Bordeaux oenologist and wine consultant Nicolas Vivas has recommended adding the Refošk grape to a list of varieties allowed in the famous French region’s wines. His comments came three years since six ‘new’, non-Bordeaux grape varieties were approved for use on Bordeaux and Bordeaux Supérieur wines, as part of efforts to help producers adapt to… Read More »
Fresh analysis has offered new evidence of plants from the grape family becoming more prominent after the extinction of the dinosaurs, and researchers suggested this was possibly aided by vines growing relatively undisturbed in forests. It’s a hypothesis that followed the discovery of fossil grape seeds ranging from 19 million to 60 million years old… Read More »
Authenticism is where good wine has always been. By Hugh Johnson As wine leaves behind its modernist and postmodernist eras, a survivor from Colares reminds Hugh Johnson of what wine does best. I am not the only critic who has claimed for wine (or at least certain wines) the status of art. Nor is it… Read More »
While I was in the Dobbin vineyard in Niagara, Canada, a tractor went by with a spray recovery system. I asked Ann Sperling, consultant winemaker here, what was being sprayed. The answer: a mix of Cueva, Regalia, Stargus, Willow Tea and Kelp. These are all organically approved. Cueva is a copper-containing fungicide. It’s copper octanoate… Read More »
How an Irish businessman is transforming his recently acquired Bordeaux estate. By Raymond Blake Raymond Blake profiles Château Tour des Termes, the rising St-Estèphe estate now owned by the O’Connor family. At the risk of harping on at tedious length about the strong wine connections between Ireland and Bordeaux—a drum that I may be guilty… Read More »
Katherine Cole is the author of five books on wine, as well as host and executive producer of James Beard Award-winning podcast The Four Top. Katherine Cole profile picture credit: She Saw Things The first anti-industrial, anti-chemical farming movement, predating organics by a couple of decades, biodynamics was a timely reaction to the agrarian population’s… Read More »
Transmission is an exciting new wine project from Bairrada. It’s a partnership between TAP pilot and wine lover Vitor Bento and Niepoort/Quinta do Baixo winemaker Miguel Silva, and began with the 2019 vintage. I tasted through these wines with the pair at lunch at the amazing Gaveto in Porto. Winemaking is low-fi with an emphasis… Read More »
Today, the Mosel is a region steeped in deference to its history. New generations of winemakers rarely stray from family recipes, which have helped establish some of the top Riesling houses with hundreds of years of winemaking pedigree. Even in this special part of the wine-growing world, Ernst Loosen‘s new Zach. Bergweiler-Prüm wines show an… Read More »
Andrew Jefford reports on an exceptional tasting of an exceptional vintage. By Andrew Jefford Andrew Jefford is joined by Bruno Besa and Michael Palij MW for a hugely successful and high-scoring tasting of 2019 Brunello di Monalcino, a vintage that came as a very welcome relief in southern Tuscany after the heat-scorched 2017 and the… Read More »
A string of extreme weather events continues to wreak havoc in Spain, this time in the northwestern regions of Bierzo and Valdeorras. A storm on 25 June hit Valtuille de Abajo and the surrounding areas, pummeling between 500-600 hectares of Bierzo’s most prized vineyards with hailstones the size of golf balls, crushing grapes, tearing leaves… Read More »