20. September 2017
A few years ago Wine Spectator’s James Molesworth asked me what I thought about a survey indicating that over 80% of the respondents did not want a sommelier to taste their wine before it was served. Click right - read on ......
18. September 2017
Filling cow horns with fresh manure and burying them for six months sounds bizarre, but the substance that is dug up becomes the basis of biodynamic farming. Click Right to Read on
13. September 2017
Bring in the big guns. Magpies are being lured in to help ward off smaller birds that feast on grapes. Fruit-eating birds like starlings, rosellas and thrushes cause substantial damage to Australian vineyards, in some cases munching through 80 per cent of the fruit. Farmers try to deter them using balloons that look like predatory birds, gas cannons that let off loud booms, and reflective tape that flutters in the wind. However, the birds soon wise up to these tricks and ignore them. Read more...
08. September 2017
Archaeologists may have found some of the oldest wine in the world, just the tiniest bit left over on the inside of a clay jar from more than 5,000 years ago. A team of scientists chemically analyzed residue on an ancient piece of pottery from Italy, a large storage jar that was used during the Copper Age in the early 4th millennium BCE, according to the University of South Florida. That jar existed well before the time it is commonly believed that ancient Italians started their winemaking,...
06. September 2017
Not so long ago, the phrase “star sommelier” would have been considered an oxymoron in the English-speaking world. Wine waiting was not seen as a career for the ambitious. It was reserved for the kind of man (and it was almost always a man) who takes pleasure in making sarcastic remarks while quizzing timid customers about the contents of his big, leather-bound book of potential faux pas, or shaming them into spending more money than they want on something they’ve never heard of. Right...
02. September 2017
How many earthworms does it take to make a fine wine? No, it's not a leftover Christmas cracker joke. It's part of a massive issue facing the future of wine, according to influential soil consultants Claude and Lydia Bourguignon. Click right - Read on ....
21. August 2017
The wine industry is well blessed with leading, influential personalities from all parts of the trade, but few, if any, are as respected, admired or as decorated at Gerard Basset. Apologies Gerard for not following your name with the usual list of qualifications, but they need a drum roll all of their own, for Basset is unique in being able to have MW, MS, MBA and even an OBE after his name. As he celebrates, literally today, 10 years since he has his wife, Nina, opened Hotel TerraVina, Richard...
19. August 2017
A new wine region was announced today: the Cape Town District of South Africa! This new region replaces the former regions of Cape Peninsula and Tygerberg, and as such, combines the wards of Durbanville, Philadelphia, Constantia, and Hout Bay under a single District. Click right to Read on ......
07. August 2017
Italy's annual wine harvest, the biggest in the world, is off to its earliest start in a decade as the country swelters in a heatwave following months of drought. Winemakers have also had to contend with spring frosts and hailstorms this year and the country's agri-food agency Coldiretti is anticipating a 10-15 percent fall in volumes. Click right to Read on....
03. August 2017
The Portuguese Cork Association (APCOR) and the California-based Cork Quality Council announced results from a joint study conducted by U.S. wine market research company, Wine Opinions, to understand the attitudes and purchase behaviors of American wine consumers toward wine closures. In addition to cork being seen as an indicator of wine quality by as much as 97% of respondents, findings also revealed that natural cork is the closure of choice for wine purchased at a restaurant (91%), wine...