I have heard a rumour that the 2006 Latour en primeur has been released at a price of 2900 pounds per case. I have not been able to confirm this though. Seems far too expensive for the vintage. Anyone buying at this price? Update: Glengarry in New Zealand have the 1st growths at around $920.00 [...]
Those of you who read this blog will know that I’m not really a fan of mass field blind tasting wine competitions. However I thought this was worthy of note more because of the wines produced by Mazurans, Particularly the 1948 vintage port (port style, they are based in Henderson, Auckland) that won the best [...]
I’ve tried several 2007 Sauvignon Blanc’s but so far they have all been pre release or pre bottling. However Matua has now released their 2007 Shingle Peak label. They usually improve with an aditional month or two inthe bottle but it’s always interesting to try the new seasons on release.
If anyone in New Zealand has any 1970’s vintage wines regardless of style variety or condition please get in touch. I’m doing a tasting soon of wines of the era and they are becoming increasingly hard to locate as a number of auction houses are refusing to sell them.
Well Vin Expo is under way in Bordeaux and the 2006 En Primeur campaign is still grinding along at what seems to be a snails pace. Although a few of the top Chateau have released their wines the 1st growth’s have not. There has been a lot of complaint about the prices but I don’t [...]
I’ve been looking for a new home over the last few months and keep coming across properties with kitchen cellars. I’m not talking about installed wine cabinets or a cool (literally) subterranean cellar but kitchen wine racks. Usually placed somewhere warm and sunny, these “cellars†are even finding their way into new homes in what [...]
This is a bit of a plug for my friend Doug who runs Dooda Design and created the fantastic masthead that you see at the top of the page. Aside from graphics Doug is a magician when it comes to PowerPoint presentations and making them look slick and professional. He also does wine labels, business [...]
Good news for the free trade of wine, particulary if you live in Sweden. The EU Court has apparently ruled that the Swedish ban on individuals importing alcohol is an unjustified bar to the movement of goods. More news over at Wine in Sweden .
I’m’ a an advocate of glasses such as Reidel for maximising your enjoyment of wines. One objection I often hear is the cost of replacing broken glasses. Often washing the glasses is significant contributor to the breakages experienced. If this is a problem for you, try this. Don’t wash the glasses the same night you [...]
Bollinger are apparently producing a vintage Champagne from the 2003 vintage that will be released later this year. However the vintage wine will not carry the normal “Grande Annee†label that is nomally associated with their vintage wines. Due to the low acid nature of the grapes harvested Bollinger have decide that the wine is [...]
News from the Financial Times that Patersons may be looking at Producing grapes in India.
There have been a number of cheaper 2005 vintage French wines creeping onto the market here in New Zealand as I imagine they are across the world. I have found the general quality is fantastically good. Even at the cheaper end of the spectrum the quality is well above normal from Bordeaux to Alsace. If [...]
Sue from wine of the week kindly forwarded me some preliminary data from New Zealand Winegrowers last week. There’s one particularly interesting thing in this preliminary data. That’s the 65% surge in Pinot Gris production over the 2006 2006 brought in 3675 tons, the 2007 harvest totalled 6053 tons. That’s an additional 2378 tons. Bearing [...]
Not something that the wine buying public often hears about but over the years I have been in the wine industry I have seen a few bottles retuned because of their lack of low temperature stability. Why the customers in question had returned the wine the offending wines, was that they had noticed small glass [...]
As a follow up to the previous post I was also lucky enough to try a Delbeck 1990 Champagne Magnum. The difference between it and the 79 Taittinger Comtes was huge. The Delbeck offered no development as far as I could tell. It was still extremely fresh and crisp, virtually a new release in character. [...]
Last night I had the privilege of enjoying a Taittinger 1979 Comtes de Champagne Blanc de Blanc with some friends. Wine that has been aged a good amount of time and by that I mean 20 years or so is a very different experience to drinking a younger wine. Hopefully this description will give you [...]