wine

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
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
2016 – The Best of All

2016 – The Best of All

We will not curb our enthusiasm – we have a very good vintage on our hands. A miracle according to some, when you bear in mind the adverse conditions at the beginning of the year. However the result is unquestionably there – in the vats, the juice is of an exceptional quality because the grapes ripened perfectly. A special alchemy of incredible levels of sunshine and rain arriving just when required. In the living memories of the winemakers, we have never seen such a level of success and consistency across the region, with the slight exception…Read more
Wine marketing: listening to the consumer

Wine marketing: listening to the consumer

By Juan Park I must confess that I know of hardly anyone who voted for Brexit or Donald Trump. I live in London; I have dual British-American citizenship, but there were no signs. No conversations within my circle of friends, with my work colleagues, or on Facebook or Twitter gave an inkling as to what was to occur in 2016. I woke up a little shocked, as many did. Despite the polls indicating it was neck and neck, particularly in Britain, the fact that no one thought that result was possible is interesting.…Read more
The fascination and frustration of Bordeaux

The fascination and frustration of Bordeaux

By Andrew Black Back in the late 1970s, looking for my first job, I sent a letter to several prominent London wine merchants, saying that I had a passion for wine. Could they help? One of them, Laurence Hayward, responded with a short but encouraging message. “Anyone with a passion for wine”, he said, “deserves an interview”.  And so my career in wine began, but not quite in the way I imagined after receiving that letter. My interview was short and Mr Hayward was to the point. “If you want to understand wine…Read more
Wines treasured under the sea

Wines treasured under the sea

By Antonio Palacios 1-. The state of the art of underwater treasure: The ageing of beverages submerged in the sea has its origins in different bottled beverages (wine, champagne, distilled liquors...) found decades and even centuries ago in the cellars of sunken shipwrecks and that after having been sampled, were found to still have acceptable sensory characteristics even after such long periods of time. One example of the above is represented by the periodical auctions of bottles found in shipwrecks, such as the one that took place recently, (September 2011) in Singapore, in…Read more
Why young people don’t drink wine

Why young people don’t drink wine

By Joan Gómez Pallarès According to the WHO, youth goes from 20 to 24 years old, yet WHO wise man not have into account the sociological part that this definition should include:, at what point social youngness comes to a complete stop in our world -occidental and more or less technologicaly advanced-? Youth is a biological process that does not have anything to do with age, but also with each person’s life conditions and state of mental maturity: what you decide in your life and in what factors you do this. In this sense,…Read more