The Week in Wine Episode 35

End-of-Month bumper issue! Don drinks a cyclone wine (Te Mata Awatea 2023) from Hawke's Bay's Cyclone Gabrielle vintage while Olly has a delicious Petit Chablis. We review the top stories of the week (our most-wanted Napa wines story blows them all out of the water and Olly wonders if the 2024 Bordeaux in-bottle retrospective is perhaps of more use to consumers than the current 2025 En Primeur coverage). In this episode, we also look back over the month, with top takes from the US tariff refunds and a showing from the most-wanted Tequilas. The news stories this week span Bernard Magrez 'announcing' his successor; a trial feeding farmed fish feed made from Albariño grape pomace (includes an aside about bacon production in Ireland); Natural Wines looking to clean up their reputation (includes an aside about craft beer and the 'charm' of the faulty); carbon dioxide and ferment aromas being put back into wine; and winemaking returning to the Eure department of France, 150 years since it crumbled thanks to the arrival of the steam train. We also look to an interview with the head of Château Léoville-Barton and talk about En Primeur as an invaluable PR exercise for the Bordeaux wine region.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Welcome to the Wine News Podcast from Wine Civil, our weekly look at the headlines from across the world of wine with your hosts, Editor Don Kavanaugh and Wine Writer Ollie Stiles. For more on all the stories we discuss, go to winecircuiture.com.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

Good morning, Don.

SPEAKER_03 0:21

Good morning, Ollie. How are you? I'm good. How are you? Oh, yeah, not too bad. Can't complain. We've had a we've had a long weekend here in New Zealand, one of several we get during the year. And so consequently, this podcast is going to a day late, but you know, it was a lovely long weekend. So yes, no, it was nice. It was good. What about yourself? You have a good weekend?

SPEAKER_01 0:41

Lovely weekend. Yeah, yeah. Lovely weekend. Fine off. Did a bit of fishing. Um nice family, nice family time. Thanks for nice wise. Did you have anything else to drink?

SPEAKER_03 0:49

I had one that was very special. Um and which which has a certain resonance for both you and I. Um go on. It's it it was the 2023 Timata Awatea. So 2023, as you may remember, was the um the this the cyclone vintage. Damp yeah, yeah. When savage cyclone smashed into Hawke's Bay, and I mean it it took lives, it destroyed livelihoods, it destroyed houses, it destroyed businesses. But it was a very weird one, as I noticed shortly afterwards when, or about a year later, actually, not shortly afterwards, but later on that year when I went down to Hawkes Bay and you and I drove around to have a look at what was still quite heavily damaged in places. But it was weird because there were parts that hadn't looked like they hadn't been affected at all, yeah, and the parts that were very clearly devastated. Yep. Um, and but that was weird with the wines of that vintage as well, because the wines that weren't uh obviously impacted, the vineyards that hadn't been like uprooted or knocked over or destroyed by you know a tsunami of silt coming down from from from the mountains, produced some fantastic wines. You know, it's been up until then, it'd have been a magnificent vintage. Yeah, and this wine really reflected that. It was a oh it's fantastic, it's beautifully approachable now, uh but it's not like its big brother, the Colorain, Tomata Colerain, which many of our readers or listeners will uh be familiar with. It's pretty much been one of New Zealand's top wines for 30 or 40 years now. And it's it's a very good, it's a it's a you know, it's a wonderful Bordeaux style cabernet and Merlot blend. And Awatee is often considered to be the little brother of Colerain. But I've always I've always almost I've almost preferred it because it doesn't have the same expectation you get with a wine that tends to be as expensive as cholerain tends to be. Yes, you know. So when you're where you're paying what maybe $130, $140 a bottle for cholerain at the moment here in New Zealand, I picked this up for $43 a bottle, yeah, I would tell you.

SPEAKER_02 2:59

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:00

And I can tell you it's absolutely brilliant. There's no way on earth that it's one-third of the wine that the 2023 choleraine, which I've also tried. Yeah, well, it's it's approachable now. It's I mean, it's drinking window, I would suggest, is any time from now for the next five, six, seven years. Yeah, um, it's it's wonderful wine, absolutely beautiful, and a really, really classy wine. It holds together well, it's complex, it's accomplished. It's a it's just a really nice, really well-made wine. And you know, it's it's not often that you get the chance to um congratulate New Zealand, a New Zealand winemaker on their Cabernet dominant wines. So um very well done to Tomata. I think it was um uh that was absolutely out of the bag that wine. I absolutely love it. That was as good as it got for me, really. Um, everything else was pretty much kind of beverage style stuff.

SPEAKER_01 3:55

And yeah, I was gonna say actually, I think your your assessment of Awatia would be in keeping with lots of what I've heard in the New Zealand trade. So in the wine trade and within the wine-making sphere, is that Awatya, although considered a little brother, is generally people's go-to wine when it comes to Timata's ribs.

SPEAKER_03 4:12

I think it outperforms some of the other wines in the stable. I mean, I think it's a good thing.

SPEAKER_01 4:18

And like you said, like you say, expectation has a big part to play in it. There's a big expectation with choleraine, and there's not so much with our tier. And at the price point, it really does. It's fantastic.

SPEAKER_03 4:28

Yeah. Well, the thing is that it's at a price point where it can almost afford to disappoint occasionally, and yet it never has in the 35 years I've been drinking it. I've never I've never had a bad one. Um, it's always been good, it's always been incredibly dependable, and it's been it's always performed. It's always outperformed its price point, to be honest. What about you? What did you have? Oh, had something over a long weekend.

SPEAKER_01 4:54

Oh, yeah, I did no, absolutely. I had a few, had a few nice bottles. The one that stood out for me was a petit chablis from uh Moro Node, Domain Moro Node, Petit Chablis 2023. And it was a petit chablis. Now, petit chablis has a bad reputation, or a somewhat, shall we say, hotted reputation. How about that? This was a petlis, which was just like drinking a chablis, it was just delicious, really good. The wine still has a relatively high price tag for being a petit chablis, but it was absolutely delicious and really, really chablis-esque, and really good because it's it's not a wine, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:31

It's just not something that you come across very often.

SPEAKER_01 5:36

No, and this one was glorious, really nice.

SPEAKER_03 5:39

And you're right, it does it does get dismissed far too easily, I think.

SPEAKER_01 5:43

And obviously, it's where it's definitely one of those wines where the producer knowing your producer helps.

SPEAKER_03 5:48

Yeah, yeah, true. It sounds it sounds great.

SPEAKER_01 5:51

Oh, it was lovely. It was really it was like drinking a proper shabbly, like a real that sort of really um chalky, fresh lemon, mineral. So good.

SPEAKER_03 6:01

So with that depth and clarity that you get with Shablis as well. Yeah, really good. Marvellous.

SPEAKER_01 6:09

Oh let's, why not? Well, this is the end of the month, so we've got a couple of things to do. We've got the this week's most read stories, and we'll look at we'll we'll do a month's retrospective. Um what were the most what were the most read stories of last week, Don?

SPEAKER_03 6:22

Well, the most read story was by a quite substantial margin, was the most wanted Napa wines of 2026.

SPEAKER_01 6:28

Right.

SPEAKER_03 6:29

Which is um was always going to be the biggest, the most read story of the week, I would suggest. You know, that's unless aliens came down and you know, I don't know, um wiped out DRC, there was never gonna be, you know, this was going to be the biggest wine story of the week. It was uh yeah, and it would be quite some quite by quite some distance as well. It's but it was a bit of a week for best of because the second best story of the week was um the most wanted single malt of 2026.

SPEAKER_01 7:03

Which came out later, which came out late in the week, that that was your story from Saturday.

SPEAKER_03 7:06

Came out on Saturday, it did indeed. Wow, um, and that's been going well. Now the and most wanted tequila's is still in there. Nice. Now that's from the previous week, you know. So there's been there's been a little bit of stuff, but uh it's quite interesting looking at there. Were some wine stories peeking through, and um one of them was well, a couple of them are actually two of my favorite stories of the week. Um, the first one was Bagging Bargains from 2024 Bordeaux. Now this is a story about a tasting from Millisima in um London, held by Millisima in London, and it was a tasting of the 2024 Bordeaux vintage, so there were a staggering number of big produ big houses represented. And Raymond Blake covered it for us.

SPEAKER_01 7:55

I'm presuming these these are 2024s that are now in bottle, right? This is these are now wines that are in bottles. Yes, the these are bottled wines. Um I don't want to be devil's, I don't want to be devil's advocate here, but uh but wine. Um would that not be would that would this not be the the the vintage to be reviewing? You know, you know what I mean. Everyone's in on premier at the moment rating the 2025s, they're not in bottle, you don't know what you're gonna get at the end of at the end of it. You know, we've got 2024, they're in bottle now, they're available in this in this wide range, available for tasting. Are the critics better not better off doing that? Well, you would think so, wouldn't you?

SPEAKER_03 8:30

I mean, but let's be honest. Let's be honest, you've got um you've got a tasting in London on the one hand, and you've got a trip to Bordeaux and several big dinners on the other. I mean, if you're uh dare dare we be cynical here. If you're a wine critic, which one are you going to go for? And more to the point, more to the point as well, if you're a buyer, I mean, obviously you need to be over there for on premier. But like you say, on premier is tasting from the timber, as it were. Uh the with the 2024 tasting, there were 124 chateaux represented in it, yeah. And the the vintage is just being bottled as we speak, right? Um, and it's and and brilliantly, it was one of the few I can remember in the last few years that haven't been automatically referred to as vintage of the century. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Over excited, you actually over excited PR people, yeah. Um, or you know, the wine critic fraternity, as they're also known. But this is it was not, I mean, it was it wasn't a great vintage at all, but the wines that struggled through, the ones who persisted and who with careful management in the vineyard and careful selection at the winery and careful winemaking, it made some very good wines, but sort of as you'd expect, yeah, approachable Bordeaux. Um I mean, can you imagine that? Um, for and for prices that are frankly ridiculously low. Right. Um, there I mean, there are some genuinely good value wines in here from 2024. And and you know, we're we're we're talking big names, and many of them are lower than their standard sort of all-vintage average retail price. Take for example Filan Sagour, yeah, right, that has a global average retail price across all vintages of $66, which is it's a good it's a very good value, uh Chateau. But the 2024 is available from as a global average retail of $54. So immediately you're $12 a bottle better off. Um and it's you know, it's still a 92-pointer. Um that's an aggregated critic score from 19 critics. So, you know, this is that's there's there are bargains to be had. I mean, obviously, they're not going to be if you go for the big unicorn styles, you know, the big the big dudes, it the obviously you're not going to be making the same kind of savings, right? But I mean, even something like I don't know, Chateau Lynch Baj, for example, have a look at that. Everybody loves Lynch Baj. Yep. Okay, right? It's one of the probably it's probably the trendiest fifth growth on the bottom.

SPEAKER_01 11:13

Yeah, that a pontey canet, I reckon. That one of Ponte Canada was it.

SPEAKER_03 11:16

Yep. Right. The the global average retail price for a bottle of Lynch Baj is 197, and you and the average price for the 2024 is $81. Oh wow. That's a huge saving. You know, for and there's plenty of it around. Yeah, right. You know what I mean? It's not hard to find.

SPEAKER_02 11:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:37

So, you know, and and also the beautiful thing about these wines from 2024 is that uh give them another five years, you could rip into them. And you know, yeah, you you don't have to wait 10-12 years for it to be approachable, you know. You don't you can almost you could start drinking it now if you wanted to, yeah. Pretty much. Um, well, maybe not right now, but you know, but in the next couple of years, but certainly in five years' time, they're going to be um delightful.

SPEAKER_01 12:03

And you can open one or two from the case, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 12:06

Well, this is also, but they'll also hold their you know, that drinking window. I I would think from what I've been reading from tasting notes and so forth, that drinking window is going to be fairly broad. It's you know, you know the way sometimes you get with a wine where it hits a plateau and it stays there for quite a long time. Yeah, I think that's what we're gonna find with the 2024, with the better 2024 wines. So, I mean, as long as you know what you like, yeah, and I would suggest you could always use wine searcher for something like that. You could have a look at and see what the all-vintage average score is, the all-vintage average retail price, yeah, and then have a look at a couple that you like the look of, check there for the vintage specific average score and the vintage specific average price, and I think you'd be pleasantly surprised.

SPEAKER_01 12:57

Yeah, I mean, and I was I it's sort of as for a reality check thing. I was I was still looking over the world's most wanted Napa wines that we ran. And and we're talking three four hundred dollars a bottle. Oh, easy to those, yeah, those top ten nappa wines, which also can I just have a little gripe here. Like I love I love Napa Cab, I'd really do it. It's a sort of not so secret love of mine. Um but that list is and I'm and I know it reflects consumer trends, not you know, we're not trying to be cutting edge here, we're just reflecting what people want. That list of top ten Napa wines would have been pretty much identical to a top ten list of Napa wines 20-30 years ago. I would think so, yeah. There isn't a single wine in there, I reckon, that wouldn't have been out of place in the early 2000s, possibly 1990s.

SPEAKER_03 13:48

There are wines on there that even if you've never drunk a Californian wine in your life, you will know most of the names on that list. If you know anything about wine. Oh, and and to be honest, it's it's almost a list of the the biggest reputations in Napa, as much as which is you know, which is fine.

SPEAKER_01 14:07

I just I just it seems it seems uh it seems an indictment of the the state of wine at the moment that there isn't maybe just one or two where you're like, oh, that's a surprise. Didn't expect that to be in there. But no, they're all it's all you know, Camus, Bewley, Dominus, Phelps, Harlem, Scriegel, Opus Wine, Scriegel, of course, yes.

SPEAKER_03 14:27

Yeah, so yeah, Screaming Eagle.

SPEAKER_01 14:30

Let's move on. There was you would there was another story you're talking about. One was one was bargains for 2024 Bordeaux.

SPEAKER_03 14:36

The other one was also um there've been a couple of Bordeaux stories, obviously, this week. Yeah, uh, but probably my other favourite story, and there's one of them that I we will get to later, obviously, because but because this is from your Sunday story, right? But um the other one I liked was the wine tariff refunds on the way.

SPEAKER_01 14:54

Yes, I was gonna ask about that. I would have thought that would have got a high readership.

SPEAKER_03 14:58

I thought it would have too, but it's uh I don't know, it seems to it seemed to get a little bit lost.

SPEAKER_01 15:01

Um in the was I think Blake uh Blake was one of the first people to sort of break the tariff refunds thing, and then I I reckon within 24 hours there was a tsunami, and it wasn't just wine, it was all tariffs. There was a tsunami of story about how you know people were gonna get a tariff refund. Yeah, and that was that probably that's why it didn't quite do so well.

SPEAKER_03 15:23

Um well maybe that is it, and it was that was a genuine scoop. I didn't read that anywhere else before we had it. No, that's yeah, not that I not that I'm a great one for blowing our own trumpet, but hey, pass me the trumpet. This is uh this needs blowing.

SPEAKER_01 15:37

Right, John Blake.

SPEAKER_03 15:38

Yeah, yeah, it was. It was a brilliant job. Well done, Blake. I again. Okay, um, yeah, and now be so I think what we'll do is before we get to um Sunday story. Yes, let's let's have a look at the m the monthly ones, shall we?

SPEAKER_01 15:51

Okay, well, so what were our top stories in April?

SPEAKER_03 15:54

Well, right, so so far in the month, because we're not quite open yet, it's obviously it's the most wanted Napa wines.

SPEAKER_01 16:01

Um the most wanted sorry, the most wanted Napa wines is number one.

SPEAKER_03 16:04

Yep, it was published last Wednesday and it's had more readers than any other story. Wow. For the past month. Um it's it's it's followed slightly slightly depressingly by the most wanted tequilas of 2026.

SPEAKER_01 16:18

Um I don't know. I think I think tequila and mescal is is due to I mean maybe not tequila, tequila's really very popular, but mescal is mescal super popular, probably is.

SPEAKER_03 16:28

It is, it's not as popular. I mean, obviously it's not as popular as tequila, but if you were to band the two of them together, I suppose.

SPEAKER_01 16:34

Yeah, um all right, yeah, I'll take it.

SPEAKER_03 16:36

All right, but then it's just I mean, this really tells you the the the the most read stories in April really tells you where our readership is based. So we have the most wanted Napa wines of 2026, the most wanted tequila's of 2026. Now, the United States is the biggest market for both Napa wines and tequila.

SPEAKER_02 16:58

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_03 16:58

Now, here are three stories coming up after that. The next three stories are consumers reject expensive restaurant wines, right? Which is another US focused story.

SPEAKER_01 17:11

Well, I think that the good one about that one though was that that is applicable. There are there are lessons in there that are applicable globally, not just for America. Yeah, but yeah, I hear you.

SPEAKER_03 17:19

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 17:20

I hear you, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 17:21

Absolutely, yep. I couldn't agree more on that one. Um, followed by insider cults for radical Napa change, which is once again, if you put Napa into a headline, you can be assured of getting uh the the vast amount of a lot more readers than you would if you put say for out at all um Smartland into uh should we should we interview Napa producers on what they think of Bordeaux and Premiere and then we can really push we can really push the numbers to a new level? Probably that would probably do wonders for our entrepreneur companies. It really would. Um Napa-based buyers or Californian-based buyers at least, and um maybe we could translate the whole of French wine into what it means for Californian.

SPEAKER_01 18:09

Yeah, well, we could we could we could certainly interview one of our listeners and asked yes, oh well, most definitely on the west coast.

SPEAKER_03 18:16

I can think of at least two of our listeners who'd be who'd be um very good for that. There we go. Let's start down anyway. Go on, go on, go on. Our next one was um the Randall Graham story, US wine, don't look now. Brilliant. Napa considers a post-Cabernet future. Are you joking now? No, no, I'm genuinely not. And and the other stories that round out the top ten are the most wanted single malts of 2026 and the most wanted Merlots of 2026. So um, yeah, it's uh it's it's basically Napa and Most Wanted at the moment. So Napa, most wanted, and just yeah, whiskey and tequila. It's absolutely poetic, then surely, that um Napa's most wanted wines was the number one story of the month. Yes, right, okay. Indeed. So now let us return to your daily week and the weekly news roundup because we have I think we've got some slight discussion to have here, do we not? Well, we do.

SPEAKER_01 19:13

I mean, the this the headline that we ran with was Magray announces his successor. This is this is Bernard Magray, the the well-known non-Agenarian Bordeaux-wine entrepreneur.

SPEAKER_03 19:23

Um billionaire.

SPEAKER_01 19:25

And billionaire. Is he really? Is he a billionaire? Oh, I would think so, isn't he? Isn't everyone these days? Um, anyway, so it turns out that um, well, this is yeah, maybe this is what we're discussing. Basically, the French broadsheet newspaper, the Figaro, this week, and I believe Parry Match followed as well, or came out at that same time saying, you know, Bernard Magray has announced his successor. So if you went to the Figaro and read it, you're like, oh, well, actually, it's from an interview with Sudwest, which is the regional newspaper of Bordeaux. So they mention it in there, and this is an article for Sudwest that went back to, I think, to the beginning of the month. No, they mention it, and but they they didn't they mention it in the article, but never really made a big deal out of it that you know he announced his successor. And you know, to it, you know, similar thing with Jane Anson, who was who has, you know, who has rights to say that she was the one that initially, I guess, scooped or pointed out the story. The story wrote the story, let's say, in her podcast, which we host. And so it it you know, if you want to go back, it goes back to February, I think, second week of February.

SPEAKER_03 20:30

February 12th.

SPEAKER_01 20:31

Yeah, right. Um, so originally comes from there. Finally, someone gets hold of it in France and goes, Wow, Bernard Magray has announced his successor, Philippe. Did I mean, yeah, it was it was an interesting story. It wasn't I didn't find it the most interesting story. I guess you know, if you get to 90 years old, well it's well, there is that as well.

SPEAKER_03 20:51

And to be honest, the son, I I'd hesitate to sound tasteless about this, but he's hardly injecting youth into the picture, is he? I mean, he's 63 years old himself.

SPEAKER_01 21:00

But also they meant not much mention of his daughter as well, who you know, I think she's she's quite high up in Magray's empire as well. I think she runs one of the chateaus or something, Cecile. And I I no one seemed to sort of bother to ask, well, hang on, what about his daughter? Does Cecile not want to play a role too? Is is it going to be 50-50, or is it just, you know, is it like a is it like a monarchy? Is it does it go to the eldest son first or the son and then the or is it more like succession?

SPEAKER_03 21:28

Yeah. Well that was another thing. That was another thing. Um, I mean, in fairness, in fairness to Philippe Magres, I mean, he's more of a businessman than I'll ever be, obviously. But um, he's done he's worked for the group for 40 years.

SPEAKER_02 21:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:44

So you know, it's not like he's suddenly going to be thrust into with no real idea about the knowledge or the or the the the sort of corporate identity of it, or or you know, the the institutional memory of it. He's you know, because he's he's been a fair part of it himself. Um but yeah it's it's interesting. It's it's mostly the fact that this if a you know if a if a scoop happens in the forest and you don't tell anyone about it, is it still a scoop?

SPEAKER_01 22:10

Right?

SPEAKER_03 22:10

Anyway, anyway, it's anyway. But but there was other important news. There was other important news.

SPEAKER_01 22:16

There was also fish. This story. I had I I I wrote this story with a smile on my face the whole time. There were so many twists and turns of this. So this is that Alberino improves fish. Which, you know, I think you you improved that headline, to be fair. I had something else. I think I said I think I said Alberino makes fish happy or something. Anyway, uh this was a really good thing.

SPEAKER_03 22:40

It makes all of us happy, really, in and off you get enough of it.

SPEAKER_01 22:43

Yeah, right. Um, a recent Spanish study found that you can adapt plant-based foods for farmed fish and sort of do a better job. So what's happening is let's and Alberino pumice was used, so the byproduct of Alberino winemaking was used in this fish food. And this this Alberino food actually produced better outcomes in growth hormones for fish. It's quite involved. Uh it's only about 2% Alberino pumice or something. Anyway, the thing is, what's happening is that so there's obviously farming fish, which is probably a thing that nobody really likes to talk about, but it happens.

SPEAKER_03 23:18

And what they're trying to do is I don't see the problem with it, to be honest. I mean, I'm a fisherman myself. I do, I do like the challenge of pulling them out of a river, but um um, you know, I mean, you've got to you're not gonna feed thousands of people with a with one fishing rod, are you?

unknown 23:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:33

So anyway, so this is what they're doing here is that they're trying to transition from meat-based or I suppose animal-based products, fish feed, to more sustainable fish feed, which is generally vegetarian, uh, you know, and hence we get to Alberino. And so what they found is that when you transition to vegetable-based um fish food, unsurprisingly, carnivorous fish don't do great. Obviously, the growth hormones don't work very well, they tend to not grow as well as they should, blah, blah, blah. If you add some of this Alberino pomice in there, that actually helps helps the fish or activates their growth hormones in a better way, and so you find better results. So that's what that was basically the story.

SPEAKER_03 24:15

Is that's that's but this there are so many implications with this. I just love the idea that eventually, I mean, this was done with Bream, I understand, that the experiments were on. Um I'm just imagining what you could do with soul. I mean, you know, you could have you could have you could have ready, ready poached soul. I mean, you just put it in the pan, and it's the the wine is already there, it just it just poaches itself in its own in its own white wine. Um that's it would save an awful lot of time.

SPEAKER_01 24:46

Um it's but it is true. I was just trying to make wine matches now between like what fish would you feed what, you know, do you would you feed what would you feed a catfish?

SPEAKER_03 24:55

You know, is it is it Merlot or you know I think I think it'd be uh I think it'd have to be pheno sherry, wouldn't it? It'd just if only because that's the exact expression I have on my face whenever I taste it. I'll just I'll just slightly as an aside that there was a um when I was I can tell you about the the efficacy of animal-based products on fish growth because on the uh the in my hometown when I was growing up there used to be a bacon um processing factory on the river, and on Thursdays, which was Kill Day, the entire river from the bridge where the where it was the plant was based downstream would just run red.

SPEAKER_01 25:36

Tender tender ears should tender ears should be blocked now.

SPEAKER_03 25:39

Well, yes, exactly. Please please don't explain where well the the the link between peppa pig and ham sandwiches to your children. But the um the fish that used to come up the river were huge as a result. I mean the the trout and the salmon that we used to catch out of that river were magnificent beasts, they were absolutely huge, and everybody in the town, oh every sorry, every angler in the town put down the decreasing size of fish ever since from the 1970s to now down to the fact that they closed down the bacon factory, yeah. Um right, and it was never as good after that, don't you? You know, you know, you know, climate change and um environmental degradation, be damned. It was all down to getting rid of the bacon plant. Anyway, it was a good thing. Um but let's let us carry on.

SPEAKER_01 26:27

More good news from Spain. More good news from Spain, Rias Bicious imports, uh exports, sorry, are on the rise. So despite all sorts of concerns about tariffs to the US, conflict in the Middle East, Rias Baicious, famously pretty much white wine-focused region, has saw export sales up 6.7% in volume and 4.4% in value in 2025 on the previous year. So really good. Average price paid in export markets went down by 17 cents of a euro. But you know, they're pretty they're pretty bullish. It sounds pretty good and they're doing pretty well. Really? Good news, good news from Northwest Spain. Over to Italy now, where members of the Royal Wine Fair in Verona, which was held, I think, two weeks ago, were keen to sort of move away from this idea that natural wines are defective. And so, you know, they're they're now trying to champion a much more cleaner, less flawed, shall we say, world.

SPEAKER_03 27:24

But perhaps less of a perception of a flaw.

SPEAKER_01 27:26

Yes. And it's always going to be a perception thing. It's always going to be uh, yeah. So I think that's there's there's um winemakers trying to push now for cleaner wines and a bit more, you know, bring the pull the act together. It's true to say that not all natural wines are faulty. That's very, very gross generalization. But it is also true that it's generally not hard to come across one or two that are pretty uh pretty tough tough to swallow, shall we say? Yeah, so differently so and I say that as a natural wine producer myself. So it's not it's not outrageous, but yeah, it's it's a good thing, I think. And you know, the truth is.

SPEAKER_03 28:05

I in your role as a natural winemaker, is there not a danger then when you're getting cleaner wines and so forth, and there's less of that perception of Brett and the you know that sort of barnyardy character that was often available uh often prevailed with natural wines? Uh you're not kind of shooting yourself in the foot by by by killing the goose that laid the golden egg in a way because look, I mean it was it was that very perception, and the perception that these had minimal to no intervention that made their made natural wine a thing in the first place.

SPEAKER_01 28:42

You could point to that. Yeah, I wouldn't I wouldn't be against that. That's not you know, yeah, yeah. But you can you can make natural wines cleaner, potentially, for for without a doubt. There's you know, um the thing about the thing about making natural wines is because you're not adding any preservatives or anything like that or any sulfur to the wine generally, yeah, it's it's generally a lot easier for stuff to creep in. So actually, if you're not if you're not paying attention all of the time and all the time through the process, it's it's a lot easier for these things to creep in. So I think it will it it involves a bit more um attention on the part of the winemaker. But you know, it's it's a you know, I I remember you go back to the sort of early 2000s when I first started out in wine. I remember when it was just an accepted thing that you know the odd burgundy, and more than the odd burgundy, was just downright awful. Yeah, and not and there's not on a flawed, not necessarily in a flawed way, it was just an insipid, uninteresting wine, and that you know, you'd have to you'd have to buy 10 different types of burgundy or 10 different labels to find one decent burgundy in the money. And that was that was well known in the trade, and that would seem to be fine. I mean it's as long, long those days are long gone now, but yeah, anyway.

SPEAKER_03 29:51

I mean, the that's that that whole thing about losing the charm, which makes it a skid kind of it reminds me slightly of brewing, you know. When the uh craft brewing thing started, and then suddenly people were going on about how and even today people still love a hazy IPA, don't they? And sour beers and so forth. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Even though those were actual flaws, they were defects in the process that made the beers hazy, that made the beers sour. And instead, instead of um cleaning up their act and chucking out the rubbish that they were producing, these guys just went, these guys just went, oh, tell you what, we'll just we'll just embrace it. It's it's not a bug, it's a feature. And um yeah, it's it's all and it worked, it's worked for them. I mean, just look at how many, just look at how many idiots or uh how many people love uh love a hazy IPA these days.

SPEAKER_01 30:42

Oh, yeah, I do love a sour beer. I love a sour beer, but yes, I don't don't do that. Natural winemakers listening, don't don't feel that you should double down.

SPEAKER_03 30:52

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 30:53

There's no need. Um moving on, Swiss consumption down, but local drinking up. This is actually quite interesting. So, in in keeping with everywhere else in the world, it seems, uh, Swiss wine consumption has dropped, and I think there's it's down 3.3% year on year. However, what has gone up is consumption of local wines. So Swiss wine's consumption has actually gone up 2.3%. So not we're not talking huge figures here, but it's I thought it was just quite an interesting thing to note in that you know, while there are trends against, I suppose, drinking wine, the it's sort of showing that there may be more interest in in perhaps a local story, a local angle, or you know, just yeah general banging your own drum.

SPEAKER_03 31:33

Fair enough.

SPEAKER_01 31:34

Next story was that a Catalan-based winery, which is Rimat, in conjunction with the University of Leda and a bunch of uh researchers there, have worked out a way of recycling carbon dioxide from ferments and putting the aromas that you get from the ferment back into the finished wine. Now, I couldn't quite work out how they do this. I'd I'd be curious. I mean, anyway, uh that aside, I'm I found it interesting because it is interesting, it forms part of that wider idea of you know carbon capture and reuse, which is you know a really obvious thing to do in in wineries. You you might you produce it and you need it, so you might as well store it for later because it'll it'll come carbon dioxide comes in useful to keep oxygen away from wines and stop it spoiling. But here they're acting they're saying we can actively take some of the aromas from ferment, some of which are really delicious. Let's not feed around the bush. Some ferment aromas are absolutely gorgeous, and put it back into wine. It's a double-edged sword, though, as I said in the piece. I mean, I have smelt ferments which are disgusting, utterly disgusting. And there is there will be no need to put any of the aromas back into that wine. If anything, the more they could blow off, the better. And there are other, and there's um, you know, there are some grapes which are relatively notoriously stinky in ferment, one of which is Rieslin. You know, it can it can get quite smelly, it bears no relation to what happens once it's in bottle further down the line. But during ferment, it can get a bit can get a bit pongy. I'm not too sure you want to do this, but anyway, that's what these boffins have done. Yeah, I I can't I guess if you're trying to make like a Beaujolais Nouveau style thing where you want those really primary fruit kind of esters, you might be able to you know give it a bit of a boost with some of the aromas from ferment. But other than that, I don't really see the the need. But hey, I we could be proved wrong.

SPEAKER_03 33:18

Maybe they can send us some bottles to try of the uh I think I think that would be the obvious place to start.

SPEAKER_01 33:24

Wouldn't it? We can open it online, you can hear the pop of the cork or the crack of the screw cap, and we can we can tell you all about sticking ferments.

SPEAKER_03 33:33

Perhaps not in the little studio I'm in at the moment, it's very small and very enclosed, and uh I I I I would I would be I would be doubtful about opening a bottle in a in such an enclosed space. But um anyway, so let's let's cat let's carry on because um there's somebody's taking the ur here, aren't they?

SPEAKER_01 33:52

Um anyway, this is the department. You're in trouble now, they said um there were so many puns available to us, and yeah, we we failed. So many. Uh this is the first wine in the Ur department, which is just northwest of Paris. So on the same on the Seine River as it's flowing out towards Le Havre and and the Channel Tunnel. Uh the Channel Tunnel and the Channel. Uh we have this department which hasn't seen vines for 150 years, and this these two unlikely lads have planted Pinot Noir and Chenin Blanc on uh on a five-hectare plot of land in by the by the Seine River, basically. And and they've just released their first wines, which sound fantastic. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, you know, this is the first wines there for 150 years. What was interesting about this story, uh other aside from the you know, this is this forms part of a a wider catalogue of wine of places in France where people unusual places in France where people plant vineyards, is that the Yur used to produce its own wine and it was generally recognized to be uh what do you call alter wine, I guess would would be the word. And it was never really that good. I mean, obviously, you know, you go back 200 years and you're trying to get peanut well, and Pinot Noir was one of the original varieties planted there. And yeah, what what basically put pay to wine production in the region? It used to be pretty big. If you go back in history of a lot of French departments, there's a massive history of like wide-ranging viticulture across France. But what happened was the the railway lines brought wine from the Longedoc up to northern France, and everyone went, ah, this is what it's supposed to taste like. This is delicious.

SPEAKER_03 35:40

This is what sunshine tastes like.

SPEAKER_01 35:42

Yeah, exactly. And then pretty much in one fell swoop, you know, no need for phyllox or anything like that, just a railway line. One fell swoop, it's gone. So, anyway, they're back, you know, along with global warming, they're back. Uh, what was also interesting is that they're one of the guys behind it says that regional winemakers in Normandy are now pushing for a new IGP, so we might get a new IGP van de Normandie. Oh, ooh.

SPEAKER_03 36:07

So anyway. Well, before you know where you are, then I mean, there's already uh vineyards in Brittany, so um yeah, yeah. There's a there's a vineyard in the Padic Calais, for God's sake.

SPEAKER_01 36:19

Yes, yeah, yeah. All of which we've covered. Um, anyway, what have we got to that was the end of the Sunday story? Uh what have we got to look forward to this week, Don?

SPEAKER_03 36:28

Well, quite a bit, actually. And uh we've got two great stories that have already been published this week. And the first one of those is uh was yesterday's story, obviously, which is a great little story about Marcellan and how it became the grape of choice in China.

SPEAKER_02 36:45

This is brilliant.

SPEAKER_03 36:45

Um it's a lovely little story by Jim Boyce, who points out, by the way, that he in the in the story that he is part of the Marcellan Association of China. Like well, he organizes tastings, he organizes sort of large large-scale tastings, yeah. But um, but hey, he makes a great point. Look, Argentina have done it with Malbec, New Zealand have done it with Sauvignon Blanc. Why can't China take Marcelan to it? No, and I mean, you know, that become and become become the the sort of the the the de facto global home of it. Um we have to do it.

SPEAKER_01 37:19

Do we have to do it with Bordeaux gravestone? Can we not find something else?

SPEAKER_03 37:22

I mean, Marceline maybe you could make an argument saying Marcelan originates in the south, but well, Marcelin originates in an agricultural research institute, really. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:31

But it yeah, yeah. Anyway, sorry, yeah, go on.

SPEAKER_03 37:33

Um I mean that's and it's only been around since 1961. I mean, there's not a great deal of it being used in Bordeaux, certainly.

SPEAKER_01 37:40

No, um, but it is one of it is one of the the grapes that was introduced, isn't it? That sort of allowed for experimentation in Border.

SPEAKER_03 37:47

Yeah, it is, but yeah, it is. But I mean, if it is being used, nobody's admitting to it. Um sorry, maybe and the other story, which is uh once again tied in with our on premier coverage, is the is the um uh a wonderful interview with uh Damien Barton Sartorius from Chateau Leoville Barton. Yeah, who and the that winery brings up its 200th anniversary this year.

SPEAKER_01 38:14

So yes, I saw they had they were having big parties over there, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 38:17

Yes, and of course, them being an Irish, one of one of the Irish um chateaus of Bordeaux. I was obviously um all over this one with my grubby little hands. It's um it's uh interestingly, he came from Bally Shannon up in County Donegal, right? Which is you usually only famous for being the the the hometown or the birthplace at least of the magnificent guitar player Rory Gallagher. Oh um, the most unpro possibly the most underrated guitar player of the 60s and 70s and 80s.

SPEAKER_01 38:48

Certainly popular, certainly in in popular, popular crowds, shall we say?

SPEAKER_03 38:53

I think I think the guitar if you if you go to the guitarist magazines, Rory Gallagher Rory Gallagher is very much yes, he won't be underrated at all there, but he was certainly one of the great forgotten men because he played his own photo. He wanted to play his own, he just wanted to play the blues, and that's all he ever did. Wonderful, wonderful guitar player. I saw him so many times. Um, but yes, it was it doesn't really have a great deal to do with wine this bit, but my I still remember my favourite ever t-shirt I had was from the Listine Varna Festival of 1983, I think it was, down the west of Ireland, and Rory played there. And it was a I mean it was a big festival at the time, but Rory was playing there, and I bought a t-shirt there that had a wonderful backlit picture of a sweaty Rory Gallagher with his flannel shirt playing his battered old strat, yeah, bearing the legend land of dope and Rory. And I still wish I had that t-shirt, it was the most brilliant thing ever. Anyway, that has absolutely nothing to do with Leo Vilbarton. I'm sorry to say, but um, but we do have that interview with um yes uh Damien Barton Sartorius from and it's it's genuinely interesting. He talks about the challenges they've had in the vineyards, how things have changed there over the years. The uh he touches on some of the sort of financial issues that the family have had over the years as well, and he he talks about Onpremeur and why it needs to get back to how it used to be, which was basically the top end and not something and not a something for everybody kind of festival.

SPEAKER_01 40:26

Um yeah, I don't know about that. That's one of the interesting things that I've yeah as an answer as a commentator, there's things to say, but as if you if you look at uh Onpremeur from a Borderlay marketing perspective, it's one of the few regions in the world, wine regions in the world, where you can assemble a host of international tasters and delegations, bring them into region and give them um full exposure and just basically wine and dine them. So while we can be cynical about it, actually, from a marketing perspective, it's huge. Like there's there's there are wine regions the world worldwide that would kill for what Empremeur does for Borderlands.

SPEAKER_03 41:06

Absolutely, absolutely, no two ways about it. I mean, in fact, pretty much every wine region in the world would um to you know to be just to be able to command that kind of attention from the from the world's wine media, and not just from the world's wine media, but from the world's media, because ordinary pardon the phrase newspapers are covering this as well. Yeah, you know, I mean, you know, the the Times will be there, the New York Times will be covering it, you know. It's it's it's a big deal. It's yeah, because the Bordeaux is basically the benchmark for fine wine, really, in in a way.

SPEAKER_01 41:44

Apologies, apologies to Dijon and Bone.

SPEAKER_03 41:46

Well, no, but I I always argue that point because they've turned it into a fine wine, they've not industrialized the process of of it, but they've certainly when you think of fine wine, you think of the great chateaus of Bordeaux. You don't think of the scruffy little domain somewhere up in the you know, up in the above.

SPEAKER_01 42:08

Orange Aye is sweating his hat off.

SPEAKER_03 42:10

I mean, you know, anyway. Um maybe I'm wrong, but it's a perception thing, but um there you go. And speaking of burgundy, speaking of burgundy, we've got some more, we've got some news from Burgundy this week just to break up the Bordeaux, heavy Bordeaux focus, where we'll have the most wanted uh white burgundies.

SPEAKER_01 42:27

Oh, nice. I I suspect that'll be a pr uh another procession of of well-known labels. Any anything from Napa? Anything from Napa this week, Don?

SPEAKER_03 42:37

Not that I'm aware of yet, but you know, hold on, something's bound to happen.

SPEAKER_01 42:42

We can expect our readership figures.

SPEAKER_03 42:44

A crisis of pricing or something.

SPEAKER_01 42:46

Um just invent one. Oh wow, Taylor of Panama or something, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 42:52

You just about could. I mean, let's be honest. Uh you could invent anything in the wine world at the moment, and people would still read it. It's uh it's it's it's a crazy idea. I mean, I was I was watching that well, I was just I was watching that movie Wag the Dog over the weekend, which was the hilarious one from years ago when a non popular US president um boosted his image by declaring an utterly fictitious war on Albania, um and doing it all basically filming all the coverage in a studio somewhere in Burbank. It's a hilarious, you know, and of course everybody laughed knowingly at the time, going, Oh gosh, yes, oh could you just imagine that sort of thing happening? And now we're at the stage where yes, you could imagine that sort of thing happening.

SPEAKER_01 43:37

Um if anything wag the dog seems very quaint nowadays.

SPEAKER_03 43:41

Well, yeah, doesn't it though? Um but it's it does seem it it did strike me that you know um with uh with the world being as it is, um would it would be incredibly hard to write satire at the moment. Should we just should we call it and on that on that on that philosophical note I think we might leave it until next week now.

SPEAKER_01 44:02

Yeah. You have a great week, Tom.

SPEAKER_03 44:04

All right, you too, Ollie. And um, you know, whatever you do, keep opening interesting bottles of wine.

SPEAKER_01 44:09

Yeah, we'll do. You too, mate.

unknown 44:10

Thanks.

SPEAKER_01 44:11

All right. Great stuff. Bye.