Seven new Masters of Wine

Seven persons passed the Master of Wine (MW) exam in the latest batch. Essi Avellan, Finland (first Finnish MW. congratulations!), Sarah Jane Evans (UK), Linda Granik (USA), Geoff Labitzke (USA), Ken Mackay (UK), Rod Smith (UK), Paul Tudor (New Zealand). (We still don’t have any Swedish MWs but two are in the pipe.) More info: www.avenuevine.com, MW Release and www.masters-of-wine.org. Read about the process of becoming an MW on SFGate.com (Photo: Essi Avellan)

- Try our new BKWine Brief Blog Update Service, now in beta -

| Come on a wine tour | Stuff with wine photos | Where are you? |
| Wine news on your site | Subscribe | Our newsletter |

Read more...

Wine drinkers earn more than non-drinkers

A new study has shown that people who drink wine (or beer or spirit) on average earn 10-14% more than those who do not drink at all. A theory of why that is so is that those who enjoy a glass once in a while are more “social” which can be an advantage in a working environment. The study was made by The Reason Foundation. Read more on CNN (But we can’t help wondering how someone came up with the idea to make such a study…)

Read more...

107 AVAs in California

There are now 107 AVAs (American Viticultural Areas) in California. An AVA is a bit like a French appellation, only with less rules and regulations. It specifies the origin of the wine. Here’s the full list of Californian AVAs: http://www.bkwine.com/vininformation/vinskola.htm

Read more...

Wine festival in Chablis

On November 28 and 29 there will be the annual Chablis wine festival in the village Chablis (of course). The village is some 190 kilometres from Paris so it is an excellent weekend excursion. The Saturday is for professionals and on the Sunday there will be tastings and other events open for all. More info www.vins-bourgogne.fr

Read more...

The best selection of champagne in restaurants

The Trophée Celebris is organised each year by Champagne Gosset. It gives a prize to the restaurant with the best selection of champagne. This year’s trophy winners are: the restaurt Zur Traube (www.relaischateaux.com/zurtraube) in Germany, ’T Oud Konijntje in Belgium (www.oudkonijntje.be), ’T Molenje in Belgium (www.molentje.be), The Bell at Skenfrith in Great Britain (www.skenfrith.com), and Die Fischerzunft in Switzerland (www.fischerzunft.ch). In France (which is separate from “Europe”) the winner was Les Crayères in Reims. More info: www.champagne-gosset.com/fr/actu/trophee.asp

Read more...

BKWine experiments with more info to wine lovers on the internet

As a reader of the BKWine Brief you may already know that “The Brief” is also available in blog format. We are now experimenting with some other new ways of providing info to wine lovers. Don’t worry, we’re not planning to abandon The Brief!

Here’s what you can choose from now:

BKWine Brief Blog
-- A weekly email with updates to The Brief Blog (beta)

Wine Picture Blog
-- The Daily Wine Picture Inspiration – a daily email with the latest photo in the photo blog. (beta)
-- Weekly Wine Picture Update (beta)

You can subscribe and unsubscribe on this page.

Read more...

Truffles, olive oil and wine in the Rhone Valley, 14-18 February

The black Perigord truffle is one of the most highly acclaimed (or at least most expensive) food ingredients. The price varies between €1500 and €4000 per kilo… To find truffles you need a truffle dog (sometimes, but rarely a pig) and access to a truffle forest during the short season between the end of November to the end of February. BKWine organises a “truffles hunting trip” in the southern Rhône valley in February 2007. We will spend half a day with a truffle hunter and his dog. After “the hunt” we will enjoy a truffles lunch with the mushroom part of every dish from start to finish. The whole trip is three days long and we will also visit an olive oil producer and several interesting wine domaines.

More info will soon be available on the site

Read more...

Chateau Tour des Gendres, Bergerac

Luc de Conti of Domaine Tour des Gendres is a well known character in Bergerac. He has been a precursor and a source for inspiration for many producers in the Sud-Ouest region. He has researched e.g. how the deposit may influence the character of the wine and he was a pioneer in using micro-oxygenation (micro-oxidation, micro-bullage). His view is that the lees (the deposit) nourishes the wine during the aging process. So to maintain the lees he does not rack the wines during the aging process. Instead, if the wine needs aeration, he uses micro-oxygenation. de Conti was also an early adopter of organic culture and is today moving towards bio-dynamic culture as the vineyards improve in health. Over time he has become more and more restrained in the use of oak and now he never uses more than 50% new barrels. On the white side he has a soft spot for Sémillon that achieves a wonderful expression in the excellent Cuvée de Conti.

Click here for address and more recommendations.

Read more...

Domaine de La Tour du Bon, Bandol

La Tour du Bon is in the small Mediterranean appellation of Bandol. The 17 hectares are beautifully situated at the foot of the hilltop village Le Castellet (and with a view over the sea a clear day!). Lots of sun and vines growing on a soil dominated by clay and limestone gives powerful wines full of individual character. The owner and winemaker, Agnès Henry-Hocquard blends the archetypical Bandol grape Mourvèdre with some Grenache, Cinsault and Carignan. Just Mourvèdre gives wines that are a bit one-dimensional, she says. 14 euro for the 2003 vintage at the winery

Click here for address and more recommendations.

- Try our new BKWine Brief Blog Update Service, now in beta -

| Come on a wine tour | Stuff with wine photos | Where are you? |
| Wine news on your site | Subscribe | Our newsletter |

Read more...

Truffle hunting in the Rhône Valley

Next year’s travel program starts with a magnificent trip: truffles, olive oil and wine in the southern Rhône Valley. I can promise you a very exciting, and unusual, trip. The tour takes place already in February (at the very end of the truffles season) so don’t delay getting registered!

More info on truffles and wine tours (coming soon).

Read more...

Wine Books

A suggestion to those of you who like reading about wine: We have a section on the site with recommendations on good wine books. We add new reviews continuously. Let yourself be inspired to do more reading when browsing our “library”. (And if you are a publisher or an author who would like your books reviewed, just let us know.)

http://www.bkwine.com/vininformation/wine_books.htm

Read more...

Wine Pictures

We have recently added lots of new wine photographs on the site, both from France and from other countries. In our photo galleries you can find lots of information on wine making and wine producers (and pictures of course!).

Wine Photos

The Wine Picture Blog

Read more...

The Harvest

The harvest is now almost to an end and it is bubbling in almost every cellar. How will the vintage 2006 be? Well, the wine producers seem in general quite happy with the result. It will be a good, but perhaps not an exceptional vintage. The summer got off to a very good start with flowering in June without any problems and a (small) heat wave in July. But then arrived August with cold and sometimes wet weather which, of course, is not ideal. September was much better and recovered a bit of the fall-down in August so things turned out pretty well in the end even if some places have had too much rain close to, or during, the harvest. There were some areas in Bordeaux, for example, that had 100 mm of rain in September. So this is a year when the sorting table will pay for its price to remove some rotten grapes.

Read more...

Where are you?

Tell us where in the world you are located. Put your pin on the BKWine Brief Frappr map. Just for fun. We're curious to know where in the world you are! (Or just follow the link to find out where other readers are.)

- Try our new BKWine Brief Blog Update Service, now in beta -

| Come on a wine tour | Stuff with wine photos | Where are you? |
| Wine news on your site | Subscribe | Our newsletter |

Read more...

Get email notification on updates to our blog

Do you want to get an email notification if our blog has been updated?

We are testing a new service (based on a web service called Zoodoka) that will send you and email once a week with the updates to the blog.

You will receive a weekly email with the new posts - in similar format as the blog.

Try it! It's free!

Follow the link below.

- Try our new BKWine Brief Blog Update Service, now in beta -

| Come on a wine tour | Stuff with wine photos | Where are you? |
| Wine news on your site | Subscribe | Our newsletter |

Read more...

Some link tips

Some wine sites that you might enjoy visiting:

• EncycloWine, the Wikipedia of the wine world, an encyclopaedia that everyone can contribute to, and benefit from. www.encyclowine.org
• Interested in New Zealand wines? Read the New Zealand Wine Grower
• Why are some people happy to pay $500 for a bottle of wine? Read (on theory) here: SFGate.com

- Try our new BKWine Brief Blog Update Service, now in beta -

| Come on a wine tour | Stuff with wine photos | Where are you? |
| Wine news on your site | Subscribe | Our newsletter |

Read more...

Book Review: The Wines of Italy (new and revised edition)

The Wines of Italy (new and revised edition)
Micèle Shah
Mitchell Beazley £9.99
An almost pocket sized book that is easy to carry with you on the trip. Each Italian wine regions gets a short introduction which is followed by a listing of the appellations and a selection of producers, all with a short description. Not a book to read from cover to cover but it will certainly help you get an initial understanding of Italy. Perhaps, as a travel companion, one would have wished for more detailed maps but that may be too much to ask for in such a small book on such a big region.

Click here for more book reviews on my site or to buy the books.

- Try our new BKWine Brief Blog Update Service, now in beta -

| Come on a wine tour | Stuff with wine photos | Where are you? |
| Wine news on your site | Subscribe | Our newsletter |

Read more...

Book Review: The Ultimate Austrian Wine Guide

The Ultimate Austrian Wine Guide
By Peter Moser
Falstaff Publications, €19.90
The bulk of the book is a listing of Austrian wine producers. Each producer is described in detail and the wines are rated. It is virtually a catalogue of Austrian winemakers. But the book also contains good introductions to each of the wine regions as well as a couple of chapters on Austria and its wines and grapes in general. Several good maps too. In other words, an aptly chosen title. www.falstaff.at

Click here for more book reviews on my site or to buy the books.

| Come on a wine tour | Stuff with wine photos | Where are you? |
| Wine news on your site | Subscribe | Our newsletter |

Read more...

Book Review: The Journal of Wine Economics (JWE)

The Journal of Wine Economics (JWE)
American Association of Wine Economists
This is not a book but a specialist, peer reviewed, scientific journal. The JWE is published by the American Association of Wine Economists (AAWE). In the first issue you can read about, for example, how to interpret the result of wine tastings, what is influencing the price of wine (objective or sensory analysis), an analysis of the importance of the “en primeur” price for wines and more. In other words, very scientific but interesting reading for the specialist. www.wine-economics.org

Click here for more book reviews on my site or to buy the books.

Read more...

Selling wine online gives teenagers easy access to alcohol. Or…?

A decision last year by the US Supreme Court lead to the opening of the internet market for wine (internet sales had previously been very restricted). Pressure groups argued that this would lead to teenagers getting easy access to alcohol. A study recently published by the Teenage Research Unlimited in Illinois has show that very few teenagers have taken the opportunity to by alcohol online. Ironically the study was commissioned by the Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America, one of the pressure groups against the change. Tom Riley, spokesman for the White House Office of National Drug Control says that online alcohol sales to teenagers is not a major problem, but adds that that could change. As reported in: USA Today and TechDirt.com

Read more...