Ten years ago, in 2003, Malta, Slovenia, Hungary, Lithuania, Slovakia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Estonia and Latvia decided to join the European Union. John Maxwell Coetzee won the literature prize in the Nobel awards. Talking on a handheld mobile phone in a car was outlawed in the UK. The Concorde made its last flight.
And also: in May 2003 the very first issue of the BKWine Brief was published. [divider]
10 year anniversary issue!
You can read more further down on how it was then.
Now when we are practically already in June one can start wondering how this year will be for the wine. Spring (spring?) has been exceptionally cold and rainy in most of France as well as in some other European wine countries. Most likely the harvest will be late since the growing season has a very slow start. There is also a risk of problems with flowering. Too much rain can disturb it. Which in turn can lead to small harvest volumes.
Read more below on that.
But it is probably too early to start getting worried. The vine is a hardy plant and wine growers and wine makers today have knowledge and technology to manage to make good wines even in “difficult” years. The wine will of course be different in a cold year than in a hot year, but the end result, the wine, can still be very enjoyable.
Yesterday I read that some meteorologist predicts that we will have a warm and sunny autumn. As compensation for the spring? One can always hope! Late summer and autumn are perhaps the most important period for the vine so we would be wise to wait a bit with making any pronouncements on the quality of the vintage.
But I am sure that it will be a beautiful autumn. At least I hope so. And then it will be perfect to go on a wine tour. We have some very interesting tours on the schedule for the autumn. See more below. And we would be glad to talk about custom wine tours with you too. But don’t wait with signing up for a wine tour. “Book before” is approaching rapidly.
And don’t miss the two “long haul” wine tours we have scheduled for February and March: A magnificent wine tour to Chile and Argentina in South America, and an equally fantastic wine tour to South Africa, with a possible safari extension. Book now!
Both of us will be there so hope to see you!
Britt & Per
PS: Recommend to your friends to read the Brief!
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What’s on at BKWine Tours
- Bordeaux, 18-22 September
- Douro Valley, Portugal, 23-27 October
- South America: Chile and Argentina, 1-16 February 2014
- South Africa, 28 February – 10 March, 2014
For more information please contact us on email or on phone (we’re on French time), or go to our wine travel site on www.bkwinetours.com!
We also make custom designed wine tours – on-demand tours for you and a group of friends, for your company (maybe to scout new winegrowers?), for a special event… We can combine winery visits and wine touring with other activities: gastronomic workshops, visit to an oyster farm, truffles hunting, cheese making, and more. More info on the custom designed and bespoke BKWine wine tours and travel here!
Wine tours in Finnish: We also do wine tours in Finnish. And in German, Norwegian, Spanish…
Do you want the latest news and updates on our wine travel activity? Subscribe here! (Second alternative BKWineTours.com)
From the World of Wine
Ten year anniversary for the BKWine Brief!
In May 2003 we published the very first issue of the BKWine Brief. It was short (with time it has grown and grown), it was not very elegantly designed (yes, we still have room for improvement there!), but the contents was actually quite similar to what it is today. Several of the text we had in the first issue are still relevant. For example the recommendations we had of good wine producers and the restaurant reviews. In the news section you could for example read about the sale of Chateau Margaux (yes, indeed! But only part of it).
We chose the perhaps odd name “The BKWine Brief” because we needed something that would work both in English and in Swedish (it does). Already from the start it was bilingual. (Do I need to add that we write BKWine without any space between the K and the W!?) Read more on how it was in 2003: Ten years ago: we launch the BKWine Brief, the newsletter on wine. You can even read the full text of the first issue.
“Uncorked: Good wines we have tasted recently.” New section in the Magazine.
We taste and drink quite a few wines, this you have probably already understood. We take tasting notes most of the time and now we would like to share these tasting notes with you. So we launch a new section on BKWine Magazine: Uncorked: Good wines we have tasted recently.
The wines will be in no specific order (well, it will be in the order we drunk or tasted them) and with a few short sentences describing them. We will not give them any points but we will tell you if we like them or not. [divider_flat]
Château de Cazeneuve, Pic Saint Loup, Languedoc 2008 | Britt’s Wine of the Month
A wine we enjoyed very much with our dinner the other day. A good structure, some tannin so a perfect wine to accompany a meat dish. A generous fruit and fine freshness. Peppery and spicy taste. The grapes are Syrah and Grenache that complements each other well. Do not serve the wine too warm, preferably at around 16 degrees.
Pic Saint Loup is a few kilometres north of Montpellier and is one of the most interesting regions of Languedoc. It has a superb terroir and also a number of good and ambitious winemakers.[divider_flat]
A cold and rainy spring
This spring has been the worst we have ever experienced in Paris. And in most parts of France, it has been as cold and rainy. We hope that the vines have not suffered too much damage. We guess that the flowering will be late in many parts of Europe and thus the harvest. But you can never be certain. The vines have an amazing ability to catch up.
Rain means muddy and soaked vineyards. In Provence, wine producers applied for permit to spray their vineyards by helicopter because it was too wet to go out with the tractor. In Bordeaux they also complain that they are behind with certain treatments like spraying with copper and sulphur against fungal diseases.
There is a lot of work to be done in the vineyard this time of the year. For instance what you call epamprage in French. It means taking away shots that will not give any fruit. This must be done before the flowering. If you cannot go out with the tractor in the vineyard you have to do this time consuming task by hand. Which probably means paying a lot of extra workers.
In Touraine in the Loire Valley the frost struck at the end of April. Chinon, Bourgueil and Saint-Nicolas-de-Bourgueil were hit and also some areas east of Tours. In Montlouis some producers lost 30% of their buds. The frost hit at dawn with temperature of minus 3.5 degrees.
Dream tasting of wines from Domaine de la Romanée Conti
The wines from Domaine de la Romanée Conti fall into the category “wines that many have heard of but few have tasted”. So when Stuart George, guest writer for BKWine Magazine, was invited to try nine decades of these great Burgundy wines, he obviously accepted.
The organizer, The White Club in London, opened a DRC wine from each decade, from the 1920s to the 2000s. Unique! Read what Stuart says about the tasting here: Nine decades of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti in London.[divider_flat]
I cannot help feeling a bit envious reading about Romanée-Conti 1937 and the rest of them…
Michel Rolland sells his Bordeaux chateau to a Chinese
The Rolland family, including the famous wine consultant and wine maker Michel Rolland, has owned Chateau Bon Pasteur in Pomerol in Bordeaux since the 1920s. Bon Pasteur has now been sold to a Chinese. Suton Pan is a financier and entrepreneur who also got two other chateaux in the deal: Chateau Rolland-Maillet in St Emilion and Chateau Bertineau St Vincent in Lalande de Pomerol. The price for the in total 16 hectares has not been disclosed. Our guess is that it will be somewhere between 1 and 4 million euro. Per hectare.
Suton Pan is already a winery owner since he some time back bought the Cult Winery in Napa Valley in California that he bought for 40 million dollars. All according to The Wine Cellar Insider blog by Jeff Leve. (Jeff is also an occasional guest writer on BKWine Magazine.)[divider_flat]
Sulphur in the wine – more or less
How much sulphur to put in your wine is much discussed today. You can do without it, say some natural wine enthusiasts. Absolutely impossible to do without, say others. Most people use sulphur to some extent, to protect the wine from oxidation and against impure flavours.
But sulphur is also found in wine naturally. It is produced during the fermentation. Now scientists have developed a yeast strain that produces less natural sulphur in the wine. Read what Per writes about this here New yeast strain gives wines with less sulphur.[divider_flat]
Wine competes with soft drinks
In France the wine producers are struggling to get young people to drink wine. Plenty of young people today choose not to drink wine as they consider it being old fashioned and difficult to understand.
But has the reason more to do with the taste? Are wines too dry for young people? Yes, this is the view of drink analyst Johnnie Forsyth. He says winemakers do not understand that young people want sweet wines. Hi points at the sales of sweet moscato wines in the U.S.
These sweet wines are probably not drunk with food and that is part of the problem. Traditional wine countries like France and Italy make wines that go with food while many younger consumers drink wine in other contexts.
Cheap, sweet wines do not have good reputation among wine experts. They are not really considered as serious wines. So there is, says Forsyth, a discrepancy between what the market wants and what winemakers want to deliver.
Should we believe that these sweet wines can be an entrance to the “real” world of wine with dry, tannic and structured wines? Or is it a bad idea to let young people get used to sugary sweet wines? But otherwise they might drink alcopops and cocktails? Which is the best (or worst) alternative?
Read more here thedrinksbusiness.com
Tasting wines from Domaine Fèvre in Chablis
One of our most popular tours is the one called 3 French Classics wine tour. This tour always includes Chablis. The wines of Chablis are popular in many countries and it’s easy to understand why. These wines are unique. They are difficult to reproduce somewhere else as they have their own very special style. But of course, different producers make different wines.
Sometimes we visit William Fèvre Chablis, one of the most famous producers in Chablis. The wines here are full bodied and quite fat, sometimes with notes of oak.
Read more about a tasting we had at Domaine Fèvre some time ago here Famous wines from William Fèvre in Chablis
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Monopoly on grape varieties! Why?
In recent years, many new wine laws have been introduced in the EU. Among other things, the rules for “wines without geographical origin” have changed. These used to be called vin de table in France (table wines). Today they are called Vin de France, a name that should sell better in the world. And now these wines are allowed to specify both the grape variety and the vintage on the label if they want to. The old table wines were not allowed to do so.
But there are certain restrictions concerning grape variety. Some regions want to keep their grapes as some sort of private property. It is mainly Alsace, Savoie and the Jura that have put their foot down. So this is for some reason an Eastern France thing.
That the Alsatians want to protect their Riesling and Gewurztraminer, I can understand (but not agree on) but why on earth would Savoie producers want to have exclusive rights of mondeuse and jacquère? Aside from the fact that I do not think anyone in the world than themselves would want to grow these grapes, wouldn’t it be an advantage if these grapes spread and became known? Sometimes the reasoning of wine producers is a mystery.
Read more about it here Even the simplest French wines can now mention the grape variety, except some.
Domaine Chanson in Burgundy, a visit to a wine cellar three floors up
The negociant house of Domaine Chanson is now one of the most interesting négoce houses in Burgundy. This is in part thanks to the wine maker since 2001, Jean-Pierre Confuron.
We visited Chanson in Burgundy recently and admired both their upstairs wine cellar and their delicious wines.
Read all about it here Tasting wine up in the cellar at Domaine Chanson Père et Fils in Beaune, Burgundy.[divider_flat]
Chinese champagne is but a memory
China has recently recognized the appellation Champagne. This means that in future in China you will not see any Chinese bubbles, or imported ones for that matter, that is labelled as Champagne if they do not come from there. Other beverages that have already been recognized by the Chinese are Cognac, Scotch whisky and wines from Napa Valley.
Champagne is becoming more and more popular in China. A modest 50,000 bottles were imported in 2001. Now it is 2 million.
Now we just have to see if this will be respected. A similar law in the US for instance, has several loopholes which mean that you can still get American “Champagne”. More: www.lavigne-mag.fr
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To combine wine and food – not rocket science?
There is much talk about how to combine wine with food. But how hard is it really? Britt writes in her Friday column how she picks the wine to go with the food she cooks. It’s not that complicated and it is rare that it gets really bad. But some cheeses can cause problems.
Read more on what Britt says about wine and food pairing here: The five things you need to know about combining food and wine.[divider_flat]
New on the wine photo blog, May 2013
The focus (!) has been mainly on technical things recently on the photo blog. Partially due to a change of computer and other projects. Here are the recent subjects:
- New computer, new Photoshop, new wide gamut monitor: setting Colour Management preferences
- International Culinary Photography Festival – edition 2013
- BKWine selected and exhibited at the Oenovideo Festival
- I am looking for a good DAM: Digital Asset Management software
- Photography licensing and pricing tools & information, and one more photo pricing tool, and a photo licensing tool
- Useful info on copyright, licensing and pricing from ASMP
You can subscribe to updates and new posts on the wine photo blog here (RSS, bottom of the page).
An introduction to the Douro Valley, Wine Region of the Year
Each year the world’s biggest wine tasting association (Munskankarna) selects a “Wine Region of the Year”. This year it is the Douro Valley. Very well deserved! A spectacular wine region, perhaps the most stunning vineyard landscapes of all, with many great wines. And definitely not only port wines. Today they make many excellent “table” wines too. On the wine travel blog we recently published a short introduction to the region.
There you can read about the wines, the grape varieties, the landscape, the food and other things. All illustrated with pictures of course.
Read it here: The Douro Valley: a meandering river and terraced vineyards – “Wine Region of the Year”.[divider_flat]
The far-away wine tours to South Africa and South America now open for booking
Next winter we will have both South Africa and South America on our wine tour program. The programs for both wine tours are now ready. It will be two long-distance wine tours that will be very, very special. You will not only get some (well needed?) sunshine and summer weather (in the middle of our northern winter) but also very special wine, food and nature experiences. Read more on these two unique wine tours here:
You can read more about these wine tours on the wine travel blog.[divider_flat]
To go wine touring in Piedmont
We have just published a new (sample) program, an example of how a wine tour to the Piedmont can look. We regularly organise wine and food tours to the Piedmont, as well as to other wine regions in Italy. Some of the most exclusive and highest rated wines in Italy can be found up north, in Piedmont (or Piemonte, as the Italians say).
Read more about what a wine tour to Piedmont is about, wine, Italian food, truffles and much more: Wine tour in Piedmont, one of the great wine regions in Italy.[divider_flat]
Wine events calendar
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