Château de l’Engarran, Lavérune
Click here for address and more recommendations.
Domaine de la Coste, Coteaux du Languedoc – Saint Christol
Click here for address and more recommendations.
More video:
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White wines go excellently with many food and at least gives you the impression of being lighter… Why not with some shell fish, which we have plenty of at the market now in winter time. And they’re a perfect match for many cheeses. And bring out the more powerful oaked whites to the meat, or the ones with higher acidity (Alsace, Loire,…) to the Asian inspired cuisine – that we should eat more often. I just read how healthy it is with ginger and other exotic spices.
In a single week I’ve had the bad fortune to have three corked wines which is a lot even for me because even though I drink (sorry, taste) quite a few wines it is rarely that the wines are corked. And it is always such a disappointment when a wine is corked!
We're soon off for our first tour of the year: Truffles, Foie Gras and Wine in Périgord. That will be exciting. Not that it will help recovering from Christmas and New Year excesses. If you'd be interested in that tour I', afraid I have to say that it is rather fully booked at the moment but judging from it's success it is likely to be back on the program for next years truffle season, so look out for it next February.
Early summer we're doing another tour that I hope you'll find tempting too: "Three Classics" starting with Champagne and then taking you to Chablis and finishing in Beaune, the heart of Burgundy and one of the centres of French gastronomy (well, there are several) and home to some of the grandest Grand Crus in France... Time to book your place now perhaps?
I wish you all a nice January, with or without wine, red or white, natural cork, plastic cork, or screw cap…
Britt
More video:
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The Wine and Food Lover’s Guide to Portugal
Charles Metcalfe & Kathryn McWhirter
Foto: diverse
Inn House Publishing
ISBN 978-0-9557069-0-5
-- Buy the book
-- Read more reviews
More video:
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Desert Island Wine
Miles Lambert Gócs
Ambeli Press
-- Read more reviews
More video:
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Tokaj – a Companion for the Bibulous Traveller
Text: David Copp
Photo: Bianca Otero, Fekete K.
PrintXBudvar Zrt.
Written by a British wine writer with many years’ experience of Hungary and Tokaj in particular, it is a very informative but still compact book. Tokaj has seen many dramatic changes since 1989, mostly for the better, so any older text is hopelessly outdated. The book contains chapters on the region, on the history, on wine production and on the growers with a detailed descriptions of the houses and their wines. But it also has sections for the traveller: hotels
-- Buy the book
-- Read more reviews
Le Grand Guide des Vins de France 2008
Michel Bettane & Thierry Dessauve
Minerva
-- Buy the book
-- Read more reviews
Tasting Jacquesson champagne with Jean-Hervé Chiquet, co-owner and co-wine maker. On the 731 (2003) vintage. On dosage. On rosé champagne and skin contact. On bubbles and wine tasting glasses. By BKWine.
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The World Atlas of Wine
Hugh Johnson, Jancis Robinson
6th edition
Mitchell Beazley
-- Buy the book
-- Read more reviews
Visiting Jean Marc Brocard winery and vineyards in Prehy, Chablis (Burgundy / Bourgogne, France). Tasting the wine and talking to the Canadian winemaker Patrick Piuze. View over the Grand Cru hill. By BKWine
BKWine's YouTube Channel
-- 20 villages north-west of Bézier
-- received its AOC in 1982 and covers 3300 ha, 510 growers, 135,000 hl, 2/3 produced by the cooperative
-- Belgium is the biggest export market followed by Denmark (!)
-- 89% red, 10% white, 1% rosé (AOC for red since 2004)
-- the soil is very varied with both schist, limestone and clay elements, but often not very fertile
-- maximum yield is 50 hl/ha but in reality it is often lower
-- grapes: primarily Syrah, Grenache and Mourvedre (min 60%) but also Carignan, Lladoner Pelut and Cinsault
-- sometimes macération carbonique is used instead of regular vinification
-- the wine style varies with soil, grapes and vinification but is often quite powerful with intense fruit and aromas, often with the typical “garrigue” (wild herbs) style
-- www.saint-chinian.com
Visiting the Jacquesson champagne house. Jean-Herve Chiquet, co-owner and co-wine maker talks about making the wine, the yields, wine presses and more. Dizy, Champagne, France. By BKWine.com.
BKWine's YouTube Channel
Visit to the Andre Clouet vineyards in Champagne with an interview with the winemaker Jean-Francois Clouet, Bouzy, Champagne, France. On the winery history and philosophy. By BKWine.com.
BKWine's YouTube Channel
Visiting the Louis Roederer champagne house in Reims, Champagne, France. Visiting the winery, tasting Cristal champagne (famous from Tsar Alexander's crystal bottle order), on the Japanese market... By BKWine.com
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A new issue of the free e-zine Fine Wine Magazine is now available. You can read about Provence, Krug champagne, four exciting Languedoc producers and two from Alsace and much more. Some of it written by BKWine of course. Download it here.
Some famous champagne houses (Louis Roederer, Mumm, Krug...) in Reims, France. Beautiful building, famous champagnes. By BKWine.com
Our Youtube channel: www.youtube.com/bkwine
The interview is in Swedish, Andreas' native language...
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Domaine la Monardière, Vacqueyras, Rhone
Thank you.
The end of the year is approaching so I wanted to take the occasion to say a big thank you!
Thank you – to all participants on our tours. This year we’ve done almost 25 wine tours, taking some 400 people around the wine regions – today probably one of the leading organisers of wine and gastronomy travel. Today we do tours in several different languages: English, Swedish, Finnish and others on request. We have travellers coming from a bit all over the world, even if the majority still come from Scandinavia. We have both scheduled tours on our “public” program as well as a lot of custom made tours. And the best of all, I think, is that many of the customers we have become “addicted” and come back on new tours!
Thank you – to all of the people I work and collaborate with and who make it possible to develop the business: Kay, Martin, Asa, Peter, Astrid, Esther, Graham, Hasse, Tommy, Helen, David, Gabriela, Marianne,… and no doubt some that I have forgotten to include on the list. Some of you contribute by being in charge of tour management on some trips, others contribute with marketing or contents or other things. And thank you too to Per, my husband, the other “half” of BKWine.
I hope that you are all as happy with 2007 as I am and look forward to next year!
Projects 2008
And next year will be exciting. There are lots of project on the table. First of all I will be making even more wine tours, both scheduled and custom tours – let me know if you are interested!
And here are some other projects in the pipeline:
-- More tours in English – we want to do even more English language wine and gastronomy tours. To be honest, it is a market that it takes quite some effort to get into but I believe we have a high quality product that could find many customers – in the UK, in the US or from any other country where people speak English. Perhaps you know someone who would be interested?
-- New website – Well, this is a long term project perhaps… I know that the site is very “old” (designed more than 5 years ago!) and not very user-friendly. We want to change that and make it easier to use, easier to find information, easier to manage, make it possible for you to contribute,… But it’s a big project and we’re not yet sure how to go about it. Perhaps you do?
-- More custom made travel – We want to develop the activity with specially designed tours, exactly according to your requirement. This can be for a private wine club, a company get-together, an incentive event, customer conferences, specifically educational tours and events (e.g. for wine professionals and restaurateurs and also for “amateurs”) and much more. Let me know if you are interested.
-- BKWine TV?! Everyone has to try video these days so we’ve started recording interviews with wine personalities and visits to vineyards. We already have ten hours of recordings so the big question is when we’ll get the time to edit it and put it online. But we will publish more wine video clips over next year (we already have a YouTube channel). Perhaps we can find a video “stagiaire” to help…
-- More wine writing – We just did our first book and it is itching to make a second. We have several new ideas! But we also want to publish more articles in magazines. We already contribute to several Scandinavian wine, food and lifestyle magazines and to some English language publications, but we’d love to do more. So, calling all editors out there – we’ll be happy to work with you!
-- More photography – we have a substantial backlog with wine pictures waiting to be processed. We visit some 200 wineries each year so we produce quite a few thousand pictures. Per says he wants a photo assistant as Christmas gift. I’m not so sure…
-- and much more.
And then we’ll take a day vacation over Christmas perhaps.
Christmas Gifts
Talking about Christmas – here are some suggestions for Christmas gifts: The best gift of all is of course a wine tour to someone you like (or to yourself). We can make you a specially designed gift card and let us know if you will be celebrating something special when you arrive (wedding, birthday….). We’ll organise something special on site.
Take a look at our Truffles, Foie Gras and Wine tour in February and our “Three Classics” to Champagne, Chablis and Burgundy in June!
Another gift idea is one of the wine books we write about in the book review section in this Brief: Portugal, Tokaj, or even the whole world. Or take a look on our book page on the site for more reviews.
Or you could get the USBWine computer accessory that lets you download a selection of wine to a USB device.
Happy reading with this month’s BKWine Brief.
Britt
PS: Read more in the full BKWine Brief newsletter
- Côtes de Bordeaux Saint-Macaire
- Graves Supérieur
- Premières Côtes de Bordeaux
- Sainte-Foy Bordeaux
- Cadillac
- Cérons
- Loupiac
- Sainte-Croix-du-Mont, and of course
- Barsac and
- Sauternes
... all well worth tasting.
1. USA
2. UK
3. Brazil
4. Canada
5. Holland
6. Denmark
...
11. Finland
12. Sweden
1. France (2.9 million 9-litre cases)
2. Holland (1.6)
3. Belgium (1.3)
4. Great Britain (1.1)
5. USA (0.5)
6. Germany (0.3)
7. Canada (0.24)
8. Spain (0.15)
9. Denmark (0.15)
10. Brazil (0.1)
(Source IVDP)
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Vine Growing and Wine Making
The original Swedish title is "Ett vin blir till" meaning A Wine is Born. It is a unique description of the work in the vineyard and in the wine cellar. Published in 2009. More info on the web site for A Wine is Born.
Languedoc
Wines, vineyards and winemakers in Languedoc in the south of France, one of the most dynamic wine regions in France, and in the world. Published in 2007. More info on the site of the Languedoc book.
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