This might seem obvious but when you go to some winery sites there is no clear link to information about the wines produced. Even if you don’t have any wines currently for sale you should have information about them and when they will become available and what they will be like etc. This is the [...]
An EU parliament Committee has voted down a proposal to ban sugar additions. If the EU wants to make progress reducing the glut of production their focus needs be on the infrastructure props up over production, not on technical measures that may effect good wines.
Heres an example of bold and dynamic wine labelling. First Drop Wines seem to have really seized the initiative and produced a series of striking labels that really make an impact. It’s worth having a look at their website just for the labels. The wines not bad either! First Drop Wines
I’ve been pondering for a while the relative merits of varying environmental and social standards when it comes to marketing wine. So what would you prefer carbon neutral or fair trade? If you go to buy a bottle of wine, you find six wines all the same variety, vintage, region and price. The only difference [...]
I finally got my hands on some of Bollinger’s 2003 vintage Champagne finally. Bollinger normally releases vintage wines at about 8 years of age as in the shape of their Grande Annee (there is also the rose, Cote aux Enfants and VVF that are vintage dated as well). But due to the odd weather conditions [...]
A little while ago I said I was going to get the bottle of 1947 Latour I open tested for Caesium 137 to see if I could authenticate it. Well….. the end result was that I was not able to find a sensitive enough gamma ray detector in New Zealand to be able to complete [...]
Wine as Christmas gifts often a favourite but how to get it right? Heres some tips that will help you get the effect that you want your presents to have. No wooden boxes. Nothing says cheap and out of fashion like a rough sawn wooden slide box. Those recipients with environmental sensitivities may even be [...]
Thankfully able to get back on line again after my phone line was cut on Monday. In interesting wine news UK wine group Majestic have recorded 17.5% rise in sales of wines costing more that 20 Pounds. There really seems to be a strong swing to premium brands and labels in the UK as well [...]
There is a very interesting post over at The Frontal Cortex on wine subjectivity. Heres a teaser Brochet invited 57 wine experts and asked them to give their impressions of what looked like two glasses of red and white wine. The wines were actually the same white wine, one of which had been tinted red [...]
Registration has opened for the 2008 Central Otago Pinot Noir celebration. Running from the 25th – 26th of January it’s a great event for the true Pinot Noir fancier. Details at www.pinotcelebration.co.nz
Despite the bad weather that has hampered many areas of France during the 2007 vintage there is some good news. Reports from the Alsace suggest that they have indeed had a good vintage and escaped the bad weather. It also appears there may be some good wines produced in Champagne.
If you have ever wondered about biodynamics and what it entails check out Seresin Estates blog.
This is a great quote from a recent post on Sormhoek’s blog. “The Competition is Off The Scale” is in relation to the selection that is availablity to the consumer and difficulty in making your wines stand above the others. There are a number of fantastic insights in the post that should make it a [...]
Wine can vary incredibly from bottle to bottle once they get a bit of bottle age on them. I hope this gives you a little insight into what to expect, or not to expect when you open an old bottle be it Latour or Coopers Creek Pinot Noir/Pinotage. Last Saturday’s tasting of two vintages of [...]
A reduced alcohol wine produced by the spinning cone method has been banned in the UK. The wine treated in such a manor may be sold if any claims to being wine are removed apparently. Full story at the BBC.