I couldn’t help but chortle when I read an article in decanter.com about the DGCCRF (the French wine police) finding that some retailers and restaurants are passing off Spanish wine as French. You can read the whole article on https://www.decanter.com/wine-news/spanish-wine-france-fraud-dgccrf-396795/?utm_campaign=20180710_XDC-X_NWL_NW_dailynewsalert&utm_medium=email&utm_source=ET What was particularly funny to me was the reporting that “results of the latest investigation could provoke a sense of vindication among wine unions in Languedoc-Roussillon, which have complained in recent years about the flow of cheap Spanish wine into France; also claiming that some of it was not being labelled

On 7th December 2017) the Ackerman Group, the largest Loire owned and based négociant company (2016 turnover 44.7 million euros), announced a rebranding exercise. The rebranding is designed to highlight their top of the range wines under the banner – Orchidées Maisons. Over a number of years Ackerman has been busy expanding its activities by acquiring other Loire négociant businesses such as Donatien-Bahuaud in the Pays Nantais as well as individual domaines such as Château de la Varière in Brissac-Quincé in Anjou, sparkling wine house Monmousseau in Montrichard in Touraine and

Château de Fieuzal, one of the top cru classés in Pessac-Léognan, owned by Lochlann Quinn and his family, has announced that there will be no wine released  from the 2017 harvest because of severe frost damage to its crop on 27th April.   It’s rare when a producer decides not to release ANY  of its wine on to the market when they consider that its not good enough which makes us applaud their integrity – which sometimes has been singularly lacking in the world of wine.   Two other instances stand

‘Ted’ the robot at Ch. Clerc Milon. Credit: Baron Philippe de Rothschild Château Clerc Milon reports on the first trials in its Pauillac vineyard of TED, the first multi-purpose straddling electric robot specially designed for soil cultivation of high density vineyards. The trials mark the culmination of an ambitious project that started with a desire to address a particular issue. Vineyard work involves a number of time-consuming and laborious tasks, such as mechanical weeding beneath the rows. Baron Philippe de Rothschild, the owners of Ch. Clerc-Milon, therefore decided to take part

Those of you who have got the 10th edition of Wine behind the label will know that for some time, consulting input at COLGIN CELLARS has been supplied by Alain Raynaud of CH. QUINAULT in Saint-Émilion. Quinault has for some time been one of the properties owned by LVMH. So it may come as no surprise that LVMH has agreed to buy 60% of Colgin Cellars from founder, Ann Colgin, and her husband, Joe Wender, for an undisclosed price. It marks a further ingress into the Napa Valley following their purchase of NEWTON

Although the recent news stories from the California wine country north of San Francisco has been dominated by the wild fires the 2017 harvest remained largely untouched by the disaster. In fact all the indications are that this will prove to be a very good year. Here is an overview from the Wine Institute of California and below is a link to their detailed report. California’s 2017 harvest wrapped up early this fall following summer heat spurts and a growing season that saw significant rain throughout the state ending a

    The International Wine & Spirit Competition has announced its South America and Mexico wine results   ·  The Trophy-winning Malbec hails from a summit-scraping vineyard of the Argentine mountains   ·   High altitude wines are leading the charge in fine wines due to extreme weather conditions   A high altitude Malbec, produced at an incredible 1,020 metres above sea level, has been revealed as the best Malbec in the world according to the results of the world-renowned International Wine and Spirit Competition (IWSC).   The IWSC has revealed the 2017 South American