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| News from BKWine | ||||||||||||
| “World’s Best Wine Tours” – Travel + Leisure Magazine, on TravelAndLeisure.com
Wine Tour to Bordeaux with BKWine
BKWine offers you two possibilities to go to Bordeaux this year
For more information please contact us on email or on phone (we’re on French time). Visit our video channel https://www.youtube.com/bkwine to meet some of the producers we visit. What do people think about a wine tour with BKWine? That is of course a question that we think is very important. We want it to be a wonderful and memorable experience for everyone. Here are some of the comments we’ve had from customers this season:
Custom wine tours You’ll get a tour designed exactly according to your requirements and tastes, made by one of the most experienced wine people in the business. We personally visit some 200 wineries and taste thousands of wines every year; we write on wine for various wine magazines (we had more than 30 articles published last year); in 2007 we published a ground breaking book on the wine of the Languedoc and in 2009 we published a book on vine growing and wine making – unique in its kind. And we have organised hundreds of wine tours over the years. More info on the BKWine wine tours here! Wine tours in Finnish More info on the Finnish wine tours here: Viinimatkoja |
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| Recommendations | ||||||||||||
| A selection of what we have tried, tasted or visited recently. □ Producers
Stellekaya, Stellenbosch, Sydafrika Also!: Watch our interview with the winemaker at Stellekaya, Ntsiki Biyela, on BKWine TV! Click here for address and more recommendations. Read about more recommended producers on the site: Favourite Producers □ Wine Bars and Restaurants Champagne: Bistrot le 7, Epernay Epernay is a small town in the middle of the Champagne district. Here you’ll find big houses like Moët & Chandon and Mercier och many others along the beautiful, recently renovated Avenue du Champagne. And, as always in France, you also find good restaurants. One of our favourites is Bistro le 7 in the town centre, not far from Moët & Chandon. The bistro belongs to the Hotel Les Berceaux. They also have a more elegant restaurant, but personally we prefer the bistro. You get a starter for between 12 and 18 euro, for instance a lobster salad, a terrine de foie gras or snails with polenta with garlic cream. Main courses are between 18 and 26 euro and a delicious one is the grilled scallops (Noix de Saint-Jacques), with a creamy curry sauce and basmati rice. We advice you to book your table in advance. Click here for address and more recommendations. □ Wine of the Month Criteria: an interesting wine (not too cheap) and one that you can enjoy with dinner or friends (not too expensive). And very good! Åsa’s wine of the month: Taso, Valpolicella Superiore, Villa Bellini Quiet please! Cecilia at Villa Bellini has gone from making a wide range of wines to now only making two different cuvees. One which is her Valpolicella Superiore and one Recioto di Valpolicella. Taso, which is the Valpolicella Sup (Taso means “I am quiet” in the local dialect) is made partially from dried grapes (appassimento) and the rest of the grapes are vinified directly after the harvest. It is aged for around two years in big oak casks. It is quite powerful with a good structure but without the jammy tones that an amarone often has. It has a good fruit without giving a sweet impression in the mouth. Many nuances to be found both on the palate and on the nose. An interesting wine that gives you pleasant surprises. Goes well with meat and dishes with a lot of flavour. Price: around 24 euro. www.villabellini.com Read more recommendations on restaurants and wine bars on my Restaurant and Wine Bar page. |
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| News from the Wine World | ||||||||||||
| Best Wine Book of 2010 – and the winner is BKWine!
This is what we wrote in our press release about this prestigious award: “A Wine is Born: the work in the vineyard and in the wine cellar” won the category “best drinks book”, a category that includes books on wine, spirits and beer (and thus also “best wine book of the year”) awarded by the “Måltidsakademien”, whose aim it is to promote knowledge and education on food and drink. The book is written by Britt Karlsson and photography is by Per Karlsson, both active members of FIJEV and the Circle of Wine Writers. The book explains how vines are grown in the vineyard and how wine is made in the cellar. The target audience is both the dedicated wine lover as well as wine trade professionals and students. More information on the book can be found here: https://www.bkwine.com/our-books/the-creation-of-a-wine/ “A Wine Is Born” is published in Swedish under the title “Ett vin blir till”. It does not yet have an English publisher, but Britt and Per would certainly be very interested in discussing a potential English language edition. Each year ”Måltidsakademien” (https://akademierna.se/) awards prizes to the best Swedish literature in the areas of food, wine and drinks. The drink literature prize (including wine) is one of the most contested categories with a large number of entrants. In total there are around thirty categories, two of which touch wine: the Drinks Literature prize and the Combining Food and Wine category. The former included this year around 20 competing books and the latter two books. The jury motivated its selection of ”A Wine is born” with the following: “A detailed, in depth and very illustrative voyage through vineyards and wine cellars, where each explanation of facts and working methods invites the reader to go on his own discovery amongst growers, harvesters and oenologists”. Britt and Per comment on the award: “We are very happy and proud. The book is the condensed result of all the vineyard and winery visits we do on our wine tours with BKWine and of the innumerable discussions we have had with winemakers. We wanted to do a book based on what’s done in real life and not just on theories; a book that is entertaining for the wine enthusiast but also educational. ‘A Wine is Born’ can even be used as a text book for wine students. In addition to the basics (and not so basics) of wine growing and winemaking we also wanted to explain things that are usually not talked about in other wine books, tools, technologies and methods, and also illustrate everything with a lot of photos, sometimes quite unique illustrations.” Britt and Per Karlsson write about wine and produces photography on wine in their company BKWine AB. They are also a wine tour operator, organising some 30 wine tours each year, as well as consultants and wine educators. Facts on the book: BKWine: https://www.bkwine.com
World champion wine videos
BKWine TV wine videos viewed 200,000 times Christmas gift tip (?): Auction records in profusion: Cheval Blanc 1947 for $300,000 or three Lafite 1869 for £437,000 It’s almost as if there is inflation in auction price records. The press releases come in almost every day on new, stunning auction prices. Much of it seems to be driven by the incredible demand for extremely exclusive wines in Asia. Two new records were broken within just a few weeks. First out was Sotheby’s in Hong Kong with the highest price for a single lot and the (then) highest price per bottle: three bottles of Château Lafite-Rothschild 1869 sold for £437,900 (HK$5,445,000 or €534,941). Several other lots of Lafite were sold far above what was expected. Read more on decanter.com The per-bottle record did not last long though. In came a report from Christie’s in Geneva where they had sold a single bottle of Château Cheval Blanc 1947 for $304,375 (€ 219,994) which then was the new highest price paid for a bottle. To be fair, the bottle was big, an imperial containing 6 litres, so the old Lafite was still more expensive per litre… Here is also the top-ten lots at the Geneva auction: – Château Cheval-Blanc — Vintage 1947, 1 imperial € 219,994 It is jaw-dropping prices but perhaps not too unexpected. Certainly nothing to get upset about (unless you had a bottle and dropped it). apparently there are buyers who think it worth these prices and it is after all much less than what is paid for some pieces of jewellery or cars. Lafite and (much) more at auction in Denmark Not only Chateau Lafite-Rothschild but also many other fine and exclusive wine will be on sale at the Bruun Rasmussen auction (# 817) on December 9. Very timely they have quite a collection of Lafite on the cover of the catalogue (as well as at the auction) and there is a Lafite 1900 on sale (est. 2000-2700 euro). But there is also a wide range of other luxury wines: all 1er GCC, Guigal’s top cuvees, grands crus from Burgundy, “various” DRCs, Gaja, Krug etc etc. However, there are probably not many “bargains” to be found, but perhaps it’s not the season. For more info www.bruun-rasmussen.dk Christmas Gift (done?): Château Chenu-Lafitte bought by Chinese interests An Chinese billionaire has bought the Chateau Chenu-Lafitte in Bordeaux in order to give it as a gift to his 20 year old son (Le Journal du Vin says it is a shipping magnate called Goulong Yin but other sources says the buyer is anonymous). Chenu-Lafite is a little known name, not to say totally unknown. According to Decanter, the name has not been in use in recent years, until the new Chinese owners started bottling wine under it. The name, together with vineyards, and a chateau building was sold by Philippe Darricarrère. He kept 42 ha for himself and will still be making wine under the name Chateau Mille Secousses (“a thousand bumps”, which is probably a good description of the financial situation leading to the sale). It is maybe not entirely a coincidence that the name has in it “Lafitte” (albeit with two ‘t’). Château Lafite Rothschild happens to be the wine that has broken price records on the Chinese market recently. It is amusing to note that the first chateau bough by a Chinese (as far as we know) was called Latour Laguens. There is also a third Chinese chateau (in Fronsac) called Chateau Richelieu. Château Chenu-Lafitte is in the AOC Côtes de Bourg region on the right bank but the Chinese owners have chosen to “declassify” the wine to AOC Bordeaux, presumably thinking that Bordeaux will be easier to sell. Perhaps worth noting in the context of the strong trend in France for more and more (and smaller and smaller) appellations and sub-appellations? Read more on decanter.com and terredevins.com The Drinks Business publishes China Repor The Drinks Business is a UK trade magazine on wines and spirits. they have just published a special issue on the Chinese market for wines and spirits: The China Report. And it is the first issue they publish that is freely available on the internet. If you are interested in the Chinese market you can find their report here: The China Report University wine tasting championship: ”20 sur vin” “20 sur vin” was originally a wine tasting competition for the French Grandes Ecoles (the most prestigious university level schools). Since a few years back it has also been open to Cambridge and Oxford. For 2011 it will be broadened to also invite international competition. There will be contestants from USA (e.g. MIT Sloan, Harvard, and Columbia), Hong Kong, Singapore, and of course Great Britain. The competition will take place during the first half of 2011. Maybe there are more candidates at university wine tasting clubs around the world? More info www.commanderiedubontemps.com The world’s best gamay Gamay is the latest grape variety to get its own ”world’s best” competition. The ”Concours International du Gamay” (the gamay world championship) will take place on January 15, 2011 in Lyons. Unsurprisingly it is organised by Inter Beaujolais, the Beaujolais growers’ association. We hope that it can be a tool to spread the word that gamay is not only a grape for uninspired fruit-juice wines but can also make exciting quality wines! More info: www.concoursgamay.com Discover the Rhône Valley wines ”Les découverts en Vallée du Rhône” is a giant movable wine tasting along the river Rhône. The purpose is to give you an opportunity to discover Rhône wines. It is organised by Inter Rhône, the growers association, and the next edition takes place on 1-6 March 2011. an excellent opportunity to taste a lot of wines and meet many of the winemakers. Only for professionals though. More info: www.decouvertes-vins-rhone.com Win a trip to the wine districts in California If you live in the US you have the chance to win an all-expenses-paid trip to San Francisco and the wine regions, with two nights at Mendocino. It is the American wine magazine The Wine Enthusiast, in collaboration with Mendocino Wine Company who organises the competition. It is not overly complicated – you just have to fill in your email. And if you don’t win the trip you can win a guitar autographed by Sting (I know some who would certainly prefer that prize!). And if you don’t live in the US you can perhaps find some other fun thing to do. www.vibeincentives.com/messageinabottle/ Is there something wrong with the wine, sir? It is not only the cork that can cause problems or “faults” with the wine. There is a whole range of things that can be a wine bad, or at least worse than it should be. It can be due to errors in the vineyard, for example too early (or too late) harvest, mistakes in the wine cellar or other external factors. Jane Anson, who writes the eminently readable blog The New Bordeaux, has written a summary of the faults that you can get in a wine and that will destroy your experience. A very interesting read that you can find here: “Identifying wine faults” Le Grand Tasting in Paris on December 10 and 11 Le Grand Tasting is the strange name of a consumer wine show in Paris that will take place on December 10 and 11. It is one of the more ‘serious’ wine shows in Paris with many interesting producers showing up and many good wines to taste. It will take place at the Carrousel du Louvre (by the underground shopping area at the Louvre), starting 10.30 in the morning on both the Friday and the Saturday. Well worth visiting if you have a few hours to spare in Paris. https://www.grandtasting.com Norwegian aquavit to become a protected denomination The Norwegian government is in the process of introducing rules that will make the name “Norwegian aquavit” (norsk akevitt) a protected denomination, according to Kraftbyraa.no. The rules will e.g. require that the aquavit must be made in Norway (seems reasonable), must be made from potatoes (which apparently is not the usual raw material in other Nordic countries or in Germany), and must be aged for at least six months in barrel. Norsk akevitt is, also according to Kraft Byrå, normally aged in sherry cask that is rarely used in other countries. This gives the Norwegian Aquavit a special character. (Aquavit is a typical Nordic distilled spirit. It is made from a white, neutral spirit to which spices and herbs are added to give it character.) Read more Kraftbyraa.no Russian wine producer buys vineyard in Languedoc The Russian wine company Gerrus Group has bought a vineyard in the Languedoc region in France. Chateau des Deux Rocs is a 20 ha property in Cabrières, not far from Montpellier. Gerrus is active in Russia both as a négociant and as a wine producer, owning some 1400 hectares of vines. Read more: www.vitisphere.com Bordeaux Crus Artisans is back? Last month we talked about the revived (and strange) Cru Bourgeois classification-but-not-classification in Bordeaux. This month it’s time for the no-one-knows-it-exists classification Cru Artisans. Cru Artisans exists since some 150 years back but during the latter half of the 20th century it fell out of use (or perhaps even earlier) and became virtually unknown. In theory it was chateaux that were perhaps not noble enough or big enough to claim Cru Bourgeois status. After having disappeared last century it was actually recreated in 2006 thanks to a government ruling. But its existence seems to be a well guarded secret – there are not many people who know about it (it’s not even in the Wikipedia!). Only 44 chateaux were classified in 2006. In principle it should be revised every ten years so a new version is due in 2016 or 2017. However, the Chambre d’Agriculture has decided to open it for new applications this year and by next summer the new additions to Crus Artisans will be announced. (If we understand it correctly it is not a revision, so no one needs to fear exclusion. At this time.) Those that are included in the the classification (version 2011) will have the right to use the label Cru Artisan for vintages back to 2001… All we can say is “oh well”, we’ll just have to wait and see how it goes. So now we have in Médoc / Bordeaux a classification that is virtually unknown, created in 2006, or perhaps 2011 (Cru Artisans), or in the 19th century; a classification that is not a classification at all and that some observers think will not last long in its current form (Cru Bourgeois de Medoc – see last month’s Brief); and a classification that is 150 years old where today’s vineyard plots have no resemblance to the plots that existed when the classification was done, which on the other hand has no relevance since it is the chateau buildings and not the vineyards that are classified (Grand Crus Classé de Bordeaux). Read more on www.lejournalduvin.com and www.bordeaux.com Children’s book about wine published in France Is it the path towards total deprivation and alcoholism? Or is it quite the opposite? The book editor Emmanuele Garci at Editions Mama Josefa thought that there was a need for a book that explained wine to children in France: the cultural heritage, the agricultural product, the history and to place at table. She found Sandrine Duclos, Cécile Gallineaux and Pierre Touron to create that book. It is called Vignes et Vins: Un Monde a Decouvrir (Vines and wines: a world to discover). It has been printed in 200,000 copies and is now available in book shops in France and soon perhaps in Canada too. And perhaps there will be an English translation… More info decanter.com Generational Farming at Fox Creek Wines, McLaren Vale Paul Rogers from Fox Creek in McLaren Vale in Australia visited Sweden recently and as we don’t often have the opportunity to meet Australian wine producers we were happy to be able to have a chat with Paul. McLaren Vale is a leading wine region in Australia when it comes to sustainability and we asked Paul what this means to Fox Creek. “We are a small family grower with 40 hectares of vines and we have always been keen on sustainability”, says Paul. “We use very little spraying – we have reduced the number of sprayings a year from 8 to 4 – we plant trees as wind breakers and we only use natural fertilizers. A big concern here in Australia has always been the water. And the different projects in McLaren Vale to come to terms with this serious issue have been quite successful.” McLaren Vale is situated 45 kilometres south of Adelaide, on the little Fleurieu Peninsula. The ocean is close by and the refreshing wind is more or less constant. McLaren Vale is a fairly new wine region that has been growing a lot the last 15-20 years. When Fox Creek made its first wine in 1994 there were only 16 wine producers, now there are around 70. McLaren Vale has developed a sustainability program called Generational Farming Project. The idea is to pass the vineyard on to the next generation in better condition by using methods and products that will not harm the natural balance in the vineyard. Through the McLaren Water Plan the growers are more and more switching from potable water to recycled water for their irrigation. The goal is to make McLaren Vale 100% sustainable for irrigation purposes. “In only five years the use of recycled water for irrigation has reached 70 %”, says Paul. Paul left the telecom industry ten years ago and joined his wife and in-laws at Fox Creek, a decision he does not regret. The star grape at Fox Creek in Shiraz, one of them called Red Baron and available in Sweden for 109 SEK. It’s a wine for pleasure, with a lot of fruit and with a good tannin structure. And the see breeze probably helps to give the wine a nice freshness. New and exciting grape varieties are being planted at Fox Creek: Verdelho, Sangiovese, Albariño and Barbera. New (old) site about Austrian wines And on BKWine TV you can watch a series of videos on Austrian wines! Christmas gift tip: champagne for sale Piper-Heidsieck and Charles Heidsieck are two champagne houses both belonging to Remy Cointreau SA. According to Bloomberg, Remy is now looking to sell the two houses. The champagne business made an operating loss of 4 m euro for the 12 months to March this year. Remy Cointreau wants to focus on its core spirits activity (more profitable), and above all cognac. The company is of course the owners of Cognac Remy Martin. the prospective buyer should contact Credit Agricole, the bank that has been tasked with finding a purchaser. Read more bloomberg.com Christmas gift tip for the champagne fanatic: The Champagne Warrior Slightly more affordable than Pieper-Heidsieck (see other item in this Brief) is The Champagne Warrior. Brad Baker is the self-appointed champagne warrior. One has to conclude that he is a champagne fanatic, and he publishes a newsletter on champagne, called The Champagne Warrior. It contains articles, both short and long, on champagne related subjects as well as extensive tasting notes. In issue #7 (extending over more than 70 pages) you can read about e.g. champagnes with little or no dosage, about the legendary Clos des Goisses from Philipponnat (and how Baker by chance became the happy owner of a whole assortment of such bottles), and an interview with Anselme Selosse. If you don’t mind wading through the quite lengthy tasting notes there is quite a lot of interesting and useful information. A subscription will set you back $90; you can get a sample issue for $1. More info here https://www.champagnewarrior.com/ Learn more about wine in Denver The International wine guild is a wine school for those who are interested in studying wine to become a professional – sommelier, wine trade professional or other. They are based in Denver, Colorado, and have been named one of the five top professional wine schools in the US by Food & Wine Magazine. More info here: https://www.internationalwineguild.com/ Dramatic cuts in production in Beaujolais Many wine producers have hard times. For many in Beaujolais it is not only hard but very tough. There is too much Beaujolais wine made and too little of it bought and drunk. According to The Drinks Business the growers’ organisation has decided on draconian measures to try and get a balance between supply and demand. Last year 360,000 hl of primeur wine was made. Only 275,000 hl found a buyer. The price fell from 157 euro per hl the previous year to 139 euro/hl, in other words not even 1.40 €/l. This year it was decided to reduce the permitted yield to between 25 and 32 hl/ha compared to the normal 52 hl/ha. Dramatic cut indeed. Will it have any effect? Perhaps, if they also focus on improving the quality of the wines. Read more: thedrinksbusiness.com How much does it cost to buy a vineyard? Well, between 14,000 and 1 M euro per hectare Vineyard land prices vary enormously. Recently these difference have been accentuated rather than diminished. César Compadre writes in Terre des Vins on the situation in Bordeaux: Cheapest is of course ‘plain’ Bordeaux, i.e. vineyards with ‘just’ the Bordeaux appellation, in e.g. Entre-deux-Mers. There you can find land below 15,000 euro/ha. Most expensive are, no surprise, the most famous (and small) AOCs: Margaux, Saint Julien, Pomerol, where prices can reach a million euros per hectare. Times are good in Bordeaux for the most famous chateau, but you can almost count them on the fingers of your hand. There are probably less than a hundred in that situation. For the big bulk (no pun intended) of producers life is harder. Many are close to (or have done) bankruptcy. Here are some other price examples: – Saint Emilion: 200,000 euro/ha Read more here: terredevins.com And watch our interview with César Compadre BKWine TV: What future Bordeaux part 1 and What future Bordeaux part 2 Diluted wine of fruity wine? Must concentration – what should or should you not do? Boil the must in a vacuum? If it rains just before the harvest you risk getting a diluted must. The grapes suck up the water and becomes inflated with water. there are several techniques for what is called must concentration. The most commonly used (but not overly common) in France is probably reverse osmosis (click for photos). You can also use cryo-extraction (freezing the grapes). A third method is to boil the must in a vacuum, vacuum extraction (but it certainly is not a cheap way of doing it). The process implies that you pump the must through a vacuum chamber, at rather low temperature. At low pressure a liquid boils at a much lower temperature. You can even do it at below room temperature if pressure is low enough. Since the evaporation is done at a low temperature only the water is lost, is the thinking. What remains is a more concentrated must. The unwanted water is gone. (Usually only a part of the must is treated and then blended back into the rest of the must in appropriate proportion.) As a result you get a more concentrated, less diluted wine. This is originally an Italian invention and we have seen such vacuum concentration machines in Italy and in Austria. We recently asked a producer in northern Italy if it really was allowed to use it in his (illustrious) appellation: “Um, well, no in principle it is not allowed. But we are allowed to chaptalise (add sugar to the must to increase the alcohol). So if instead of chaptalisation I use vacuum concentration, and thus raise the sugar contents with the grapes’ own natural sugar instead of extraneous sugar, is that not better?” was his answer. Italian logic? As for France we don’t know if it is allowed or not, but we’ve never seen such a machine here. (On the other hand you don’t often see a reverse osmosis machine either even though it is relatively frequently used at major chateau in e.g. Bordeaux.) Another person who uses the vacuum machine, and talks warmly about it, is Ken Wright at Ken Wright Cellars in the Williamette Valley in Oregon. It rains a lot in Oregon and Wright is happy with the improvement he gets from the machine according to this interview in Gizmodo: We Must Boil This Wine To Save It. But many people who argue for “natural” wines or “organic” wines will get goose bumps if they see it in a wine cellar. They would consider it “unnatural” to treat a wine (must) like that. (One could of course argue that ‘appassimento’ – partially drying the grapes for an extended time period of time – that is used e.g. to make amarone is just another type of must concentration technique.) It is a difficult question of course: Is it better to use vacuum (or cryo-extraction, or reverse osmosis) to “save” a wine, or is it an unnatural way to treat it that will rob the wine of its soul and character? What do you think? European Wine Bloggers Conference #EWBC Earlier this autumn we participated in the European Wine Bloggers Conference (#EWBC in hash tag twitter-speak). Two hundred participants from 30 countries – wine bloggers, wine producers, wine marketers and others who were interested in wine, the internet and “social media” – had the opportunity to meet, discuss and taste a lot of good wines over a few intense days in Vienna in Austria. Definitely to be recommended if that’s the kind of things that interests you. Now there is an “official” video on the event. Not a boring conference summary, but rather snippets and glimpses from all the things that were going on. Watch it here: EWBC 2010 on www.youtube.com. Thanks to Austrian Wine Marketing Board for sponsoring it and thanks to Alexander Schukoff Film for the clip. And thanks to Gabriella & Ryan from Catavino, and Robert from Wine Conversations for organising it. And if you were not there, you can still watch some of the most interesting parts of the EWBC conference on the EWBC channel on Vimeo. for example: Elin McCoy’s keynote on “wine journalism in the ivory tower”. She is Bloomberg’s wine reporter and has written the book the Emperoro of Wine about Robert Parker. Or Evan Schnittman’s keynote on the future of publishing in a digital world. And much more! But it’s not quite the same thing as being there. It’s really meeting the people that is the best part. The next European wine Bloggers Conference takes place in Franciacorta, Brescia, in northern Italy, starting on October 14, 2011. You can already register here: https://winebloggersconference.org/europe/register/ Rural sales of locally produced wines and spirits to be allowed in Sweden? There is currently a debate raging in Sweden on an issue that seen from the outside seems peripheral to say the least. Nevertheless it has escalated to become the most important item in the Swedish government’s review of its alcohol policy. Sweden has a monopoly on alcohol sales in the retail sector. The only shop where you can buy alcohol (stronger than 2.5% ABV) is the government owned Systembolaget shops. Since last 10 to 15 years several small, often rural, producers of wine and spirits have popped up. But since there is a monopoly on alcohol sales they cannot sell their wines (or spirits) at the door, where it is produced. And if the monopoly chooses not to list their product, the only option they have is to export. At the end of the year a government task force will release a report with a proposal for new alcohol regulations. It is not expected to lead to much change. One of the items expected is that it will be possible for sushi restaurants to serve alcohol (currently you have to serve hot food). And it is this thing with rural sales of wines and spirits. It is a hotly debated item since a) the four parties in the government alliance don’t agree. Some of think it is one way of making rural Sweden more dynamic and to create job opportunities. Others think not and are afraid it will loosen Sweden’s strict drinking laws. And b) some say that it will lead to the demise of the whole monopoly (one can only hope, we say!). In particular, some say that since EU regulations forbid favouring your own country’s products compared to similar products made in other EU countries (e.g. with tariffs or with rules that favour national products), if rural producers are allowed to sell their own products then they must also be allowed to sell products from wine producers in other EU countries. Read about it in The Local: “Swedish government split on rural booze sales” where for example the liberal party’s spokesperson Carl B Hamilton is quoted as arguing that it may lead to that the EU challenges the Systembolaget exemption from EU competition rules and thus threaten the Systembolaget’s existence. (It is not mentioned in the article though that Hamilton is also a board member of the potentially threatened Systembolaget.) Born Digital Wine Awards – a new prize for online wine communications The Born Digital Wine Awards was launched at the European Wine Bloggers Conference (#EWBC) and is organised by the same people who are behind the conference. It is a prize for wine communication in all its forms 0- provided it is “born digital”, so first published online or in other digital format. There are five competition categories: – Best Investigative Wine Story The winners will get, in addition to pride and glory, 1000 euros. An important thing to point out is that entries can be made in any language! The competition will itself organise translations if needed, unless an English translation is provided. (How that will work in practice is not quite clear…) So it is not “a blog” or “a site” that can enter the competition. It is specific article or item (etc). Nominations are open from December 1 until January 31, 2011. The jury has some grand names in it: Jancis Robinson, Robert Joseph, Evan Schnittman, Elin McCoy and Patrick Schmitt. Nominate yourself or nominate someone you think worthy! More info https://borndigitalwineawards.com |
In all the chateaux we will get private tastings together with the people who are involved in the wine making and who are delighted to share with us their passion for fine wine. We avoid the usual big ‘tourist trap’ addresses and instead focus on the real people and the real wines. We will stay four nights in the city of Bordeaux, an elegant and very beautiful city of just over half a million people.
