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
Vinhos de Lisboa – Venha descobrir mais do que uma cidade

Vinhos de Lisboa – Venha descobrir mais do que uma cidade

Por Nuno de Oliveira Garcia Portugal é mundialmente conhecido pelo seu Vinho do Porto, vinho que, como alguns poderão saber, não resulta de uvas proveniente da cidade do Porto, mas sim da região do Douro que começa a 100 kms a Este da cidade e se estende até Espanha. O nome Vinho do Porto resulta do facto de ser a partir da cidade do Porto (a segunda cidade de Portugal, depois de Lisboa) que o vinho era exportado em navios, sobretudo para Inglaterra. Mas se o Vinho do Porto é o ex-libris dos…Read more
Douro, Bairrada and Dão 2016 by Dirk Van Der Niepoort

Douro, Bairrada and Dão 2016 by Dirk Van Der Niepoort

Quinta de Nápoles - Batuta and Coche 2016 was an extremely unusual vintage in the Douro Valley. We experienced a harsh winter with plenty of rainfall, which raised the moisture content of the soils to levels far above average. In addition, spring brought constantly low temperatures and therefore unfavourable conditions for pollination and flowering, affecting grape development and yields. During the months of July and August, high average temperatures were recorded, whereas in September the average did not exceed 21.7 degrees Celsius. Harvest began on 18 August and ended on 28 September. Due…Read more
Château Rocheyron 2016

Château Rocheyron 2016

"The 2016 vintage at Château Rocheyron was without a doubt one of the most iconic in the history of the château. We launched in 2010 with one clear idea: using biodynamics to produce a wine like the great wines of the 1940's and 1950's. This idea guided us as we renovated the winery facilities and applied the precepts of Rudolf Steiner to the vineyard. The results have proven spectacular, allowing each of the estate's different terroirs to be very precisely expressed. Everything was in place, and we expected nothing short of an excellent…Read more
Le Pin 2016

Le Pin 2016

The Janus effect of the 2016 vintage will remain in our memories for a long time. A winter where the temperatures remained cold and the rain never stopped; followed by a summer where it was hot, sunny and dry from July until November. The same amount of rain fell during the first six months of 2016 (500 mm) as for the entire year of 2015. By contrast, not one drop of rain fell from the middle of the June until the 14th of August; two months of drought which challenged the vines that…Read more