Wine News Archives

Bourgogne Wines Cave de Prestige selection for 2019

Last week the Bourgogne Wine Board (BIVB) announced the exclusive Bourgogne Wines Cave de Prestige selection for 2019.

This year,1,528 samples were submitted for tasting, from vintages 2015 through to 2018. This represents a rise of 34% compared to 2018 and is perhaps not surprising given the very fine 2017 vintage from which 64% of submissions hailed. The 2017 vintage was more generous than 2016 for the majority of Bourgogne appellations, and 2018 looks to be promising.
Selected by a jury of experts 12% of the submissions were chosen, making a total of 191 wines. They will be showcased for one year, both in France and abroad, at marketing and training events for market influencers such as wine store owners, sommeliers, restaurateurs and journalists, and also for the general public through the École des Vins de Bourgogne.

There was a record number of submissions as follows: cooperative cellars 9%; négoce trade 13%; with estates making up the remaining 78%. Most of the 84 Bourgogne appellations were represented, from Régionale wines to Grand Crus.

The winning list will follow shortly.

US and EU winegrowers hit back at Trump’s proposed Tariffs on EU wine

US members of international grower organization Wine Origins Alliance have written to the government’s trade representative, calling for the scrapping of proposed tariffs on EU wine.
In a letter to US trade representative Ambassador Robert Lighthizer, the group strongly urged him to exclude wine and wine products from the list of goods that may be subject to WTO tariff countermeasures, as a result of a WTO dispute over EU subsidies to Airbus.

It echoes a similar letter from the organization’s European contingent to the European Trade Commissioner, signed by representatives from Burgundy, Bordeaux, Champagne, Chianti, Rioja, and Jerez.

The Wine Origins Alliance comprises 25 organizations across 10 counties, which together represents nearly 80,000 wineries and growers, who are focussed on promoting and protecting wine growing place names worldwide and preventing the purposeful misuse of geographic names.

The appeal after the US government identified $21 billion-worth of EU good imports, including wine and cheese, which it said could be subject to tariffs in the ratcheting up of trade hostilities between the two blocks in response to the EU subsiding aerospace and defense group Airbus. Last year the WTO ruled the EU subsidies to the company were illegal in the culmination of a 14-year dispute between Airbus and US company Boeing.

In response the EU is also expected to authorize tariffs countermeasures on US-made wine and other products.

The letter pointed out that the US and the EU are two of the world’s leading wine producers and last year collectively exporting $28 billion of product and urged the US trade representative to remove wine from the list and work with the EU to reduce and eliminate tariffs.

“We urge you to work with the EU government to reduce or eliminated wine tariffs, not raise them. Promoting wine exports by removing trade barriers is critical to driving industry growth and creating new industry jobs,” it said.

Signatories of the letter include the President of the Napa Valley Vintners Association, Linda Reiff, Sonoma County Vintners’ executive director Michael Haney, Oregon Winegrowers Association CEO Tom Danowski, alongside representatives from Pasa Robles Wine Country Alliance, the Long Island Wine Council, Santa Barbara Vintners, the Missouri Wine and Grape Board, and Willamette Valley Wineries Association.

In a similar move, the presidents of the Conseil Interprofessional du Vin de Bordeaux (CIVB), Consorzio Vino Chianti Classico, Bureau Interprofessional des Vins de Bourgogne (BIVB), Consejo Regulador DOCa Rioja, Comité Champagne and Consejo Regulador del Vino del Jerez urged the EC’s Commissioner for Trade Cecilia Malmström to exclude wine from any list of goods on the tariff countermeasure list.

Source: Drinks Business

Chablis Invests €4.8M in innovative methanation system for winegrowers

The BIVB in Chablis has confirmed that the Chablis Winegrowers Union is to implement a new innovative methanation system that will recycle all by-products from the winemaking process. This is a breakthrough in the region’s move toward greater sustainability.

The £4.8m methanation facility is expected to be up and running by the fall of 2021. It follows a six-month study in Belgium to test the feasibility of the project using a ‘pilot’ system, with wine by-products brought over from Chablis to find the most efficient method of methanation.

Methanation is the conversion of carbon oxides and hydrogen to methane and water through hydrogenation. It can also be used as a means of producing a synthetic natural gas, and as a way to store energy produced from solar or wind power, which would allow it to serve as a potential carbon capture mechanism.

Last month the Union’s general assembly voted in favour of the project.

The methanisation processing area will be located in the south of Chablis where 700 winemakers, belonging to the Union, will be able to bring the by-products of their winemaking to be processed.

Grape pomace will be passed through a machine to separate any seeds, which research found unsuitable for the process. These will instead be set aside for alternative uses such as cosmetics.

The remaining wine pomace will then be placed in covered silos where the fermentation process begins; then finally into the methanisation machine.

The biogas (gasses) produced by the machine will be directly injected into the Gaz Réseau Distribution France (GRDF) circuits, the natural gas distribution network in France. The remaining product left in the machine will be sold as fertilizer.

Louis Moreau, president of the BIVB Chablis, said: “We are proud to be one of the first wine regions to put in place a methanation process of this kind and on this scale as well. Sustainability is a key focus for Chablis and the rest of Bourgogne so our winemakers are always looking at new innovations on both small and large scale projects.

“We believe the new system will be a success and with a younger generation of winemakers who have traveled the world for their studies and then come home to Chablis, we will work hand-in-hand with them to bring in new practices to protect the environment and our terroir.”

https://www.chablis-wines.com/what-is-the-bivb/what-is-the-bivb,1872,7709.html?

Soave Adopts Cru System

After a lengthy process that started a number of years ago, the Soave DOC has officially adopted a hierarchical, Burgundian-style classification system, where ‘cru’ sites sit at the top of the quality spectrum.

The new DOC regulations will feature 33 distinct cru areas that have been selected for their potential to yield grapes of superior nature.

As of next vintage, these are the crus (officially called Unità Geografiche Aggiuntive) you will find on Soave labels:

Castelcerino, Colombara Froscà, Fittà, Foscarino, Volpare, Tremenalto, Carbonare, Tenda, Corte Durlo, Rugate, Croce, Costalunga, Coste, Zoppega, Menini, Monte Grande, Ca’ del Vento, Castellaro, Pressoni, Broia, Brognoligo, Costalta, Paradiso, Costeggiola, Casarsa, Monte di Colognola, Campagnola, Pigno, Duello, Sengialta, Ponsarà, Roncà – Monte Calvarina.

Most of the crus, whose vineyard area covers 40% of the appellation, are found on Soave’s hillsides, with 29 out of 33 located within the prized Soave Classico area.

The selection process, which started back in 2000, involved a number of factors that affect fruit quality, including altitude and gradient of the hills as well as training system.

‘The approval of the crus is another great step forward for our appellation,’ commented Aldo Lorenzoni, director of the Consorzio di Tutela del Soave. ‘The place of origin of the grapes has always been a crucial part of our communication strategy.’

Sustainable, Organic, Lower-alcohol and Alternative Wine go Mainstream

A recent Sola Report from Wine Intelligence highlights that there is a huge opportunity for the industry to produce more alternative wines.

The Sola Report is an acronym for the alternative wines sector, which includes sustainable, organic, lower-alcohol and other alternative wines. The Sola Report tracks how the alternative wine market changes from year to year, and includes an opportunity index, which crosses 11 markets and 12 sub-categories – this determines where Sola wines have the greatest chance of success.

Emily Carroll, who compiled the report for Wine Intelligence, said the “prominence of the organic movement continues to be evident: organic wine tops the Sola wine opportunity index for the second year in a row, most likely due to the popularity of organic food across the world.

“Following closely behind is Fairtrade wine and generic concept wines ‘sustainably produced’ and ‘environmentally friendly’— all three types associated with a blend of social, economic and environmental responsibility.”

She said increasing awareness among consumers for alternative wines was the result of a “fundamental shift in consumer attitudes, led by the younger generation. What was once seen as ‘hippy’ is now the mainstream, with many consumers, particularly those under the age of 45, adopting socially, environmentally and economically responsible habits. This requires companies to act more ethically responsible and more transparent, which naturally also applies to the wine industry”.

She added that “younger wine drinkers present the most opportunity for alternative wines due to their open-minded attitudes and willingness to invest time, education and money into their health. Young wine drinkers are not only more likely to purchase alternative wines such as organic, Fairtrade or sustainable wines compared with older drinkers, but are also more willing in general to pay a premium for wine in the off- and on-trade”.

However, she said, the challenge would be to “engage this cohort with the alternative wine category, as younger consumers are very much attuned to other drinks categories, like craft beer and gin, and also are less likely to be participants in the alcoholic beverage category to begin with”.

She also said there is “less appeal for alternative wines with more complex titles including orange or skin contact wine as well as biodynamic wine. Interestingly, even though veganism and vegetarianism is on the rise, these two Sola wine categories rank the lowest in the 2019 global Sola wine opportunity index”.

The first Sola report was released in 2018. It surveyed consumer sentiment towards 12 alternative wine types in 11 key wine markets, looking at awareness, purchase intent and affinity towards alternative wines. The 2019 report has been expanded to include vegetarian wine and five new markets and is “now representative of 250 million regular wine drinkers from a broad spread of geography, culture and economic development”.