Man, Evolution, Intervention, Energy and Wine

Man, Evolution, Intervention, Energy and Wine

By David Molina Man and Evolution Homo Sapiens Sapiens is a work of art of Mother Nature itself; each cell is a treasure that stores privileged information in a kind of bar code, DNA. The entire evolutionary process from the origin of life of the first cell is chemically encoded in the genome; it is the Oxford Wine Companion of evolutionary biology. All living beings share this same base of chemical coding (adenine, cytosine, guanine and thymine) with millions of different combinations, an irrefutable proof of a common origin for all living beings…Read more
Bordeaux 2018 by Bordeaux Vins Sélection

Bordeaux 2018 by Bordeaux Vins Sélection

2018 - A Marvel A difficult start - a majestic finish!  Like for many other exceptional vintages, the year started quite miserably, with excessive rain, aggressive mildew and hail storms during the first half of the year. Everyone was quite anxious. In June the sun returned and generously stayed with us until the end of the season. Hot days intermingled with fresh nights in September allowed an excellent maturity and consistency and a calm start to the harvest period. An excellent sanitary state of the grapes arriving to the vats put an end…Read more
Tuscany and Sicily 2017 by Andrea Franchetti

Tuscany and Sicily 2017 by Andrea Franchetti

Discover all 2017 wines from Andrea Franchetti in Tuscany Trinoro, vintage 2017 Frost hit most of the vineyards in Europe at the same time, early in the morning of april 19 th. Expecially the ones growing in the valley bottoms lost their produce. We had fires burning throughout our flat acreage by three o'clock that night. For that effort the secondary buds still hidden in the shoots stayed saved and later we looked at each plant and counted to determine which of the fields would bare a late, secondary crop; then we eliminated the primary shoots' fruit which would be…Read more
Douro, Bairrada and Dão 2017 by Dirk Niepoort

Douro, Bairrada and Dão 2017 by Dirk Niepoort

Discover all 2017 wines of Dirk Niepoort from Bairrada, Dão and Douro Douro 2017 The viticultural year 2016/2017 was one of extreme heat and very dry. Although rainfall in November was above average, rainfall in December and January  was over  50% down on an average year and the winter was cold, especially during the month of January when temperatures were 2ºC lower than average (source ADVID). While from February onwards temperatures were significantly higher than average (source ADVID). The spring of 2017 saw rainfall well below average, for example during the month of…Read more
2017 Vintage : how terribly meager yields can give birth to a Naturally Great Year !

2017 Vintage : how terribly meager yields can give birth to a Naturally Great Year !

If we look at the half empty glass - or tank -, frustration, and even sadness, will overwhelm us : historically small yields in France. The lowest of the post-war years. Cellars are empty. Clearly, one has to state that climate hazards, methodically, worked against us this year, in a succession of definitely adverse events : an abnormally cool spring caused frost, then grape shatter, on all of Rhone cépages, and, more particularly, Grenache. This cruel Spring followed up on a dauntingly dry summer… In the end, the yields in juice are tragically…Read more
Bordeaux 2017 by Bordeaux Vins Sélection

Bordeaux 2017 by Bordeaux Vins Sélection

Discover all 2017 wines from Bordeaux 2017 - The Pleasant Surprise Of course when we look back on the 2016 vintage it was a state of grace – the wait, the calculation, the hope and finally the realisation that it was an exceptional vintage. 2017, season after season, was a stressful year. Some vineyards were very harshly damaged by the bad weather whilst others were spared. While we can be at the whim of climatic variations, there is also today the intelligence which comes with experience and savoir-faire which plays a role in…Read more
Burgundy 2016 by La Maison Joseph Drouhin

Burgundy 2016 by La Maison Joseph Drouhin

A happy ending! The 2016 growing year had been particularly testing, but the last months before the harvest made the vintage. The winter of 2015/2016 was rather mild and humid and budburst occurred in the first days of April; the first green tips were seen on the 11th of April in the majority of the vineyards. This precocity was quite similar to the 2015 vintage. On the 13th of April, a large hailstorm hit the Mâconnais and Beaujolais areas, about 1,500 hectares in the sector of St-Véran, Pouilly-Fuissé, Moulin-à-Vent, St-Amour and Fleurie. On…Read more
Bride Valley Vineyard and the future of English sparkling wine

Bride Valley Vineyard and the future of English sparkling wine

By Steven Spurrier Probably the most recent entry to wine categories around the world, barely quarter of a century old, is that of English Sparkling Wine.  Made in the traditional method and mostly from the three ‘Champagne grapes’ Chardonnay, Pinot Meunier and Pinot Noir, its success has been remarkable and investors with deep pockets have been boosting the acreage under vines across southern England at the recent rate of 240 hectares – one million vines based on an average of 4,000 vines a hectare – over the past three years.  Over the last…Read more
How to fall in love with Carignan

How to fall in love with Carignan

By Miquel Hudin Growing up in California you are indoctrinated with the idea that our "Golden State" is at the center of the world when it fact it's at the very end of it. After the second dot-com crash, I realized that all that glittered was not gold and started traveling more, finding that each trip away from my birthplace got successively longer. At one point, it became impractical to live in California anymore as my career in wine writing started growing and so in 2012 I arrived to Barcelona with the intention…Read more
Tuscany’s drought, 2017

Tuscany’s drought, 2017

This year we suddenly had frost in May for three nights. We lit wood fires lit every twenty meters in the plains; the thick low smoke freed the high pressure in the vines. Compared to all the burned and bare valley bottom vineyards in Chianti (and up to Chablis, we’ve all seen the pictures of what they have had to do there for frost), the freeze was very minor, so the vineyards are now as tall and green as any year. The freeze of the spring passed over a land that was already…Read more