The Week in Wine Episode 40

Our list of best-value Bourbon has readers arriving in droves, all while the main wine news continues to swirl around just how well (or not) the wine industry is doing, globally. Other stories in the last 7 days include a group of wine investors assiduously avoiding 100-point wines, while there is still interest in Bordeaux 2025, not least from the value end of the offerings as well as a piece on how the weather in Bordeaux last year, although endlessly talked-about, isn't really being reflected in the wines.

The weekend's last news also covers: González Byass in debt restructure talks; an indication that Argentina's newly deregulated wine industry might not be enjoying its new-found freedom; a massive Spanish wine fraud case involving nearly 2 million bottles of adulterated wine goes to court; French harvest this year may begin in early August; an investigation into the violent French direct-action winegrower group CRAV is thrown out of court; and an indication that non-alcoholic wine is best-suited to rosé and white offerings.

Transcript

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Welcome to the Wine Searcher Week in Wine News podcast, where we look at the latest headlines and top stories in the world of wine. For more on all of our stories, go to winehyfensarcher.com. Good morning, John. Good morning, Ollie. How are you? I'm good. How are you? Oh, top of the world. Never better. Starting late, starting late on the week with uh a bank holiday. So we're going to be able to do that. It is it's a wonderful feeling. It's a wonderful feeling. For our um for our US listener, um, I'd just like to I'd just like to point out that a bank holiday, it's a public holiday. It's it's it's basically where work pays you to stay at home. Yeah, um they're called paid days off. I mean, I know you won't be familiar with them over in the United States, so I just thought I'd let you know what it was like to have one. Um incredibly refreshing. Yeah. Yes, look at us, all smiles, all smiles. Do you have anything nice to drink at the weekend? Um, I had a bit to drink the weekend, but I I was I was I mean, going back to what we discussed, was it last week or the week before? I think I've been and this is gonna sound terrible, but mindlessly drinking. I haven't been drinking mindfully, you know, I haven't been completely thinking about it and being at one with the wine. Yes, I've just been um I've just been sloshing it back really, and it was quite it was lovely. So consequently, I don't really have anything that sticks out because it was mostly I was at restaurants or I was at bars, and to be honest, in most most of the restaurants and bars in Auckland have oh or a lot of them at least have very, very um uninspired and uninspiring wine lists. True. Um, often in fact, often they're the they get supplied by one supplier, and that's it, and so it's all that suppliers' wines, and it's just dull and tasteless and predictable and bloody awful. It's it's a ridiculous way of operating a restaurant, if you ask me. I I think you should be putting at least as much thought into the wine list as you do into the menu. But um, but these people don't seem to do that, they'd rather have somebody else do it for them and get some cheap and tacky wine lists printed up by the supplier, completely like replete indeed with um typos, um, which is always always hilarious. Guaranteed to make any editor grumpy. Yeah, Sog Vinon Blanc was one marvelous entry. I saw wow. I saw somebody get they actually spelled Pinot wrong. How the hell can you spell Pinot wrong? It's it was Pinto Blanc. Oh, so sorry, Pinto Pinto Grey. Pinto Grey, wow, yeah. So I've never I've never seen a grey pinto, but you know, there you go. Um there you there you are. There you have it. We're we're suddenly we're in the world of horse flesh. Um but anyway, yeah, so that was me. So did you have anything particularly memorable on the weekend? No, no, not really. Quite similar, really. It's sort of, you know, the I think because given we're in the winter months in the southern hemisphere, it's sort of you tend to get quite introspective and uh and not really not really push the boat out very much. So no, no, nothing, nothing of note for me this weekend. Oh dear, we should we should we shall have to make a promise to um um change that next week. Yeah, let's give it a go, shall we? Let's let's let's go and search out something something bizarre. Shall we move on? Let's move on to the news, shall we? So yeah, what do you so what were the big stories of last week, Don? Well, there was some big there's one huge story of last week, and then there were there were and then there were two stories, in fact, three stories from the week before. Oh wow. Um yeah, which is um quite surprising. But the big story was uh the world's best value bourbons. Really? Yeah, every time, every time we do this story, this goes mad. It goes absolutely wild, and I never ever expected to. I always think, oh no, that was last year, it's not gonna happen again this year. And every year, boom, there it goes, going running wild. It's almost double in the space of a week. Um, it's had almost twice as many readers as the second story. Um, also, I'll I'll just point out it's been an absolutely brilliant week for readership. Oh, great. Which means which means it's been again a brilliant. I mean, it's it made the month of May our best month so far this year for readership. So there's plenty of people out there reading our stories, which is very gratifying as an editor, as you said. Yeah, yeah. Um, and and just gratifying as a as a writer generally, as a as a journalist generally. It's nice to know that what you're doing doesn't go to waste. But uh yeah, so the world's best value bourbons was a big one. But the next two are stories from two weeks ago. Really? Yeah, the biggest selling stories of the last week. Too many wineries, not enough consumers. Yeah. And actually, this one's three weeks old because it's from the week before that. Too many winery stories. Um, this is wine industry finally gets some good news. Those stories have um they have a life of their own. Yeah. They continue to the the you know, people just keep reading it. Um, in fact, to be honest, we've got a lot of repeat readership for those. Yeah, which is which is you know great. I love it. Um it's an interesting, it's an interesting, I think, illustration of where we're at in terms of the wine trade, I think, without being too trady. I think we're looking at we're looking at people who are interested in in what the situation is, because it's not looking good, is it, really? This might one of our headlines saying there's you know the good news could be ahead, but well, you're right. The key word in that headline is some good news. Some good news. I think it's uh yeah, I mean it's it really is at the point now where you see people grasping at any hint of a positive. I mean, and there are some out there. I mean there are. Um I think we're I think we're approaching, if not at the bottom of the of the trough. Um I understand you think you've got a little bit, we've got a bit further to go. Oh, I think we do, yes. Yes. I know I know you're you're you're you're remaining uh overly optimistic, which I uh which is great, and I I really hope you're right. I really hope you're right. I hope you know Well, I I I do too, and I really hope you're wrong. But um anybody who knows my um history of sports betting will probably suggest that you're you're more likely to be in the right than I am. Um but um you know, I mean, yep, I can be Pollyanna-ish on this, but I I I do think there's more there's slightly more positive than negative starting to emerge. But you know, again, it's gonna be a while. But it's you know, this is how it is. In any case, on a slightly related story, there was a one great story this week, and I I would suggest that it's possibly my favorite story of the week, notwithstanding one of your own stories, which I want to talk to you about shortly. Yeah, but the story I'm talking about is the 100 per 100 point wine turnoff story. Yes, that was really interesting. Go on. This story is about a group of people, sort of wine buyers and collectors, who are so cool they only buy, they only aim for wines that other people don't yet know about. So if a the basically the point is these are the people who when a wine gets a 100 point score from you know whoever, the wine advocate from um Mr. Suckling, from you know, from whoever, yeah, then it's too late for these guys. Then that wine is is automatically beneath them because they know then there's gonna be an upsurge in price, there's gonna be an upsurge of popularity for it, it's gonna become harder to get and more expensive, so why would you bother? They just move on to the next one. I mean, these are people who are effectively um they're creating the unicorn wines, they're they're betting on these wines being really good, regardless of the price. But um, but they're picking the merrier than everybody else. I mean, really, which should perhaps have these people um being flown to uh Bordeaux on premier to to give their um to give their assessment of the of the vintage. I could not agree more. Isn't that the whole point of of wine professionals? Is that we're able to to discern these wines, get them out there, get the get the story out there, say hey, this is where you should be looking. Indeed. Um yeah, as opposed to sort of and I I with the greatest respect, but as opposed to propping up wines that we already know are great, you know. Well, yeah, this is it, isn't it? It's a it's a yeah, that's this is what you know you would think wine critics should be doing is finding these things and saying, hey, boom, this is fantastic. And it's a great price. But then of course, as soon as as soon as you do that, that's it. Yeah, it is it is no longer but that's what keeps the wheels turning, right? I think that this is what's interesting. That's that's what I find more interesting, as opposed to oh, you know, oh Lafleet, Lafleet's got, you know, 95 to 98 points. Or are you just like, okay, cool, yeah, great. I mean, it's not as it probably should. Yeah, yeah, for sure. But uh after 200 odd years that you'd think they'd be able to you they'd be able to make it pretty much perfectly by now. Yeah, yeah. And it becomes but in this instance it becomes a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy, you know. It's always it's always you know and it's just a question of when the the the the who really wins at this all depends on who's left holding the cash when the um when the music stops. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Um so this is this is much more this this is a much more interesting story to me. It's certainly got a lot of um, yeah, it's certainly got a lot of interest, shall we say? On social media. Yeah, but it's also uh the the good thing about it is as well this was revealed as part of a study by one of the managing partners at Parallel Napa Valley, a winery over there, um called Adrian Smith. Um, she's looking at the data. So she's uh conducted 46 interviews so far with wine collectors and buyers. Yeah, um, it's people who are buying wines, the cutoff point is $100 a bottle. So and below that she's not interested in, it's the wines above that. Right. Um and also there's there's a contact there. If anybody, any of our um listeners um feel that there'd be of value to it, and they're regular buyers of hundred dollar plus bottles of wine. There's a contact address to help out because obviously the more people who talk to her, the clearer picture we'll have of these kinds of people who are collecting it. And so, yeah, so that was one of our big stories of the week. It was also one of my favourites. Um otherwise, other than that, um oh, I thought what was good what made a comeback again this week was um uh Bordeaux 2025, the wines to buy and drink. Now that's actually from the previous week. Yeah, yeah, from 21st of May, yeah. Yeah, um, this is this our story is effectively um a best value series story, um, but but based specifically on the 2025 uh vintage of Bordeaux, and um yeah, so it's good to see that nudge into the top five of stories. Oh, nice, yes, very interesting. Go on. Um just point out as well that our our sale, Wine Searcher's sale, is still a strong performer. Uh that story is still being read, which is quite incredible, really, in a way. Now, let's talk about the story I found probably most interesting this week, with the exception of the hundred-point one, obviously. Yeah, which is your story. Okay, which was that weather is no longer a factor for Bordeaux. Yeah. Now, the premise of your opinion, Pete, is that everybody's talking about the weather uh for the 2025 growing season in Bordeaux, yeah, and all a lot of the reports coming out of on premier and so forth are making a big deal of the weather. Yeah. When in fact, it turns out the weather had little if any impact at all, really. Is that a fair assessment? Yeah, tell us about this. Uh it's so as I think I said in the piece, the the idea or the germ of the the of the opinion piece came to me as I was watching Constantin Baum, MW, run through. I think it was his it was a tiny, it was a small segment that he did for, I guess for Instagram, for social media. Three things you need to know about Bordeaux, two of which were entirely about the weather, and the third was that well, then you know, it meant following on from that, the vintage is heterogeneous, heterogeneo heterogeneous, heterogeneous. Yep. But then I was like, and then I went and looked at it and looked at what people were saying and looked at how people were describing the wines, and there was a massive disconnect. And so for me, that's okay, the weather was interesting, and that you had massive heat spikes, you then had what is it? I think they're sorting 60 to 100 mils of rain over a few days, a couple of weeks before harvest. And the wines then just turn out to be classic Bordeaux. Yep. So, and it's so I've always been interested, or always, I've been relatively interested in the weather from day dot, mainly because what happened was normally you'd you'd get all these weather reports of the vintage. You'd be able to put together what you reckoned was a reasonable assessment of how the wines turned out. You get to on prem, and this is back in the day, you'd get to on premier, you'd turn up and you say, Oh, well, it was quite wet last year, wasn't it? Do you know how did the wines turn out? Oh, you can't, you can't judge the you can't judge the vintage. It's too soon. You have to taste the wines. Okay, all right, cool. So a couple of years go by, and then by that time the wines are released, everyone's just talking about the wines. And then, you know, you and then 30 years, 40 years down the track, you're looking at Michael Broadbent, and all he ever talks about is the weather. That's just like, you know, back back full circle. This is this was an instance where, and this is not the first time I've written about this. I think it was the 2022 vintage. You have to I'm trying to remember what it was, where I sort of said, you know, there's a reason, there's an unusual reason why these you might have a heat wave and yet the wines are so fresh. It's because you mess around with the wines in the winery. This was a similar thing where I was just like, look, the weather is so notable, and it is like it is notable. There's huge heat spikes in Bordeaux, there's rains, like you know, some of the I think it's Cheval Blanc and others were talking about how tiny their berries were. So you've got this hugely concentrated berries. And yet the wines are classic, they have low alcohol, they are fresh, they are aromatic, they're you know, the relative the tannins are relatively concentrated, but that's about it as in terms of what you can work out about the wines. Um what's written about them, and so there was just a massive disconnect between the weather, like which was clearly notable, and then the fact that the wines have uh uh bear almost zero reflection on that weather. And for me, that was an issue, and I think it will it should be an issue, and it should be something we should look at more. Well, indeed, yeah. I don't get it. I don't know, I don't understand how you have this this very commentary-worthy weather, and the wines are totally the opposite to that. They're just they're just standard, they're just classic Bordeaux. And you're left going, well, what was the point of talking about the weather? I think it I mean, do you think perhaps is probably the question to ask here? Is the weather becoming more irrelevant generally? I mean, if you if you go back 30 years, yeah it was very weather dependent. Winemaking was very weather dependent, and yeah, there was noticeable difference, uh like noticeable vintage variation as they call it. You know, there was a big difference between uh 1994 vintage and 1995 vintage, for example. Yeah. Um and it was down to the weather. I mean, there's no other no other reason for it. These days, it doesn't seem with advances in viticulture and advances in wine making, the weather doesn't seem to have the same impact as it did. Do you think that's fair? Yes, I think that is. So that's that's that's the sort of that's part of the subtext of that story, is that there's so much technology available. Also, when you've got money, like when you've got money, these chateaux have got money. Like these, these that well, as far as I know, they've got quite a bit of cash, which means that they can look after the vines much better during during the growing season. They can look after yields, they've got way more access to um machinery, technology in the winery, yeah. But can iron out a lot of this stuff. But again, but if you do that, and and if that is what's indeed the case, then again, perhaps the weather is like you said, maybe the weather is just not really a factor. And it's not that's not, you know, that's not the end of the world. It's just that, well, why do we spend so much time talking about it? I'm not, you know, I'm not against any of that. I'm just sort of pointing out that if you know, we're we're perhaps commentators, and perhaps it's that whole romanticism about wine, that the weather gives you so much to talk about. Whereas the problem here is the disconnect that you've got something to talk about, but it doesn't reflect in the wines. And so, what's the point in talking about the weather? With Sama being a little bit maybe, I don't know. Perhaps when we are so wed to tradition in the wine industry, and particularly wine writing, almost totally married to tradition. Yes, I mean, every because we've always done it like this, so we will always things will always be like this. It's that you know, it's that received wisdom that Bordeaux and Burgundy wines are better, simply better than everything else, be purely because they are Burgundy and Bordeaux wines. Yeah. You know, regardless of how things have changed. It's the idiocy of cleaving faithfully to the 1855 classification of the Madoc when things have changed beyond all recognition since then. Yeah, but then those things become a self-fulfilling property, like we said earlier, that they because they're references, they have more interest, they make more money, they're able to invest more in technology and whatever, and so they they consistently make better wines. That's just just how it goes. It's just whether whether there might be more interest, and this actually goes back to the 100-point thing, whether there is more interest in looking elsewhere and saying, hang on, if it's if this really was a vintage of extremes in Bordeaux, maybe if you go to chateaus which didn't have the access to all the gear and all the bells and whistles, and people who can go into the vineyard at a drop of a hat and sort out any problems that there are there, find the wines which actually reflect the vintage, for better or worse, and then you might actually have something that's, if not a great wine, at least something that's reflective of where it was grown and the conditions it was grown in. So perhaps no, but maybe that's the answer. Maybe we should be sending our guys out to Empremer to get you know wines that reflect something of, dare I say, the terroir or the weather. Don't know. Yeah, that's gonna be a winner. Um but speaking of um speaking of wineries with money, let's move on to your weekly news roundup, which once again has more debt restructuring. And almost it's almost becoming a weekly thing now, isn't it? Um, Spanish winery struggle uh resourcing its debt. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So this is Gonzalez Vies, which is the the great sherry producer and relatively large winery generally. I mean, it's got Tio Pepe, Baronia, uh Vinas del Vero, which is you know, these are major, major labels across Spain. And it's looking to looking to refinance debts of 150 million euros. By the looks of it, the banking, the main banks that are propping up all of this are Spanish themselves, which is interesting. But yeah, so that's yeah, it's just another one of those stories that joins joins a lot. It looks like the company's operating figures look okay. There's nothing like untoward. Like all other companies at the moment, or wine companies, should I say, the things are on a downward turn, but they're not you know significantly so. Yeah. Although they did say what is it, latest figure shows a slight downward trend for the bit with sales down 2% year on year and operating profits down 25%, so from 12.8 million to 9 million euros. So that's that's got to hurt a bit. But again, it's not. I mean, for the m for the moment, it doesn't seem to be outrageous. You would imagine that that's hurting shareholders, perhaps, rather than actually the company itself. Yeah, still the company is still profitable. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, I mean you're still still making what nine million? Effectively three percent, three percent e bit, as they say. Yeah, yeah, right. Which is yeah, actually, yeah, looking at it that way, it's probably not great, is it? Yeah, but you know. Well, at least it's at least it's in profit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, they've already had a restructure programme, and yeah, like we said, if it joins the likes of Familia Torres and and Champagne Pomerie, which is now Maison Pomerie and Associer, which doesn't exactly run off the tongue, but what can you do? No, it doesn't. Next up was Argentinian wine deregulation fallout begins. So this is a story we've covered this, no one else has, as of yet, massive changes in Argentinian wine production as of 1st of January 2026, when basically all bets were off. You could do whatever the hell you like. There was no, what did we say, there's no sort of regulation covering winemaking up until wines actually were in bottle and on the shelves. Now, finally, this has come it's sort of caught up with wineries. And basically what happened was the company's wine body, the INV, has now has been told that it's got to continue using grape entry certificates and and accounting for the percent. This is really relatively tedious, but it it becomes important. Accounting for the percentage of wine produced versus, I suppose. Wastage is a way to describe the pressings and everything else that's left after winemaking. Um, so that basically the INV said, Well, you know, we don't need to do this, we'll just kick it back to the wineries. And everyone else that's any anyone that's major in Argentinian wine production has gone, uh no. The Association of Wine Cooperatives, Argentinian Wine Union, Mendoza Wine Growers Association, Larioca Chamber of Agricultural Producers, they've all said, they've gone to the courts and they said, hey, no, you need to keep doing this. Um, this is important. As somebody said, this is the first harvest in more than 65 years that has been carried out without any kind of control. Which I mean, I'm amazed no one has covered this story more. But anyway, basically what it is is that wineries need to work out extraction rates. And most wineries would have done this anyway, because it's fundamental to how wineries operate. And that, you know, if you take in 20 tons of Pinot Noir, you get X litres of wine. What was the extraction weight? What was your wastage, you know, and all of this? I don't know. Uh, our listener who maybe au fay a bit more than I with the the way that Argentina runs in terms of this winemaking winemaking sort of uh legislation. I know that in Spain and places like that, actually your your your Lees and your mark, which is the leftover stuff from pressing sort of white wine, they are tightly controlled by the government, and a lot of them are actually taken over by distillers. So you actually send it off to the government, and the government distills it to get you know whatever. I don't know if that's the case in Argentina, but it's um it's certainly it certainly was when I was in Spain. Uh so yeah, so that was really interesting. That's they've actually said, no, no, you've got to go back and actually start doing this. So we'll see if there's any more time. The thing about this story is, I mean, this story will become it'll become a thing, I would imagine, in the next year or so, with other outlets, other news outlets. Because surely the kind of absolute deregulation and so therefore the self-regulation of labelling and so forth is gonna be I mean, surely for export there have to be some regulations left. You would have thought about it. I mean, if if the uh this is just gonna end up with it's not gonna end well. I mean, I'm I'm not a big fan of red tape and bureaucracy and people having to you know fill in forms for everything in triplicate. Um but surely there's something to be said for having just a basic level, a basic some basic level of regulation of the standard and quality of the wine leaving the country. Certainly when it's leaving the country. I mean, if they want to basically drink hooch in country, I mean suppose, I mean it's up to people's individual tastes. But dear lord, not when you're sending it overseas, who's gonna buy it? They're not gonna make enough money selling domestically, and uh so what are they gonna do if nobody's gonna buy it off them if you can't trust it? There's uh there's there's all sorts of possibilities, especially for a country which imports quite a large amount of Chilean wine over the Andes. Um yeah, especially given the big story. And which which which they would be absolutely free to do now, say to I don't know, maybe I mean I doubt there's an unscrupulous winemaker out there, but if there was one, that winemaker might well be able to just relabel the wine and t as as the wine of Mendoza and flood it off. You can't you can't legislate for bad operators, don't come on. Oh no, no, no, no, of course you can't. No, if you could do that, if you could do that, our prisons would be full and it wouldn't they wouldn't just be full of the poor. Anyway, massive Spanish fraud case goes to court. Indeed. This was dodgy. Oh yes, this is this is delicious, this one. Uh a married, so I'll just I'll just basically read from the story. A married couple and their son are facing a total of 21 years of jail time for their role in a counterfeit wine scam that dates back. I mean, it dates back actually over over seven years. It dates back about 10 years, I reckon, possibly more. I think 2014 was one of the earliest dates that I saw concerning this. Basically, it's a it's a family company based in Galicia, Northwest Spain. And from what I understand, they basically bought in, I've got to stop saying basically, they bought in a number of wines, bulk wines from Castilla-La Mancha, Rioja, Valencia, and Galicia itself, and then passed them off as something else. The ones they don't actually say what they were passed off as, but the way that you kind of work it out is you look at the regional wine bodies who are looking for compensation for this, and they are for Bierfo La Mancha. So probably it's it's wine for Castilla-La Mancha, then passed off as La Mancha and Castilleon, which is you know a relatively large area, but has quite a good reputation, Castileon. Yeah, and these, I mean, we're talking a lot of wine here. What did I say? Two million, I reckon up to two million bottles, was it, or two million litres? I can't remember which one it was. Two million bottles. There we go. Two million bottles. I think the actual figure that they know for a minimum it's 1.6 million bottles. I think there might be more. And it's these got have gone out to the US, UK, France, China, Russia, Vietnam, Lithuania, Brazil, you know, everywhere. Uh it looks like this dates back about 10 years, and the police have been onto them for about that time, too. This is and it's it it's it sort of encompasses a lot of other things. Clearly, there's an organized crime element to this, because they are facing charges of uh being members of a criminal organization. So there's organized crime. There's the local there's a local printing company which is implicated because they were the ones that produced the fake. So in Spain, you have these um for your appellation, you have like a sticker itself on the bottom of the bottom at the back. So for like Rioca has one, uh you know, Biefa will have one and all that. So they had to fake those, so had to forge those. So they used a printing company. So that printing company's up for charges. The other people that are up for charges are the winemakers for this operation. I mean, they used natamis natamisin, natamisin, I think is that correct. Natamycin, yeah. Natamycin, natamycin, that sounds better. Antimicrobial food additive, which is not allowed in wine. So heaven knows what was in the wines that meant they had to add that for a start. Uh yeah, it just crazy. I mean, this is the lot. This is a mad story. Because we're not just talking about uh wines that have been sent to let's put it this way, younger markets, less mature wine markets, you know, markets where they might not be as readily able to tell the difference. Yeah, it wouldn't have been paid. But they've also sent it to the US, the UK, and France. Yeah. Three major, absolutely crucial wine markets where you would expect people to be able to tell the difference. Yeah, and frustratingly, it's hard to work out just what the brands were. I know one website mentioned the brands, one news website mentioned the brands. One of the brands it mentioned, though, was belonged to a different or had a crossover with a different company. So I couldn't I couldn't mention it in the news story because you're just like, well, that's that's just a no-no, because the brand itself is used by another company that's based, you know, in central Spain, and you you can't do that. But they're uh yeah, it's hard to get the actual details of what those wines were, although they're probably out of the markets by now. Well, yes, well, you'd certainly hope so. What I thought was interesting as well, though, was um that the uh the regional wine bodies from Bierzo, La Mancha, Castillo y Leone were looking for quite remarkably small amounts of money in reputational damages. I mean 284,000 euros in the case of Bierzo, yeah, um 180,000 in the case of La Mancha, who are clearly selling their selling their virtue very cheaply, yeah. And and uh Castilla y Leon um looking for over a million. Well, that seems to me remarkably small. I mean, can you imagine if this had happened in Champagne? Yeah, the CIVC just wouldn't they wouldn't have a number big enough to put on this kind of reputational damage. Um yeah, they'd fine you into poverty, like they'd fine you into the gutter. Yeah, just I don't know. They'd be sending in, they'd be asked for the amount, and they'd say, can you come back next week? We still have to fill out several zeros at the end of it. Yeah. Um there isn't a number large enough. Exactly. That's exactly it. A Googleplex of Googleplexes. Yeah. Um Yeah, so I don't know. This is an interesting one. It depends on what I guess it depends on what's in the accounts. Like I are these just numbers they picked, like they've decided, okay, this is a number with that we're likely to get out of these out of this prosecution, or is it what they actually think the damages are? I've yeah, I don't know. I would I would imagine it's fairly notional, but um, and and they're probably looking at the um looking at the accounts and going, well, you know, there's not a lot in there, but we can get something out of it. We could probably divvy the rest of it up like this, like this. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, fascinating story. I mean, the the winemakers using water colourings, flavourings, non-wine sugars, which is always an interesting one. Oh, who does that remind me of? Um, hang on, it'll come to me in a minute. Didn't there used to be a guy who used to make wines up like that? Yeah, well, there was that champagne case. I ironically, yeah. Um, I was thinking more in terms of Rudy or Dr. Dr. Burgundy himself. Dr. Burgundy with the case. Doesn't feel like it can't, it feels like his name comes up every every two minutes in the wine sphere. But yeah, this is the this is the man who turned flat Coca-Cola into Jevre Chamberton. Yeah, he's he's always Jesus-like in his ability to do it. Yes, indeed, he's the biochemist version of Einstein. He's um, you know, he's uh wrapped up with Stephen Hawking. The alchemy. The alchemy. Yeah, so that's it indeed. Anyway, let's let's talk about warmer matters now. Let's move on. Heat wave prompts early harvest prognosis. This is a French one. Basically, it's been hot in Europe. Oh, really? Yeah, turns out. So uh we're looking at an early harvest. In and this is the interesting thing. So one the head of the French national wine body, which is the CNIBC, CNIV, he told AFP the harvest will be underway at the start of August in some places. Wow, wow, the start of August. Yeah. So the issue here is gonna be actual manpower, because the start of August in France, I speak from experience here. That's empty. You're gonna you're gonna struggle to get people away from the beaches and and into the vineyards to pick grapes. So it'll be an interesting time. And I think so that there are places that start that have started, especially in the south of France, relatively early in August before. Well, we've had this, we've had this a couple of years a couple of years ago. So we will I suspect that when he says in certain places, he actually means certain well-known places, uh beyond the Longer Doc, shall we say. So I suspect we're looking at pretty early Arbists and more weather talk for next year's on premier. Well, thankfully, as we proved with the 2025 vintage, doesn't really matter, does it? Exactly. So, you know, it's a moot point. It's a moat point. Um it is a little bit, but it's um it does seem to be getting earlier, though, doesn't it? I mean, it's we're not quite at the situation where we were a few years ago when I I read an alarming report of Cabernet Sauvignon being harvested in Italy in July. But um we're not quite we're not quite at that level yet, but it does seem to be oh, heat wave, oh heat wave. Yeah, every year is a heat wave. Oh lord, when I was I was over there in um 2023, 2022, heat waves both years, same last year, same 2025, same 2024. Anyway, no, then then the next story is. Sorry, there was just to nip back onto the um the weather front. There was talking I'm talking of champagne, that there is elevated risk of mildew in champagne. Nothing has come of it yet, but there that I think Vidisphere noted that there's um as well as the frost damage they've had. Yeah. Well, I th I think they'll find something to spray on it, won't they? Surely not. I mean, I mean they normally seem to they'll find something to spray on it. In fact, it almost it almost seems like it's champagne. They're spraying anyway, they just need to come up with the excuse of why they're doing it. You know, possibility of mildew. Oh, you're telling it to Caroline Henry, all that cynicism. Right, moving on. Sorry, yes, on to crab investigation goes. No, but so crab have always been a thing. I I have been following crab since I started out in wine uh 23 years ago. Should we say? Um what happened? This is a 10-year investigation into a series of violent attacks, vandalism, arson, and bombing by the French direct action wine grower group Crab. It's been thrown out of court. So basically, this was a couple of this this is off the back of actually, this is 10 years old, another 10-year-old story, effectively, that's finally come up in a firebomb arson attack on a winery in Béziers, which caused almost a million euros in damage, and a rampage through the cellars of the Biron winery in Set, all in South France, obviously, in which they emptied five tanks. And there's there's a picture, this incredible picture I saw in one of the French newspapers, where there's just it looks like because it's taken at night, it looks like it's been raining and there's a bit of a flood, and you can't really tell, but it's actually the the liquid that's reflecting all the lights is actually wine. And there's cars sort of driving through this sort of what looks like a flooded street, and it's just wine, which has been emptied from these tanks. It's quite if I find it, I'll send it through to you. It's quite a it's quite an incredible picture. Anyway, that sort of went on to the back burner. The police have got interested in it, they they'd done some investigations. There was there's a suggestion that they I don't know if they tapped uh or got hold of a journalist's phone records to work out who the hell the journalists because the journal there was a there was a local or a should I say a national TV broadcaster who'd actually interviewed one of these guys, you know, the classic sort of I guess terrorist interview where he's got like a um a balaclavron or something like that. And they'd sort of he'd talk to them with you know his his identity covered up during one of these rampages. And they tried to work out who it was. They reckoned they got hold of two guys, and basically they found that um there was not enough evidence connecting these guys to the actual attacks. Um the reason that this came back up again, or that the dossier was reopened, was after a bombing attack in 2024, so two years ago, which we covered. We said what's it bomb blows up French wine wall when they they blew the windows out of a regional offices of the Directorate of Environment, Planning and Housing in Carcassonne. Yeah, it's a massive bang, and it's like these windows got blew out. Luckily, of course, no one was hurt. I think they blew it up in the middle of the night. But I mean, those I you know, I was a little bit concerned when people are using explosives. You know, this is it's not it's a it's usually a sign that your arguments aren't working, isn't it? Well, yeah, and I was just like, you know, God, what if somebody turns up one evening and they've left their document, you know, they've left somebody in the office, they head back into the office and you know, they blow someone up. You know, it's bloody awful. Anyway, that was it. What was quite interesting was that one of the accused, it's also this is what got me, and I'll just read it verbatim. In a separate case, he's also under investigation for his part in an abortive raid on the Bordeaux region in July 2017, in which a posse of around 30 Longodot wine rowers, armed with Molotov cocktails and crowbars, made a trip northwest before they returned back without causing any damage. What's the point in that? I just I I have so many questions about that. There was no I couldn't find out any more. Did they all hop into a minibus? You know, I can I can almost picture what happened here. And this is a load of blogs talking each other up, you know, egging each other on, and then all getting into a couple of vans, driving in there, all of them absolutely paralytic with drink and sobering up slightly by the time they get there, slightly shame-facedly, they're getting back in the van and coming home again. Oh yeah. What were they gonna do in Bordeaux? Yeah, I just I mean, I just guess I just love that. I just love that they're waving their crowbars in the air like some kind of angry village mob outside outside Baron Frankenstein's castle. I was like, yeah, you imagine sort of in the early hours of a Bordeaux morning, these sort of these vans did sort of vomit these guys out onto the pavement, and they're like, okay, well, let's go fire bomb this one. Shaking their pitchforks, kill the monster. I I laugh, but yeah, exactly. It's very beauty and the beast, isn't it? Yeah. Very much so. And finally, finally, was a story from a keynote, uh, a keynote speech at a recent wine industry event in Rioca, in which uh an expert on non-alcoholic wine basically said that white and rose, non-alcohol wines were likely to do well and to grow, whereas there was less there was less indication, there were less indications of growth in the red non-alcoholic red wine sector, purely from a uh organoleptic point of view, in that white and rose wines, generally fresher, lighter, not so much structure. And so that sort of fitted with non-alk wine production. Um I don't think that was so this person's an expert in the in the non-alcoholic wine field. Um well, no, they'll it sounds very much to me like he's also got a like a twin degree, with the the other part of it being in the bleeding obvious. That you know, that it was going to be harder to make a decent drinkable non-alcoholic red than it is to make a white or a rosa. Yeah, yeah. But you know, how much there's so much interest in non-alcoholic wine at the moment, which is probably out of proportion to its actual actual shelf interest. Uh it seemed like a good thing to to look at. Fair enough. Yeah, yeah, but I completely agree. It's like, yeah, and you know, there's defecating woods, you know. Okay, yeah, well, exactly. I I do love though that you know it's uh all you ask of a white wine is that it'd be refreshing. Yeah, I'm sure the good burgers of Burgundy will be thrilled with that one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I can imagine, I can imagine people in the mosole going, phew, we can now we can just make refreshing wines. That's okay, then yeah, don't think about it too much, guys. Come on. Yes, all this we've been we've been mucking around with trock and bear and old sleezer all these years. When we should have been drunk. Oh, dearie me. Anyway, I bet they feel foolish now. When they could have just been making a refreshing beverage. I mean, Pudini Morache, just don't bother with the oak, just yeah. Yeah, jam it in the bottle. Lovely over ice with a splash of soda, too. Exactly. Yeah, if you if you want some more interest of pop jalapeno pepper in it. Oh dear, oh Lord. Anyway, um I think I think we're falling off the top of the subject. I know. On on that note, on that note, what can we look forward to this week, Doc? Well, we've got all sorts. Um, speaking of that, though, we've got um a story that we've just published today about how wine is losing the class more. Right. But with um with everybody's rush to uh tick their DEI boxes, um, you know, they've got as many uh people of colour in there, and they've got people of every possible um sexual tendency and and every possible gender combination, and yet have completely forgotten about effectively the poor people. Um those who those from the sort of classes that are not traditionally associated with wine or wine drinking or wine making. Um it's quite an interesting story. I and I I would I would commend people to read it. And we've also got you know, we've got other bits, we've got another wine voices this week. We've got oh, we've got a little story about port that I'm sure people will find you will find interesting. Um yeah, port's dropped off the radar of late, especially given that they've had issues with pickers down there and and sort of you know production. Amongst other things, but um, I this one is I find it particularly encouraging because it includes the word declaration, the story. Oh yeah, um lovers of lovers of vintage portal want to be keeping an eye out for that particular absolutely, yes. I've I it's a long time since I've read a port declaration story. That used to be all the rage to many years ago. Well, it's been a while since we've had a declaration, really, hasn't it? I mean it's I don't know, but this is it. I'm not I'm not OFA. I'll listen to maybe, but I'm not. I'm sorry. I mean, you know, I'm interested for to be out to be fair, um, it was getting at a stage where they were coming along as regular as summer was. Yes. Um and and to be honest, the duo is um it's a bit like that, you know. It's not noticed for its yeah, it doesn't like for warmth, it's not noticed for its frigid winters and it's it's endless squalls of drizzle that last for three months at a time, is it? So anyway, yeah, so lots and lots of cool stuff coming up this week. Right, right. Well we look forward to that. Excellent. We have a great weekend. We have a great week, John, and we'll uh we'll catch up next week. Absolutely, I look forward to it. All right, man, bye now. See ya. Bye. Thank you for listening to the Week in Wine News podcast. For more than all that we discuss, and for price of retail information on all the wines near you, including comprehensive coverage from our pro membership option, go to winesearcher.com.