If you have any room in your diary for an extra few meetings at ProWein then here’s why you should spend some time and go over to Wine Australia’s stand and pick out the five producers who are making the journey from South Australia to represent the Riverland wine region as part of the Riverland Uprising initiative to shine the light on the alternative winemaking scene in what is largely regarded as one of the country’s biggest sourcing areas for bulk wine. If you do there are five producers just waiting to meet you.
The new Dom Pérignon 2013 is being described in some circles as ‘the last pre-climate change’ vintage. Vincent Chaperon, DP cellar master, was in London to launch the new cuvée, talk about its sheer simplicity, how he harnessed its energy and power and why there’ll be no 2014 and 2016 Dom Pérignon. Victor Smart was The Buyer’s scribe at the tasting.
As the wine industry’s great and good prepare to descend on Dusseldorf for ProWein ‘23, the team from Lanchester Group, its subsidiaries Lanchester Wines and Greencroft Bottling, will be putting the finishing touches to a rebranding, to be exclusively unveiled at the show. Revealed across the group’s biggest ever stand, the new messaging will have the sustainability message front and centre – as you might expect from a business that champions itself as a restless pioneer of renewable energy. David Kermode caught up with Andrew Porton, managing director of Lanchester Wines’ Wine Division ahead of ProWein, to find out what to expect.
The theme of Enotria & Coe’s annual tasting this year was ‘cognoscenti’ although it could have been ‘fortis’, writes David Kermode who suggests that strength in the face of adversity is just as key in 2023 as being well informed. Kermode talks to E&C’s managing director Ants Rixon about his priorities going forwards, the new agencies in the portfolio – Bodegas Maranones (Madrid DO), Bodega Cerron (Jumilla), Mayfield (Orange, NSW) and Champagne A Robert – and highlights 10 wines from the tasting that he thinks should be on every wine buyer’s radar.
Next week sees ProWein return to its traditional timeslot in the drinks industry’s events calendar after 2022’s show was switched to May, and in 2020 and 2021 cancelled entirely due to Covid restrictions. Not surprisingly, ProWein’s executive director, Michael Degen, is hugely relieved at the return to some semblance of normality for the world’s biggest international wine and spirits trade show. He talks to Helen Arnold about the impact of the pandemic, what visitors can expect from the 2023 show and his vision for the future of the event.
Alliance Wine has set out its stall with sustainability and diversity at the core of its business. Nowhere was this more evident than at its 2023 portfolio tasting where it was trialing an ingenious ‘anti-waste’ policy, which is one of the pillars of its sustainability strategy. Alliance is also making its own wine range, Terres Fidèles, in partnership with winemakers in the South of France which further enables it to meet its goal of responsible production and consumption. Robert Mason talked to sustainability manager Marta Juega Rivera, and took a tour of the new wines.
Richard Dennis has the kind of CV you wonder where he has managed to pack all his experiences into such a short period of time. A career that has seen him work on both sides of the trading fence – at Sainsbury’s and as a supplier and importer. He is now part of the Watermill Wines team that is working closely with major multiples and operators to source wines that can work primarily for their own label and exclusive ranges, as he explains to Richard Siddle.
Armit Wines’ Italian portfolio is the envy of most and its annual tasting in London is a must for all serious wine buyers – and that’s not just because they were showing Sassicaia Bolgheri 2012 in magnum. For Justin Keay it was an opportunity to try the wines of Armit’s new estates Petrolo and duca di dolle alongside many favourites that span the length and breadth of the country. Two things that really stood out were the quality of the 2019 vintage and also how Italian whites are on a roll right now.
Hospitality and horse racing go together like a pair of stirrups on a saddle which makes this week’s prestigious Cheltenham Festival, which starts on March 14 and runs to the end of the week, prime territory for showcasing premium wines, spirits and no-alcohol drinks to a discerning audience. Neil Phillips, aka The Wine Tipster, will be track side all week offering advice to guests on what to drink as well as offering some tips on which horses to place your bets on.
You only have to walk down any aisle at a major international wine fair to see producer after producer showing the medals they have won in different wine competitions. But how important are they to wine buyers tasting their wines? Do they make a difference in what wines they list? What makes one wine competition stand out over another? To help find out The Buyer teamed up with the IWSC to ask major wine buyers, who also invest a lot of time judging competitions themselves, why it is they take part, what they are looking for in a medal winning wine and what producers should be doing with any medal they do win.
“The idea is to inspire, connect and support women in in educational and fun setting. The focus is to bring women in wine together to lesser known wine regions and get them to discover or re-discover these regions.” That is how Senay Ozdemir describes the Women in Wine Expo she founded which is due to hold its next event in the UK with three days of talks, debates, tastings and trips.
The top 10 best new wines from Alsace judged by an IWSC panel of Eric Zwiebel MS, Colin Thorne and Anne Krebiehl MW – and incorporating a range of grapes and styles. The panel had to narrow down more than 55 Rieslings, Gewurztraminers, Cremant d’Alsace and Pinot Noirs into 10 wines that will be showcased at ProWein 2023 by the Conseil Interprofessionnel des Vins d’Alsace.
Today The Drinking Hour on Food FM podcast with David Kermode, produced in partnership with The Buyer and IWSC, notches up its 100th episode. Having attracted some big names over nine series, including Jancis Robinson OBE MW, Sacha Lichine, Hugh Johnson, Oz Clarke OBE and Peter Gago, to name but a few, the podcast has gone from strength to strength, so what’s in store for its next century? Richard Siddle caught up with Kermode to find out.
Margaux-based Château Durfort-Vivens has ditched its ‘second wine’ and is now producing three Parcelles wines using the same fruit – individual expressions that are made with amphorae and clay jars and made to be drunk young. Peter Dean met up with Gonzague and Claire Lurton to discover how this is another part of their strategy to challenge the status quo in Bordeaux and to make the region more vital and affordable to younger drinkers.
There is now so much fierce competition within the fine wine market amongst brokers, wine importers and merchants to get fine wine buyers to buy through them. But what makes a fine wine buyer decide which business to work with? Wine Owners, which helps devise and implement the computer management systems many fine wine operators rely on, carried out a satisfaction survey with a sample of fine wine buyers to find out. Here’s what it found.
Roger Jones… in Medlar’s dining room… with Nigel Greening… and 33 vintages of Felton Road. It does read like a Cluedo card and it does feel like there will be a prostrate body discovered somewhere during proceedings. But, far from it – Felton Road’s Nigel Greening was in town, hitting the circuit to promote the Felton Road 2021 vintage – this Central Otago-based winery’s 25th vintage release. And what better way to analyse this estate’s short but influential journey than opening a raft of library bottles alongside the new wines to demonstrate their future trajectory?
With very appropriate timing the all-female group of wine writers, broadcasters and social media marketers, collectively known as The Wine Collective, are celebrating their one year anniversary to coincide with this year’s International Women’s Day. Over the last 12 months the combined talents of Libby Brodie, Sophia Longhi, Hannah Milnes and Charlotte Kristensen have helped bring a new, refreshing, impactful and highly targeted approach to creating a wide range of wine content and created their own space in the already crowded wine communications field. Here they talk to Richard Siddle about what brought them together and why they think together the Wine Collective offers something different and exciting for the wine industry to connect with their target market.
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Inter Rhône
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As Domaine Gayda looks to celebrate 20 years of making wine in the Languedoc, co-founder, Tim Ford, looks back on what the business has been able to achieve in establishing a range of branded wines, centred around its flagship brand Chemin de Moscou, that champions the diversity of terroir and grape varieties of the Languedoc whilst also celebrating what IGP wines can achieve. He also looks ahead to where he hopes Domaine Gayda can go to in the years to come.
It has been less than two months since Bollinger’s Gilles Descôtes died with Denis Bunner taking over his boss’s role as chief winemaker within a restructured team. Here he talks exclusively to The Buyer – on the day that the House is launching Bollinger RD 2008 – about Descôtes’ legacy, what drives innovation, and the priorities of the role as all eyes are focused on the House’s 2029 bicentennial celebrations which will see a new cellar built and a wine lovers’ boutique hotel unveiled on-site. Tasting notes and details of Bollinger RD 2008 also feature.