Website: www.vinsboxler.fr We visited Domaine Justin Boxler with Charlotte Boxler, who now runs the domaine with her cousin Florent Wiss. They are based in Niedermorschwihr and have vines in Grand Cru Sommerberg (near the village) and also Pfoeller, Brand, and Wineck-Schlossberg. Justin was the grandfather of Charlotte, and he was the first to bottle wines… Read More »
Rare Bordeaux, Burgundy and California wines have featured in a Christie’s auction of ‘last treasures’ from the Avery family’s private cellar. All lots offered in the London-based auction found buyers, said Christie’s, with total sales reaching £2.57m, including buyer’s premium. Bottles in the collection were acquired by different generations of the family that is behind… Read More »
An exhilarating tasting of one of Burgundy’s most historic domaines. By Neil Beckett An awe-inspiring, century-spanning tasting at the domaine made a compelling case for Clos des Lambrays as one of the five top grands crus of the Côte d’Or. Neil Beckett reports. Burgundy is history. No French wine region is more steeped in it.… Read More »
Tasting with the young vignerons of Cairanne Cairanne is a dynamic appellation and there are quite a few young winegrowers operating here. I met with a few of them at Serre-Blanc, a recently acquired domaine headed by a 30-year-old pilot called Charles Aubert. It was a really interesting tasting on a beautifully sunny March afternoon.… Read More »
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 »