Stuart Todd – Champagne sales fell by 9% to 293.3m bottles in 2009, as a stable performance in France failed to offset weaker demand in export markets, show official figures from trade body Comité Interprofessionnel des Vins de Champagne (CIVC).

Value sales fell 17% for the 12 months, compared to 2008, CIVC said today (8 February). Around 181m bottles were sold in France, equal to a year ago, but exports to EU countries fell 17.4 % to 70.6m bottles, with the most marked declines in the UK, Italy and Spain.

Exports to the rest of the world slumped by 25.1% to 41.7m bottles. The US and Japan reported significant declines, while Russia, China, India and Brazil did not deliver the growth hoped for. However, the CIVC said that industry leaders believe the sector is poised for recovery in 2010. CIVC reported 6% rises in global volume sales in the final two months of 2009.

Sigi Hiss – Ein weiterer Bericht, gefunden auf www.thewinedoctor.com (Chris Kissack) & geschrieben von Richard Bampfield MW. An dieser Stelle möchte ich mich bei Chris & Richard herzlich für die Bereitstellung der Artikel bedanken.

Bordeaux Vintage Report 2009

The news filtering out of Bordeaux at the moment, compounded by all the chat at yesterday’s Union des Grands Crus tasting of the 2007 vintage at Covent Garden in London, seems to be setting up 2009 as yet another great vintage; via email, blog and news report the word seems to be that the fruit is perfect and thick-skinned, and that great wines may result. Naturally comparisons with 2005 are already being made, and several proprietors yesterday admitted to me they weren’t sure which would turn out to be the greater vintage in time. It looks as though 2009 will be a real contender. Continue reading “Richard Bampfield: Bordeaux Vintage Report 2009″

Sigi Hiss – Lange ist es nicht mehr hin, bis die 2009er BDX Primeurkampagne losrollt. Als ersten Bericht gibt es den von René Gabriel zu lesen. Weitere Berichte, Prognosen & Kommentare von diversen Kennern des Bordelais werden folgen.

EINE LEGALE DROGE: BORDEAUX 2009

von René Gabriel

Ein paar Winzer ernteten noch, als ich in der Woche 48 ein paar Bordelaiser Winzer besuchte. Die allerletzten Cabernets auf Belgrave waren absolut perfekt und an den Sortiertischen gähnten die Helfer links und rechts, weil es ganz einfach nichts auszusortieren gab. Die herrlichen Beeren rollten wie dicker, grosser schwarzer Kavier über das Laufband!

Die Ernte sei normal minus 10 bis 15 % – je nach Hagelschäden (St. Emilion) und Trockenstress (allgemein), sowie Deklassement. Doch hier erwarte ich eigentlich tendenziell eher wenig Zweitweinmengen, weil gegenüber einem schwierigen Jahr auch viel weniger zu deklassieren ist. Continue reading “René Gabriel: EINE LEGALE DROGE: BORDEAUX 2009″

Verkosten Sie mit Kristine Bäder, Chefredakteurin des Sommelier Magazin und Portugal Expertin, „feminine“ Weine der extra Klasse!

• Montag, 01. März 20010 in Mannheim
• Dienstag, 02. März 2010 in Hannover

Nur für Fachleute aus Gastronomie, Hotellerie, Fachhandel und Presse.
Die Plätze sind begrenzt, daher ist eine Anmeldung unbedingt erforderlich. [Anmeldeformular]

Richard Woodard – Collapsed wine merchant Cockburns of Leith has been rescued by a drinks wholesaler owned by former Glasgow Rangers Football Club chairman Sir David Murray. Edinburgh Wine Importers acquired the Cockburns name, customer listings, book debts and some of the stock from Ernst and Young, who took over when the company went into administration a week ago.

Sir David is a noted wine collector who also owns Château Routas in Provence, and Domaine Jessiaume in Santenay. His company, Murray International Holdings, is currently trying to sell its controlling stake in Rangers Football Club, with Sir David standing down as club chairman last year.

Cockburns, Scotland’s oldest wine merchant, once counted Sir Walter Scott and Charles Dickens among its customers, but has seen its orders dwindle during the economic downturn. www.decanter.com

Sigi Hiss – BRESSAN winery is preparing a rich schedule of tastings / wine-fairs and wine-events which regards particularly natural wines – wines considered as “elixir of health” which do right to your body and present emotions at every sip. So, take a pen and a piece of paper  (or your planner:) and sign these dates. We are waiting for all who loves and appreciate natural wines,  artisan wines and all who wish to enter into this wonderful world all to discover:   Continue reading “BRESSAN mastri vinai”

Sigi Hiss – Auf Grund der grossen Nachfrage und des wunderschönen Ambiente habe ich mich entschlossen, den Sauternes-Brunch auch dieses Jahr wieder im gleichen Rahmen durchzuführen: “Liquid gold / Flüssiges Gold” in Form von 20 reifen, alten oder einmaligen Sauternes kombiniert mit einem wunderbaren Brunch-Buffet:

Termin: Samstag, 20. März 2010
Ort: Hotel Drei Könige (Les Trois Rois) in Basel
Zeit: 11.00 – ca. 14.00 Uhr
Kosten: CHF 500.- (Paare, welche sich ein Glas teilen zahlen zusammen CHF 600.-). Im Preis inbegriffen ist der wunderbare Brunch und selbstverständlich auch alle Weine und sonstigen Getränke!

Das Hotel Drei Könige (Les Trois Rois) ist weit über die Grenzen hinaus bekannt für sein geniales und reichhaltiges Brunch-Buffet, welches wir auch dieses Mal im gleichen eleganten Salon “Endeavour” im ersten Stock mit herrlichem Blick auf den Rhein und Kleinbasel geniessen dürfen.

Nebst diesem Brunch-Buffet, werden wir 20 spannende und leckere Sauternes geniessen, wobei ich die einzelnen Weine auch kurz kommentieren werde.

Um Eurer Vorfreude etwas Fantasie zu vermitteln, hier ein kleiner Auszug der Weine:
Doisy Dubroca 1920, Climens 1924, Bastor Lamontagne 1928, Filhot 1929, Caillou Crème de Tête 1947, Guiraud 1947, Dauphine Rondillon 1947, La Tour Blanche 1947, Suduiraut 1955, Lafaurie Peyraguey 1959, d’Arche Crème de Tête 1961, Climens 1964, de Fargues 1969, Rieussec 1990, Filhot Crème de Tête 1990, Yquem 1990, l’Etravagance de Doisy Daene 2003 und noch drei weitere spannende Überraschungs-Sauternes….

Wichtig: Diejenigen unter Euch, welche dieses einzigartige Erlebnis miterleben möchten bitte ich, sich so rasch wie möglich anzumelden unter richter1@bluewin.ch, denn bei dieser Degu gilt: wer sich am schnellsten anmeldet hat gute Chancen dabei zu sein. Eine Bestätigung zusammen mit den Zahlungsdetails folgen dann zu einem späteren Zeitpunkt.

Das Verwaltungsgericht Koblenz ist in seiner am 3. Februar 2010 zugestellten Urteilsbegründung zur Klage eines Winzers von der Mosel gegen die Abgabe an den Deutschen Weinfonds (DWF) in allen wesentlichen Punkten der DWF-Argumentation gefolgt.

Das Gericht stellte fest, dass die Abgabe nicht gegen höherrangiges Recht, insbesondere nicht gegen Verfassungsrecht verstößt. Es bestand daher keine Veranlassung, das Verfahren dem Bundesverfassungs­gericht vorzulegen.

Anders als in den vom Bundesverfassungsgericht getroffenen Urteilen zum landwirtschaftlichen Absatzfonds und Holzabsatzfonds erfüllt die Abgabe zum Deutschen Weinfonds nach Überzeugung des Gerichts die besonderen Anforderungen an eine verfassungskonforme Sonderabgabe. Sie wird von einer homogenen Gruppe erhoben. Diese Gruppe trifft auch eine Finanzierungsverantwortung für die Sonderabgabe. Hierzu erklärt das Gericht: „Im Unterschied zu den Bereichen der Land- und Ernährungs­wirtschaft sowie der Forst- und Continue reading “Verwaltungsgericht bestätigt Rechtmäßigkeit der Weinwerbeabgaben”

just-drinks.com editorial team.

Wines of Germany

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Wines of Germany has relaunched its website for UK trade and consumers.

The trade body said this week that the site, which benefits from an “interactive layout and expanded content”, provides direct links to retailers’ websites to enable consumers to buy direct.

Visitors will also be able to search for German wines available in the UK market by alcohol level. Users can also search by colour, region and grape varietal.

“The new website is all about driving sales, education and targeting a younger audience,” said Nicky Forrest, managing director for Wines of Germany UK. “A strong digital campaign focused around our website is a key part of our communications plans for 2010.”

Retailers of German wine are invited to upload their wines on the wine searcher by registering for the new website by contacting the Wines of Germany team. Producers, importers and retailers can also submit German wine-related news for consideration for the website news pages.

Welcome

The LIWF celebrates its 30th anniversary in May 2010, and you can be sure that the world’s most important wine trade event will once again deliver a remarkable experience. For importers, merchants, producers, agents, restaurateurs, wholesalers, sommeliers, in fact everyone whose work brings them in direct contact with wine and spirits, no other event offers the same opportunity to taste, meet with suppliers and winemakers and get down to business as the LIWF.

Whether you produce wine, import wine, retail wine or serve wine, the London International Wine Fair is about discovery, creating opportunity and bettering your business.

It’s often been said that the London International Wine Fair is the single most important event in the international wine and spirits calendar. No other trade event has the same diversity of wine and spirits without any bias towards a particular country or region. It’s as if the global wine business has come together for three days.

And being free to visit and a strictly trade-only event, it’s focused purely on business.

We look forward to welcoming you to ExCeL London in May.

Lucy Shaw – Sibaritas, the Spanish consumer wine magazine edited by José Peñin, has suspended publication after 18 years. In its heyday the monthly magazine attracted contributors such as Jancis Robinson, Michel Bettane and Victor de la Serna, and came to be seen as the key authority on Spanish wine.

The recession and the rise of online wine sites meant reader numbers dropped significantly in 2009. ‘To keep Sibaritas alive we didn’t want to cut the number of issues, or the content or contributions from our acclaimed writers, so we decided to make this painful decision’, Peñin said.

‘Although Spain is the third largest producer of wine, we are also the least interested in reading about wine of any European country. ‘New technology, reader trends and ways of communicating about wine have pushed us to explore the Internet as an option,’ Peñin added. A letter written by Peñin went out to all subscribers informing them of the closure, entitled ‘hasta pronto, Sibaritas’.

It is unknown if the suspension will be permanent. Sibaritas is published by Grupo Peñín, which was created in 1983 by José Peñin, president of the group. Peñin will launch an online version of his Guía Peñin guides in October.

‘It’s a huge project’, Maite Corsin, who ran Sibaritas with Peñin, told decanter.com.

‘The site will feature thousands of searchable wines from the Guía Peñin annual guides, tasting notes, tasting reports and a blog.’  Peñin is due to launch guiapeninenruta.com next week, a wine travel blog, with sections on Spanish wine regions, producers and individual wines. It won’t however feature any wine scores.

By John Abbott – Asia is the future of the global wine industry, and will grow at a faster rate than North America, according to new figures released by Vinexpo. In a new study commissioned by Vinexpo to coincide with this year’s Vinexpo Asia-Pacific, the International Wine and Spirits Record (IWSR) has predicted the trends of the Asian wine and spirits markets up to 2013.

The research found that between 2009 and 2013, wine consumption in Asia will increase by 25%, reaching nearly 1.3bn litres. By 2011, the Asia-Pacific market is set to be worth more than US$6 billion.

In the ten-year period between 2004 and 2013 Asian wine consumption is forecast to grow by 86m cases. By contrast, in the same period, the North American continent is only expected to have grown by 85m cases.

Vinexpo CEO Robert Beynat said that Asia was ‘the future,’ adding that Hong Kong would become an important gateway because of its position ‘right in the middle of the Asian markets.’  ‘The stronger the economy in Asia continues to become, the more money they will have, and the more products they will want.’

By 2010, wine consumption in Hong Kong is forecast to reach more than 33m bottles of wine, of which more than 70% is expected to be red wine. Beynat added that Japan would also show significant growth in wine consumption, but warned that it needed to address problems in national distribution.

‘The current distribution chain is not very good in Japan,’ he said. ‘We hope that this will change – in particular we will be keeping an eye on the enormous strength of [major distributor] Suntory ASC.’  Vinexpo Asia-Pacific takes place in Hong Kong on 25-27 May. www.decanter.com

Andrei Khalip – LISBON (Reuters) – Making cork fly is easy, just pop a bottle of bubbly. But imagine a plane with wings largely made of pressed cork soaring through the skies. From aircraft in the sky to the microscopic depths of the cork oak genome, researchers in Portugal are working to ensure a high-flying future for cork — light, natural fire retardant — even if demand for traditional bottle stoppers keeps waning.

Stubby, leafy oaks, bark carefully stripped from the trunks, line the road leading to the French-owned DynAero aircraft plant in Portugal’s central-south Alentejo region — the world’s main cork growing area.

Plane parts designed and molded here could help shape the future of a national industry that employs some 12,000 workers, exports over 1 billion euros ($1.4 billion) a year in cork — more than 2 percent of total exports — and helps prevent Portugal’s drying south from becoming a desert.

Portugal’s annual output of 157,000 tonnes of cork is just over half of the world’s total. Continue reading “Portuguese cork gets wings as stoppers war rages on”

Deborah Anderson – Scotland’s oldest surviving wine merchants, whose customers once included Sir Walter Scott and Charles Dickens, has been put into administration. Cockburns of Leith, which has a 214-year history in Edinburgh, has called in Ernst and Young to run the firm.

The wine-importing business was founded by Robert Cockburn in 1796. The Cockburns were prominent members of the local establishment with Robert’s brother, Henry, the renowned legal and literary figure Lord Cockburn.

On one famous visit, Scott ordered 350 dozen bottles of wine and 36 dozen of spirits, and it was the family which established Cockburns Port, although that brand is now owned by a separate firm. Continue reading “Historic drinks firm collapses”

By Lucy Shaw – English sparkling wine Nyetimber has beaten the likes of Bollinger and Louis Roederer to be named Champion of Worldwide Sparking Wines at an Italian competition. Nyetimber’s Classic Cuvée 2003, which costs around £25, came top in the blind tasting at the Bollicine del Mondo competition in Verona, run by Italian wine magazine Euposia.

The competition, now in its second year, is open to Champagnes and sparkling wines from around the world. West Sussex-based Nyetimber’s 2003 vintage is described as fruit-driven with Chardonnay at the fore and ‘aromas of mandarins, vanilla, lemons, shortbread and light apricot’.  www.decanter.com

Caroline Gilby

Bordeaux second growth Chateau Leoville Las Cases has announced it is to produce a second wine. Yorick D’Alton of the Delon family, owners of the St Julien property, said this week it was the wish of Leoville Las Cases director Jean-Hubert Delon ‘to make a real second wine.’

He added, ‘The trend at the property is to select more and more, and if we make a second wine this will improve our top wines.’  Currently the property produces two wines, the grand vin from the original walled ‘clos’ vineyard, and Clos de Marquis, from a separate plot to the west of St Julien, with very different terroir.D’Alton said, ‘This will be a common second wine from both vineyards, made from young vines and vats that are not of the right quality level.’

The first release of the new wine, to be called Petit Leon de Léoville, will be from the 2007 vintage.  No further details on pricing or release date have been announced. www.decanter.com

By Lucy Shaw

The world’s lightest wine bottle will hit the shelves in UK supermarket Tesco this week. Tesco is using the 300g screwcap bottle, produced by Manchester-based independent wine supplier Kingsland Wines and Spirits, for its own label Australian non-vintage red. At 300g, the lightweight bottle uses nearly 30% less glass than the average wine bottle, creating less carbon emissions.

The Co-operative supermarket is also in talks with Kingsland over using the bottles, which have the same impact resistance as a standard 420g bottle.
‘We believe this bottle will become the future not just for UK filled wine, but also as a guide for global production,’ said Kingsland supply chain director Michael Ford. www.decanter.com

By Lucy Shaw – Châteauneuf-du-Pape producer Guy Arnaud has been sued by his daughter in a row over the family’s 51-hectare estate. Carole Perveyrie-Arnaud took legal action against her father for allegedly failing to pay £19,000 in wages while she and her husband worked on the land.

Arnaud owns one of the region’s largest vineyards, spread across Château Cabrières and Château Maucoil, The year-and-a-half-long spat has allegedly appalled the local winemaking community. ‘The bad press splashes on everyone’, said one disgruntled local. Continue reading “Chateauneuf-du-Pape producer in row over family estate”

By John Abbott – The Geoffrey Roberts Award, established to commemorate the life and work of the pioneering wine importer, is now taking applications for 2010. The annual travel bursary of £3,000 will fund ‘a journey capable of making a positive difference to the world of food and/or drink.’

Last year’s award was won Dilly Boase, who used the bursary to travel around Italy, learning how bread is made in Italian artisanal bakeries. Geoffrey Roberts began importing Australian wine to the UK in the 1970s and travelled frequently to France and the west coast of the US, before his death at the age of 46.

Jancis Robinson MW, who is a member of the Geoffrey Roberts Trust committee, told decanter.com that the award was ‘a great opportunity to do something really interesting at someone else’s expense.’

Applications for the 2010 award can be made at www.geoffreyrobertsaward.com.

Entries are open to people of all ages, from anywhere in the world, and must be submitted by 31 March 2010.