Some French winemakers show no signs of calming down in their dispute over what they see as cheap Spanish wine imports destroying their own domestic market. There has been another wave of attacks and disruption over the last couple of weeks as French retailers have now been targeted by more militant French winemakers for their perceived  ‘disloyalty’ in buying and selling cheap Spanish wine.  Trouble broke out last week in Gard, Occitanie, when winemakers caused damage to the wine aisles at Metro in Quessargues and Géant Casino in Nîmes, where

Argentina looks braced to face up to another short harvest, despite predictions of what are many calling a great quality vintage. Growing conditions for the 2017 harvest were far more in keeping with Argentina and a return to the hot, dry weather following the impact of the rains caused by the El Niño weather patterns in 2016 that also hit other areas of South America, notably Chile.  It was the arrival of damaging spring frosts that have caused the trouble this time round and greatly reduced volumes and yields in

Despite concerns throughout the 2017 South African wine harvest that weather conditions were going to combine to damage the overall vintage, the final results are now expected to be very encouraging with a bigger than expected harvest, higher yields and some "exceptional" quality grapes coming through.  The fact South Africa has had so little rain for the last two years had raised fears that the vintage would be hit. But it is now expected to reach 1,425,283 tonnes, up  1.4% on last year. Francois Vijoen, viticulture service manager of wine

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April 2017: Loire frosts For the second successive year the Loire along with many other vineyards both in France and elsewhere in Europe have been hit by a series of April frosts. Just as in 2016 it has been a whole series of early morning frosts running over 10 days from 19th April through to 29th April. In some places it was up to five nights of frost in others it was even six.   This pattern of April frosts is strikingly different from before when it tended to be

The English wine industry is fearful widespread frosts this week could have had a major impact on the 2017 harvest with some fearing over half of this year’s grape harvest could be at risk, with other producers faring far worst. As temperatures dropped to -6C in some parts of southern England over the last week some damage was unavoidable despite the valiant efforts of wine producers and their workers to keep the frost at bay by using special fans and heaters and even fires. The freezing weather could not have

Californian wine is doing as well in its domestic market as overseas, with shipments of wine from the Golden State to the rest of the US hitting record levels of 238 million cases last year a 2% increase on 2015. This amounted to a retail value of $334.1 billion, a 4.5% increase on the previous year.  At the same time, California wine sales to all markets, including shipments to the U.S. and exports, also set a record of 285 million cases in 2016.   "Consumers worldwide recognize the high quality