At the launch of the new Bruno Paillard Blanc de Blancs 2012, Alice Paillard likened 2012 to the classic 2002 vintage, stressing that in 2012 the base wines (strangely) had both higher acidity and maturity. This Champagne is a ‘survivor’ of the weather that spring – the resulting wine ‘compact’ and with long-ageing potential. Anne Krebiehl MW talks to Paillard and is smitten with the wine.
Probably the most transformative change during Covid-19 has been how quickly people have gone online and embraced ecommerce. It has opened up huge new opportunities to those drinks and hospitality businesses able to capitalise with effective ecommerce platforms. Martin Litt is here to help companies make the most out of online with his new business – Quaff Digital – that he has set up on being made redundant during lockdown. He shares his story as part of The Buyer’s ongoing Onwards & Upwards series.
Wine journalist – and regular Buyer writer – Chris Wilson has added another string to his bow as he launches his own urban winery in the heart of Cambridge this autumn called Gutter & Stars. In the third instalment of his column for The Buyer the Pinot Noir and Bacchus have arrived at the windmill-based winery, Chris puts his DIY cellar tools to the test and the stereo is turned up to 11.
For years the wine trade has collectively trudged along to Lindley Hall and other traditional wine tasting venues across London to attend the latest major generic or distributor portfolio event. In recent years there have been an increasing number of dissenting voices questioning whether this is the most effective use of our time, and to taste potentially 100s of wines. Covid-19 has ripped up the old tasting routine and given the sector a blank piece of paper on which to re-invent the trade tasting. Here Nik Darlington, co-founder of Graft Wine explains how it has just hosted a month long range tasting – online.
The world has moved on a great deal since the inaugural WineFuture event was held in Rioja in 2009. At the time it was the first of its kind. An attempt to bring the global wine industry’s most prominent and influential figures together, from producers, brand owners, importers, retailers to critics and media. The event was repeated in 2011 in Hong Kong, but not since. Until now with the news it is to return in a new online webinar format in February 2021. Here’s what to expect.
Oregon’s Willamette Valley might be best known for its Pinot Noir but few may realise how diverse its winemaking community is. Celebrating Hispanic Roots was an event aimed at setting the record straight with six Latinx winemakers from Atticus Wine, Beacon Hill Winery, Cramoisi Vineyard, Gonzales Wine, PARRA Wine and Valcan Cellars telling their stories and showing their wines, the best of which LM Archer tastes and recommends. Not only are the six speakers leaders in their own right but they are also advocates for the Latinx community, particularly for those who work on vineyards.
When we held the first One Step Beyond event in early March to analyse the growing trends and advances in technology that were changing the way we as consumers behaved, the world was a very different place. Even though Covid-19 was rampaging across Europe, in the UK it still felt very much at arm’s length. Seven months on and so many of those emerging, ‘about to happen’ trends discussed at the conference are now very much part of our daily lives shaping the way we live and dictating what businesses need to do to survive. To help assess what changes in consumer behaviour the drinks industry needs to be on top off now and in the months ahead, The Buyer is teaming up again with Sophie Jump to host a special free One Step Beyond webinar with the same experts and panelists from the inaugural conference. Here’s how you can take part.
Whether he’s plunging his arm into a just-fermenting open barrel of bubbling Grenache, bounding across the arid La Roque vineyard where his beloved 80 year-old Carignan vines grow, or pouring samples of the seven wines he produces under the Domaine of the Bee label, Justin Howard-Sneyd is a man with boundless enthusiasm – a Master of Wine who’s found his ultimate vocation. Peter Dean popped down to meet him for lunch in the Roussillon town of Maury to find out how the year’s been and how he’s getting ready for harvest.
Training and consultancy support are so often some of the first things to go when businesses are forced to make cut backs in difficult times. But here in our latest Onwards & Upwards article to give a voice to those in the trade looking for new opportunities, Harry Crowther makes the case for why now training has never been more important in hospitality to help operators get even more out of the assets – their wines and spirits – through the skills and quality of their staff.
The wines of ‘new Chile’ demand a fresh look by wine buyers if the 16 best new Chile wines selected by Tim Atkin MW are anything to go by. In a two-part 3-hour tasting review, with 16 winemakers beamed in from around Chile, this superb session showed off the freshness and diversity of the wine styles that have undergone a sea-change here. Gone were the heavy, oaky, rich, sweet wines of yore and in their place were 16 wines with less extraction and reduction, and more of a sense of place. The sessions also showed how far Zoom tastings have come in six months – punctual, technically faultless with the wines showing well. Peter Dean reports.
