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British Prime Minister Teresa May’s announcement yesterday that the UK is heading for a ‘hard’ Brexit – with no automatic access to the European single market – surprised nobody. But it provided a lot of food for thought to members of the wine industry, and not just in the British Isles. Mike Veseth, the ‘Wine […]

January 2017 Wine Investment Report December month was positive for both Bordeaux and other regions of the wine market. December is normally a slower month due to fewer trading days for the holiday season, nevertheless the numbers still proved a positive outcome for the period. Bordeaux wines showed an increase of 0.72% in January versus […]

A Chinese food and restaurant group has bought Domaine de Bellair on Bordeaux’s Right Bank and plans to use the wine to supply its businesses across Asia. Golden Field, a multinational food and drink company based in China and Taiwan, is the latest in a succession of Asian investors in Bordeaux wine. A fee for Domaine […]

Jane Anson looks beyond proclamations that ‘Bordeaux is back’ and analyses the numbers to see what might be in store for the region’s wines ahead of the 2016 en primeur season, particularly in a UK market preparing to throw itself into the Brexit quagmire. At the end of December 2016, a spate of reports fluttered […]

Theresa May’s speech on the UK’s Brexit strategy filled in some blanks but left key questions unanswered for wine drinkers, workers, importers and retailers. Prime minister Theresa May confirmed this week that the UK was willing to sacrifice membership of the EU single market and customs union in order to secure greater control over immigration and […]

Tension is rising in southern France after winemakers staged a day of action, emptying at least one tanker of Spanish wine and blocking a depot used by the wine subsidiary of Carrefour supermarket.       Sixty protesters block supermarket-owned depot near Nîmes      They then attacked a tanker suspected of carrying Spanish wine   […]

US officials have risked re-opening old wounds with Champagne houses by picking a ‘California Champagne’ for president Donald Trump’s inauguration lunch. See the full menu below – and it doesn’t include bottles from the Trump winery in Virginia. ▪California ‘Champagne’, plus Cabernet and Chardonnay make the line-up California wines will be the toast of president […]

Champagne has seen its global growth trajectory dented after fewer people popped corks in the UK following the country’s EU referendum, show preliminary figures. –         Global Champagne sales estimated at 306 million bottles in 2016, versus 312m in 2015 –         Value of orders hits 4.5bn euros, down on 2015 but still second highest on record –         Lower […]

Who better to ask where to wine and dine in London than vinous and culinary experts? Decanter’s tasting director chats to the Decanter World Wine Award judges and finds out their favourite London wine haunts. It is a privilege to live in London. We Londoners have so many vinous and gastronomic delights on our doorstep. […]

The controversial Pavie 2003 traded at a new high of £2,440 per 12×75 last week after rising substantially this year.     Critic reviews of the vintage have been divided. Jancis Robinson famously scored the wine 12/20 in barrel, calling it “ridiculous”; Robert Parker awarded it 97-100 around the same time.   Read more at Parker […]

A London wine bar is set to be opened by the youngest daughter of Château Margaux’s owner in the next few months. Alexandra Petit-Mentzelopoulos, the youngest daughter of Corinne Mentzelopoulos, owner of Château Margaux in Bordeaux, is to open a wine bar in London in the Spring of 2017.   Read more at Château Margaux […]

How to understand tasting notes: Are you puzzled by terms like dosage and flavours like leafy? Dosage After a traditional-method sparkling wine is disgorged, the liqueur d’expédition is added to create the final dosage. This addition of sugary liquid is used to balance the high acidity levels. With the correct addition, the dosage can accentuate […]

December 2016 Wine Investment Report This month showed another increase in the fine wine market. Data from the London Vintners Exchange Index showed strong performance for the month of November. Our valuations also showed a positive increase in line with the index results. Bordeaux wines showed an increase of 0.89% in December versus November and […]

Back in April 2016, Robert Parker announced he will be no longer rating new wines during en primeur for Bordeaux. He handed the reigns to his successor Neal Martin. I followed Neal Martin for many years before he joined Robert Parkers team. I always admired his easy reading style of critique on fine wines. However […]

There were a lot of people flooding the streets with banners and tears the night Donald J Trump got elected. As Michael Moore puts it, America has retaliated at the elite rich by electing a President like Trump.. While many of Mr Trump’s plans make a lot of sense for a stronger economy over the long […]

Counterfeit wine expert Maureen Downey is set to launch a new system to combat the growing issue of wine fraud. In partnership with diamond-certifiers Everledger, the Chai Wine Vault system promises to secure wine’s provenance and authenticity by storing it in a digital ledger that uses a ‘blockchain’ system – essentially a database where each […]

Landmark research paves way to full genome map of Cabernet Sauvignon that could help winemakers battle a changing climate, writes Amanda Barnes after speaking to UC Davis researchers in California. Landmark research into the genome sequence of Cabernet Sauvignon could change how we breed grape varieties in the future. UC Davis revealed the first draft […]

November 2016 Wine Investment Report Data on the fine wine market according to the London Vintners exchange AND our monthly valuations showed another increase in the fine wine market in November versus Octobers prices. This month showed exceptional gains, with performance in many first growth Bordeaux Vintages. Bordeaux maintains the lions share of the market […]

James Pala Europe’s finest, fine wine analyst:) This chart says it all, and why are we here? Despite equity markets in the U.S reaching all time highs, the economy is still dragging itself into 2017. The word on the street is ‘Brace Yourself’. Not if you’re a wine investor (Lucky for you).  The chart below […]

If we look back to 2006 and consider how mainland China’s wine market has changed, it’s first worth considering just how young that market was. By 2006, the imported wine market was barely 15 years old and Chinese wine production, though expanded in the 1980s, had not yet made the leaps in quality that some […]

Choosing Thanksgiving wine is a minefield of trying to pair with many flavours of the dinner table and attempting to please all the family. Ray Isle gives us his top tips for finding the perfect bottles…    See the 2016 wine recommendations from William Kelley below Writing about Thanksgiving wine pairings is, for wine writers, almost as […]

Michael Edwards reviews the newly released Dom Pérignon P2 Rosé 1996 along with its older sisters, the 1995 & 1993… Dom Pérignon’s chef de cave Richard Geoffroy was eloquently realistic about Champagne’s place in the world, talking before the launch of the Dom Pérignon P2 Rosé 1996. ‘There’s one world of fizz,’ he said directly, […]

Donald Trump has won a tumultuous US presidential election campaign battle against Hillary Clinton. What could that mean for wine collectors and producers? First take: What president Trump might mean for wine… –   Surprise win dubbed ‘America’s Brexit’ and leaves markets volatile –   Both Trump and Clinton were cool on plans for a […]

Brexit means that it’s likely to become more expensive to drink wines from Europe in the UK, says the country’s leading wine trade body in the starkest warning so far from the industry. Consumers may soon have to pay an extra 29 pence on average for a bottle of wine from the European Union if […]