This is number 150 of the BKWine Brief! Who would have thought that when we started one hundred and fifty issues ago!?
Revolution in the New World?
We have just come back from a wonderful tour in South America. You will hear more about that in coming Briefs. We spent two weeks in Chile and Argentina and, of course, we tasted a number of wines, over 100 in fact.
They were of all different kinds. Carmenère in Chile and Malbec in Argentina of course but also plenty of others. One thing stood out. They were less “New World:ish” than a few years ago. They were more restrained, fresher, drier. In our opinion overall quite simply better.
The oak rarely seemed excessive. Just as in France and other Old World countries today the winemakers that we met stressed that they are not looking for too much oak aromas. The oak should only be a support for the wine.
We did not see any over-extraction. No jaminess. No vanilla bombs. Elegance seemed to be the keyword all over.
Is there perhaps a revolution happening in the New World?
Is the same thing happening in South Africa? We will check that next week since we are about to pack our bags to go wine touring to southern Africa’s most exciting wine producers.
By the way: “New World” quite is very relative. Vines arrived in South America in the 1540s, well before the Dutch drained parts of Medoc and the swamps that were Medoc was planted with vines. And South Africa recently celebrated 350 years of wine-growing.
If you want to judge for yourself it can be good for you to know that both South America (Chile & Argentina) and South Africa will be on our wine tour program in February-March 2017.
All our travelling at the moment has made it a bit difficult to keep up with the writing so this month’s Brief is shorter than usual. We’ll be back next month with more.
Britt & Per
PS: Recommend to your friends to read the Brief !
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What’s on at BKWine Tours
- Bordeaux, April 20-24
- Champagne, September 14-18
- Bordeaux, September 28 – October 2
- Douro Valley, October 12-16
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)
Do you want the latest news and updates on our wine travel activity? Subscribe here! (Second alternative BKWineTours.com)
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[box type=”note” size=”large” style=”rounded” border=”full”]This is just the introduction to the latest issue of the Brief. Subscribe to the BKWine Brief and you will get the whole edition in your mailbox next month.[/box]
