Month Mas Louise 2009, Cotes du Rhône

2011-03-09T10:02:00.000+01:00

Britt's Wine of the Month
Mas Louise 2009, Cotes du Rhône

This is a new wine from an established producer. For around 9 euro you get a very good wine with spices and herbs and a southernly warm feeling. Quite round but with a good structure which makes it a perfect fit with food cooked in southern French style, say, a lamb or some kind of bird cooked with herbs like thyme and rosemary served with a ratatouille and soft roast garlic. The wine comes from the western side of the Rhone Valley, near the Lirac appellation. It is made from 65% grenache and 35% syrah.

The name of the producer is Duseigneur. For this wine, Mas Louise, they use both their own grapes and grapes bought in from other growers. All grapes are organically farmed. “We help the growers we work with”, says Frédéric Duseigneur, the winemaker, “therefore we can be certain to get healthy grapes”. They also make a range of other wines made solely from their own vineyards, which are even biodynamic; slightly more expensive, e.g. Mayran Odyssée, Laudun and Antarès.

Watch our video interview with Frederic here.

Åsa's Wine of the Month: Rosso San Leopardo, Colli Maceratesi Rosso, DOC Riserva 2005. Producent: Cantine Belisario

2011-03-09T09:59:00.000+01:00

Åsa's Wine of the Month
Rosso San Leopardo, Colli Maceratesi Rosso, DOC Riserva 2005. Producer: Cantine Belisario.
Rosso San Leopardo is a red wine from Le Marche in Italy. It is made from sangiovese (50%), cilegiolo, merlo and cabernet (Italians often don’t bother to make a distinction between c franc and c sauvignon it seems!). It has been aged in 5000 l oak vats for 12 months. The character is very inviting, perhaps a bit too much so initially, with warmth and vanilla flavours. But what was left in the bottle after dinner had developed very nicely, both I and my husband thought, after a night’s aeration. This is certainly a good buy at a modest price, only seven euros.

It also underlines that if you venture outside the most famous wine regions you can easily find good wines at modest prices. Price 7€, web: Web: http://www.belisario.it/

We won the prize World's Best Wine Book for Professionals!

2011-03-09T09:58:00.000+01:00

We have just been awarded the prize "World's Best Wine Book for Professionals" by the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards in Paris. The competition showcases leading cookbooks and wine books from all over the world.

Our book A Wine is Born (original title: Ett vin blir till, in Swedish) was selected as the winner in the category Wine Books for Professionals (but it is also meant to be read by dedicated non-professionals!).

You can read more on our book, A Wine is Borne, here. It is unfortunately not yet available in English.

More info on this soon.

Do we need to say that we are very happy and proud!

BKWine Pick: La Régalade Saint Honoré, Paris 1

2011-03-03T09:03:00.002+01:00

La Régalade Saint Honoré, Paris 1

You are treated to the chef’s home made paté with cornichons as soon as you sit down at your table. It tastes very good but don’t eat too much! There’s a three course meal coming up. Bruno Doucet, owner of success story La Régalade in the 14th since 2004, opened La Régalade Saint Honoré in spring last year. And Saint Honoré is getting as popular as the one in the 14th. Book your table well in advance.

The set three course menu at 33 euro is the same for lunch and dinner and very good value for money. The food is creative although in the French bistro tradition. We started with a perfectly cooked tuna fish and continued with grilled filet de dorade with lentilles verts as main course. The soufflé au grand marnier for dessert is a dream. But fish is not the only thing on the menu; there is chicken, entrecote, scallops and several vegetarian starters. The menu changes according to the seasons. The wine list is interesting and the prices very decent. You get some good bottles for between 20 and 30 euro.

Booking necessary. Closed Saturday and Sunday.

Click here for address and more recommendations.

BKWine Pick: Louis Sipp, Ribeauvillé, Alsace

2011-03-02T09:42:00.002+01:00

Louis Sipp, Ribeauvillé, Alsace

Louis Sipp makes dry and elegant Alsace wines from grapes grown organically since a few years back. He got his organic certification in 2008. The balance in the most important thing in the wine, he says, and he gets it easier now, with organic grapes. “The grapes are riper and they have a higher degree of acidity at harvest time. The wines are fruitier and longer on the palate.”

Like all producers in Alsace Louis Sipp makes a huge number of wines. One of our favourites is Riesling Grand Cru Osterberg 2008. It’s dry with beautiful citrus aromas on the nose and very fresh in the mouth. The grapes are grown in a rather cool terroir which gives the wine a certain fatness. Riesling Grand Cru Kirchberg 2008 is from a warmer soil with a sunny exposition and the wine is rounder but still totally dry with a good minerality, even sharpness. This is two brilliant Rieslings. Also keep a look out for the Pinot Gris from Louis Sipp, especially the one from Grand Cu Kirchberg. The 2008 has 20 grams of residual sugar but nobody would guess!

Click here for address and more recommendations.

Wine tours on the schedule for autumn 2011

2011-03-01T10:33:00.002+01:00

"World's Best Wine Tours" - Travel + Leisure Magazine, on TravelAndLeisure.com

BKWine offers you two possibilities to go wine travelling this autumn:

Wine Tour to Bordeaux, ~~April 13-17, 2011~~ October 5-9, 2011

Burgundy wine tour – exclusive, elusive, enchanting, October 19-23, 2011

Some of the most unique wines in the world – reds and white – come from Burgundy. A well made red Burgundy, made from the elusive pinot noir, is a wine of elegance, hardly found anywhere else. You find them in the Côte d’Or, the golden slope, the heart of Burgundy. More info on our Burgundy wine tour here!

For more information please contact us on email or on phone (we're on French time).
Visit our video channel http://www.youtube.com/bkwine to meet some of the producers we visit.

What do people think about a wine tour with BKWine?

That is of course a question that we think is very important. We want it to be a wonderful and memorable experience for everyone. Here are some of the comments we’ve had from customers this season:

“Many thanks for a fantastic trip. You are so keen to make everything the best for your guests and you are so knowledgeable about wine. A pleasure to travel with you.”, W-A

”Thank you for a wonderful trip to Umbria and southern Tuscany. Wonderful in many ways – our initial ideas for the trip on food and wine in Umbria and Tuscany – and discovering sagrantino and sangiovese – were more than fulfilled”, I & P in Umbria and Tuscany

“After last year’s fantastic trip to Champagne, Chablis and Burgundy our expectations were set very high. But this trip to Bordeaux was even better than we had hoped for. What lunches! What dinners we had! And what wonderful and personal wineries and chateaux we visited. We hope to come back on a new tour with BKWine!” A-M & S in Bordeaux

”You surpassed all the expectations that we had on the tour before we came. The organisation was without a glitch and the tastings was far beyond any similar things we’ve been to previously. It whet our appetite and we already look forward to our next tour!”, B & T in the Rhône Valley

Custom wine tours

We also make custom designed wine tours – on-demand tours for you and a group of friends, for your company (maybe to scout new winegrowers?), for a special event… We can combine winery visits and wine touring with other activities: gastronomic workshops, visit to an oyster farm, truffles hunting, cheese making, and more. We’ve done tours for wine clubs, for sommelier educations, for corporate events, for wine importers, for wine course study groups… just to mention a few.

You'll get a tour designed exactly according to your requirements and tastes, made by one of the most experienced wine people in the business. We personally visit some 200 wineries and taste thousands of wines every year; we write on wine for various wine magazines (we had more than 30 articles published last year); in 2007 we published a ground breaking book on the wine of the Languedoc and in 2009 we published a book on vine growing and wine making - unique in its kind. And we have organised hundreds of wine tours over the years.

More info on the custom designed and bespoke BKWine wine tours and travel here!

Wine tours in FinnishMore info on the Finnish wine tours here: Viinimatkoja

Welcome to the BKWine Brief nr 91, February 2011

2011-03-01T10:27:00.000+01:00

This month’s Brief will be a bit shorter than usual (maybe for once living up to its name?) but we have some important things to share with you first.

The reason this Brief is a bit short is that we have been very busy with our new wine travel site.

Yes, that’s right; we will be launching a new wine travel site with all our information on our wine tours and wine travel. It will make it much easier for you to find the info you want about our tours. Or so we hope.

The site is not yet officially launched, but it is accessible for you as a reader, as a pre-launch, already today: www.bkwinetours.com.

But we need your help! Before the official launch! We would very much appreciate if you could take a look at the site and let us know what you think! Does it work well? Can you find the information that you want? Is something broken? Etcetera…

When you build a new site you try and think of everything. But it is impossible not to miss things. Just like when you write an article – it is impossible not to make typos, and it is equally impossible to find one’s own typos.

So, we would be very grateful if you would take a look at our new wine tour and wine travel site and let us know what you think. Before we launch it officially. Just send us an email!

Please take a look here: www.bkwinetours.com

As you can understand, this has take quite a lot of our time recently.

And we have already pre-launched this autumns wine tours on that site, so you can take a look at those too:

-- Bordeaux in early October, most likely during the harvest, and

-- Burgundy in late October

But now, over to the Brief!

Britt & Per

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

Read the full BKWine Brief 91 here!

More on wine:
Guest writers on BKWine.com
Wine videos: BKWine TV
Wine photography

Record price for vineyard in Bordeaux

2011-02-28T09:07:00.000+01:00

A chateau neighbouring Chateau Haut Brion has been sold at a record price. It is Chateau Les Carmes Huat Brion that has been bought by a Bordeaux based real estate company. The vineyards are 4.7 hectares, there is a park of 3 ha and a chateau of course. The vines are classified as AOC Pessac-Léognan. If you make a quick calculation it makes for 3.8 million euro per hectare. Not bad! Read more www.sudouest.fr

More about the book on Tokaji

2011-02-25T10:07:00.000+01:00

In the last Brief we wrote a review of the new book on Tokaij wines, Tokaji Wine – Fame, Fate, Tradition by Miles Lambert-Gócs. We also speculated in for whom it might have been written.

The author sent us a mail and explained:

”I feel obliged to respond to your question about 'the intended reader.' If we are talking about someone who is going to read the book from front to back, certainly it would only be a real Tokaji enthusiast. But mainly I was thinking of serious enophiles who occasionally want to explore particular topics about Tokaji. That is why I divided the book into parts, with an A-Z format within that framework. Also, I definitely had wine writers, MWs, etc. in mind in wanting to set out everything needed to avoid the wrong or false history that has plagued Western literature on Tokaji to date.”

Here’s the original book review.

Is it outrageous that a bottle of wine can cost 1000€ or more?

2011-02-25T10:04:00.000+01:00

You can ask the question differently (many do): “should we all be able to buy e.g. classed growth claret at reasonably affordable prices?” surprisingly often you get the answer “yes” to both questions. Many seem to be upset about the extraordinary prices that the best (or at least most expensive) wines in e.g. Bordeaux have reached recently. But is it really unreasonable? Is there anything that says that we should be able to buy the wines we bought yesterday also in the future?

Many consumers see in a nostalgic light the bottles they bought years ago without too much pain inflicted on the wallet. Many wine writers have been outraged over the price rises in recent years. One who just shrugs the shoulders is Robert Joseph, a well-respected British wine writer. His view is that today some wines have become pure luxury goods, and there’s nothing wrong with that. “the $1,000 bottle is no more crazy than the $10,000 handbag“. We agree.

For the rest of us, who don’t want to pay 1000€ for a bottle of wine, or not “even” 100€, there are plenty (more than ever) good and excellent wines to buy at reasonable prices. And the producers of those wines probably needs our money more than those who make the diamond studded wines. Read all of Robert Joseph’s article here Plus ça change

Must-have thing of the month: remove sulphur with SO2GO

2011-02-23T09:41:00.000+01:00

Some say that the headache you get from wine is due to the sulphur the wine contains rather than to the volume consumed. Apparently you can actually be allergic to sulphur but we tend to believe that the headache mostly is due to the volume issue. But if you don’t think it is there is now a solution. So2go is a liquid that you pour into the wine and that eliminates the sulphur.

A small vial of 3 ml is enough to remove the sulphur in one bottle of wine (how can one know, since the sulphur contents varies greatly?). It costs a mere £1.50 a pop. So2go contains hydrogen peroxide that is also used as bleach, as an antiseptic and (according to Wikipedia) as rocket fuel.

If you prefer to remove the sulphur in the wine without bleach and rocket fuel you can pour the wine into a decanter and aerate it a bit. It works too. And it is free. (As a matter of fact So2go releases oxygen when added to the wine. So in practice it does noting different than a decanting.) More www.so2go.co.uk

Greek winemaker becomes mayor of Greece’s second city

2011-02-23T09:39:00.000+01:00

Yiannis Boutaris was recently elected as mayor (a politically important role) in Thessaloniki, Greece’s second biggest city. Yiannis Boutaris is part of the same family that has given its name to the famous Greek wine producer Boutari (without the s). But in the 90s Yiannis Boutaris choose to go his own way. He left the family firm and launched a new winery in the region of Naoussa in northern Greece (Macedonia) under the name of Kir-Yianni.

Today the winery is run by Yiannis’ son Stelios Boutaris. Kir-Yianni has in spite of its short life take a place among the most quality conscious wine producers in Greece. We were quite impressed when we were there some while back.

In fact, there are a lot of interesting developments in the wine regions in northern Greece today. Perhaps the next new wine tour destination? Let us know if you are interested.

Can a Swedish resident import wine for personal consumption, without having to go through the monopoly?

2011-02-21T09:49:00.002+01:00

This is a question that pops up quite often, both from Swedish residents and from wine producers / wine sellers. This is a first version of the answer, perhaps not 100% exact (it is difficult to be that) nor 100% to be taken as legal advice:

Yes he can. Under certain conditions.

Since a few years it is OK for a Swedish resident to buy wine from a seller outside of Sweden but inside the EU. This is a result of EU competition laws. However, this is legal only under certain conditions. Read the details here Can Swedish residents import wine for personal consumption?

Delicatessen and wine shop in Bordeaux

2011-02-21T09:47:00.002+01:00

We are in no way neutral in this case: Chateau Lestrille is a small, family-owned chateau in the Entre-deux-Mers region in Bordeaux, one of those “small and little known”, as opposed to “big and classed growths”. But this is the category where you can find many well-made and interesting wines at very reasonably prices (certainly a fraction of classed growths).

Lestrille is run by Estelle Roumage who took over the winery from her father a few years back. She is full of ideas and she has now opened a wine shop (selling not only her own wines!) and delicatessen. A wine bar and restaurant is in the pipe-line for next season. If you are a small family producer you have to have lots of energy as well as ideas!

And why are we not neutral? French Estelle is married to Spanish-Swedish Martin, and Martin is one of the wine guides for BKWine’s wine tours. You can hardly get a better insight into wine than that!

Read more bordeauxwinenews.blogs.sudouest.fr

Protection against bad times for Armagnac? Condom from Condom…

2011-02-21T09:44:00.000+01:00

Condom is, believe it or not, the main town in the Gascogne region that produces the delicious spirit called Armagnac. It is a three hours’ drive south from its cousin Cognac. But Condom is of course also something else. Some clever marketing people have launched “the Condom from Condom”. Clever, no? The town sages are apparently not convinced, since according to a report in Sud-Ouest they are considering legal action. But who can fail to see the charm with arguments like “the first luxury condom, chic and elegant, with this particular ‘French touch’”.

Just like wine (or armagnac) it is even available in a six pack bed-side table box: “you will be proud of displaying it!” (we assume ‘it’ refers to the elegant jewellery-inspired box). Local businesses seem to have caught on more than the municipality. There’s even one who has started to sell armagnac-based cocktails with inspired names like “la turlutte”, “le gratte-cul” ou “la coucougnette aux figues” (look it up on Wikipedia!). Can we hope for a combined gift box, including a bottle of armagnac, a tin of delicious foie gras (another local speciality) and a luxurious condom box? Who can resist? Read more in Sud-Ouest Sud-Ouest, more on armagnac and more on the condom from Condom www.theoriginalcondom.com. The most surprising thing is that no one has done it before!

Freedom to the vines? Should planting rights be abolished?

2011-02-18T09:48:00.000+01:00

A few years ago the EU countries agreed a big reform of the wine production sector. A big part of this was the abolishment in time of the “planting rights” system. (It was also suggested that chaptalisation, adding sugar to increase the alcohol level, should be forbidden but winemakers protested too much.)

The planting rights system means that you must obtain a permit to plant new vines and these “rights” are severely limited. Instead, it was agreed, people would be allowed to plant vines more or less as they want. On the other hand – if they couldn’t sell their wines they should not expect subsidies. (The current/old system provides subsidies for unsold wines.)

The whole reform was created to make the European wine industry more internationally competitive. Now, some politicians are starting to say that planting rights should be maintained and that the government(s) should continue to control and “manage” vine plantings. The last one out was president Nicolas Sarkozy in France. Last year it was chancellor Angela Merkel in Germany.

Just recently an organisation called AREV has joined in the choir. AREV is an organisation that brings together various wine regions around Europe. They have a habit of supporting measures that protect the wine growers from competition and from change. But that rarely benefit the consumers.

The French wine writer Hervé Lalu has written a very interesting article on his blog that argues that this is a bad idea; that the wine industry and the wine consumers will be better off if the system with planting rights is abolished. In fact, maintaining planting rights is just one way for the “old-generation” current wine producers to try and protect themselves from competition.

We agree with Hervé Lalu, that that position is outdated, wine consumers and wine producers will be better off without the old protectionist system. Down with planting rights! Read Hervé’s article here (Use Google Translate if you don’t read French!): Droits de plantations, la polémique continue... mais est-ce la bonne?

Most planted grape varieties in Austria

2011-02-18T09:46:00.000+01:00

According to Austrian Wines / Statistik Austria, Vineyard Survey 2009 these are the most planted grape varieties in Austria.

Whites first:

Grüner Veltliner 29% (+)
Welschriesling 8% (-)
Müller Thurgau 5% (-)
Weißburgunder 4% (?)
Riesling 4% (=)
Chardonnay 3% (?)
Sauvignon Blanc 2% (++)
Gemischter Satz 2% (-)
Neuburger 1% (-)
Muskateller 1% (++)

And reds:

Zweigelt 14% (+)
Blaufränkisch 7% (+)
Blauer Portugieser 4% (-)
Blauburger 2% (+)
St. Laurent 2% (+)
Pinot Noir 1% (+)
Merlot 1% (++)
Cabernet Sauvignon 1% (++)
Blauer Wildbacher 1% (-)
Roesler 0.3% (?)

Percentages are of total planted area in 2009. + or – signifies changes since 1999. Whites in total have gone from 75% of the total area to 66%, and thus reds from 26% to 34%. Curious to see that reds are progressing so strongly in Austria. The total area planted with vines is now 46,000 ha, which is a decrease with 5% since 1999.

Bordeaux court fines Italian wine producers for economic parasitism

2011-02-17T09:33:00.000+01:00

At the last Vinexpo, the world’s biggest wine fair that took place in Bordeaux in 2009 the Italian wine producers were absent. Instead they had rented a big “party tent” (600 m2) at a hotel nearby the exhibition where they presented their wines. They did not participate in Vinexpo “proper” due to a conflict with the organisers regarding e.g. the placement and the size of the planned Italian stand.

The organiser of Vinexpo were very upset when they discovered the Italian tent, what in French they call an “off” event (not linked to the official fair). The were so upset that they took the Italian tent organisers, Ital Assist, to court. The court has now decided in favour of Vinexpo and fined the Italians 150,000 euro for “economic piracy”.

We can’t help thinking that what Vinexpo has done is not only silly, but also wrong. In reality, all those “off” events at a trade fair bring a lot of value added to the event itself. If the result will be that there will be fewer off events then Vinexpo will be the loser, since the off events certainly make the fair more interesting and bring more visitors. We can only hope that Vinisud, the second biggest French wine fair, who has also been critical of off events, will not try and do the same thing! Read more www.vitisphere.com and www.vitisphere.com

More extraction with higher pressure – or lower. Flash detente and Delta Extractys

2011-02-17T09:30:00.000+01:00

Perhaps you are familiar with 'flash detente'. If you are not you should read our book A Wine is Born (unfortunately not yet available in English - Ett vin blir till). Basically, it is a method to extract more from the grape skins by heating up the grapes and then rapidly subjecting them to a vacuum. It is a big machine sold by Pera.

Another big vinification equipment manufacturer, Bucher-Vaslin, has now invented another process which is different but that does essentially the same thing: Delta Extractys. It uses high pressure instead of low. After heating the grapes to around 60 degrees C (in e.g. a thermo-vinificator) they are transported to a pressure chamber. The grapes are put under high pressure, up to 4 bars, and then rapidly returned to normal atmospheric pressure.

The effect is very similar to what happens in flash detente: the grape skin membranes are damaged so that the extraction of polyphenols is more intense. It supposedly increases the fruit and body of the wine and gives them a better tannic structure. Most likely to be used by cooperatives and other large producers of not too ambitious wines. And not cheap: 35,000 to 90,000 euros. (Source: La Vigne, Bucher Vaslin).

Not all yeasts are created equal

2011-02-16T09:56:00.000+01:00

It is common practice to add cultured (sometimes called artificial) yeast to the must to control the ferementation of wine. Just like for “natural” fermentation it is Saccharomyses Cerevisiae that converts the sugar to alcohol and carbon dioxide (for beer it can be Saccharomyses Carlsbergensis).

A new type of has now been launched that is not a Saccharomyses. It is called Torulaspora delbrueckii. The benefits are said to be that the wines get more pleasing aromas and more fresh fruit.

A test on chardonnay in Burgundy showed that Torulaspora wines had more aromas of citrus fruit, flowers and spices whereas Cerevisiae wines had more notes of tropical fruit like pineapple. The “T” wines also gave the impressions of being more full bodied. However, Torulaspora cannot completely finish the fermentation since it dies at 8-10% alcohol. The winemaker has to add Saccharomyses Cerevisiae yeast at the end to finish the fermentation. (Source: La Vigne)

Portugal dominates cork production

2011-02-16T09:54:00.000+01:00

17 billion wine bottles were sealed in 2009. 11.3 billion (66%) used “natural” cork, 3.1 bn used screw cap, and 2.9 bn used synthetic corks. The by far biggest producer of 'natural' cork is Portugal. Here are the major cork producers (source: La Vigne, Apcor):

Portugal: 157,000 tonnes (52%)
Spain: 88,400 tonnes (29%)
Italy: 17,000 tonnes (5.6%)
Algeria: 15,000 tonnes (5%)
Morocco: 11,000 tonnes (3.6%)
Tunisia: 7,500 tonnes (2.5%)
France: 3,400 tonnes (1%)

Fighting vine diseases organically – copper and sulphur the only weapons?

2011-02-15T10:16:00.000+01:00

For organic wine farmers the only permitted products are copper and sulphur, it is often said. That is not quite correct, since in organic farming you are allowed to use other products – if they are “natural”. Here's a summary of diseases and treatments for organic wine growing (based on an article from La Vigne):

Mildiou (downy mildew): copper is used preventively, currently maximised at 6 kg/ha (possible reduction to 4 kg/ha in view). Having a well aerated vine is important.
Oidium (powdery mildew): spraying with sulphur preventively. There are trials with some alternative products based on e.g. citrus fruit peels, milk or fenugreek (fenugrec, bockhornsklover) with varying success
Botryts (rot): Prevention by avoiding excessive humidity in the vine is most important. Inconclusive trial with e.g. Bacillus Subtilis, talcum or clay powders have been done.
Insects: the insect that spreads flavesence doree can since 2009 be fought with “Pyrevert”, a product made from Dalmatian Pyrethrum. This replaced a product called Rotenon which was not very effective. Against the grape worm trials are done with an extract of bacteria (e.g. Bacillus Thuringensis).

At last! La Vigne launches web site

2011-02-15T10:13:00.000+01:00

La Vigne is the French wine magazine that you should subscribe to once you have become tired of consumer wine magazines' superficiality. Or quite simply because you are curious about the details behind wine growing and winemaking. La Vigne is actually a magazine for wine growers (and rumoured to be up for sale) but many of the articles are very interesting also for wine “amateurs”. The have finally (enfin!) launched a web site, and it is full of information: articles, weather forecasts, videos, photos etc etc. Go to their web site here: http://www.lavigne-mag.fr

Very, very old vines

2011-02-15T10:11:00.000+01:00

Many wine producers make a cuvee 'vieilles vignes' (old viners). Old vine wines are often considered to have superior quality – lower yields producing more concentrated wines. Jean-Armand Bloc, who is not really a vigneron but a nuclear physicist (according to La Revue du Vins de France), has made it his speciality to produce wine only from very old vines, at least 75 years old. He owns no vineyard but finds parcels with old vines in existing vineyards and makes a 'très très vieilles vigne' cuvee in partnership with the owner of the vineyard. To date he has made a TTVV in Beaujolais and in Corbieres. More info: www.ttvv.fr

Spain’s most grown grape varieties

2011-02-13T11:51:00.001+01:00

Which is the world's most planted grape variety?

It is a common question in wine quizzes, since few have heard about the obscure grape. It is a Spanish white grape variety (unless it has changed recently, plantings have decreased): airen. It produces large quantities of anonymous wine in central Spain. More interesting and noteworthy are the wines from the biggest red grape variety, tempranillo.

Here are the most grown Spanish grape varieties:

Red grapes:

tempranillo, 207 000 ha
garnacha tinta, 75 000
[update] monastrel/mourvedre, this was missing in the original post. According to OWC it has 63 000 ha and to another source 43 000 ha. (Thanks Vincent!)
cabernet sauvignon, 19 000
merlot, 13 000
graciano, 1 500

White grapes:

airen, 284 000 ha
verdejo blanco, 11 000
pedro ximenes, 9 600
xarel-lo, 8 000
chardonnay, 5 400
albarino, 5 300
trexadura, 840

(Source: Observatoria Espanol del Mercado de Vin, Drinks Business)

”Methode provençale” to make sparkling wines?

2011-02-13T11:48:00.000+01:00

Since quite a few year it has been forbidden to use the expression “methode champenoise” on sparkling wines made with a second fermentation in the bottle. In the future we may instead see “methode provençale”. Provence is enjoying the popularity of rosé wines but researchers have now developed a “new” method to make bubbly that is supposed to keep the wines fresher and lighter than other methods. Generally when making sparklers one adds some sugar (and yeast) at the end for the second fermentation. That is what they do in Champagne. If you do that you will inevitably increase the alcohol contents making a potentially heavier wine.

In the Provence method you start the winemaking by removing part of the must before fermentation. It is put in cold storage to avoid fermentation. When the wine has finished the fermentation that must is added back in, instead of adding sugar as you would traditionally. The result is that after the second fermentation the wine has the “normal” alcohol level, just like the still wine. In traditional sparkling wine making the sparkling wine will have a higher alcohol contents than the still wine due to the added sugar. The Provence method is still at an experimental stage and the wines do not have an AOC/AOP. They are simply called “vin mousseux de qualité”. In the future they hope for an appellation “rosé effervescent de Provence”. Around 70 wine producers are taking part in the experiment.

Wine technology: wine with gum Arabic

2011-02-12T11:17:00.000+01:00

Gum Arabic is, technically, a polysaccharide and a resin like substance from an Arabic acacia tree. Its use is permitted in winemaker. Nothing particularly strange about that. It is a regular food additive with the code E414.

So what is it good for? It has two primary effects in wine: The first is to stabilise the colour, i.e. to avoid unwanted colour changes of the wine. Generally, it is to keep a darker colour of the wine. the other effect is to give the wine somewhat softer tannins and a rounder mouth-feel. It is normally only used in the making of simpler red wines made to be drunk young.

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