The Week in Wine Episode 41

Don lauds a pair of 'workhorse' wines (a Côtes de Rhône and a Californian Zinfandel) while Olly enjoys a steely Riesling from the Saar. Two pieces this week tickle Don's fancy: wine's reluctance to engage in a class-based discussion (all while other aspects of DEI are frequently touched-on in wine marketing); and news that Ohio will send the interstate shipping debate to the US Supreme Court.

We take a look at the Irish connections in wine as well as reviewing a recent piece about the Bordeaux wine industry looking to find new ways to bring people back to the region. Don also goes into a recent piece looking at tumbling Bordeaux (and waning Napa) prices in the US.

Meanwhile, a Moldovan winery commissions a one-off Porsche; one grower in Bordeaux's St-Julien appellation is grafting Chardonnay onto his red vines; a highly localized hailstorm hits Champagne; the bosses of the notorious wine website 1855.com are back in the courts on fraud charges; and there's a nasty case of poisoning from a refilled bottle of wine in Argentina.

We also look forward to more discussions and stories in the week ahead.

ABOUT THE WEEK IN WINE

The Week in Wine goes out every Monday morning so that you can turn up to work with great talking points from the latest news across the world of wine.

Hosted by wine-searcher editor Don Kavanagh with wine writer Olly Styles – who also produces the podcast – nearly all of the stories we discuss can be found on https://www.wine-searcher.com/magazine

You can get in touch with us at editor@wine-searcher.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:10

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 wineheif at searcher.com. Good morning, Tom.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

Good morning, Ollie. How are you? How are you? I'm on top of the world.

SPEAKER_02 0:27

You see, now we're chuckling, we look at it. I can see a smile.

SPEAKER_01 0:31

This is this is going to be a very difficult podcast this morning because we are in the same room again. And consequently, as with all men our age, um, we automatically revert back to schoolboy things, and we're desperately avoiding looking at each other so we don't start giggling. So you will I feel I've transgressed. I'm sure I feel a lot younger than I did when I got up this morning. Um let me put it this way. Um, so I do hope our listener will be um will be forgiving with us if we do occasionally dissolve into childish tittering.

SPEAKER_02 1:09

Yes. Um which has already happened on my on my behalf.

SPEAKER_01 1:13

Yes, it has. But anyway, here we are. It's a new week and a new podcast.

SPEAKER_02 1:19

And we're here. Um did you have anything nice to drink at the weekend, Don?

SPEAKER_01 1:23

I I had lots of nice things to drink on the weekend. I had some lovely cocktails. I had some I had some pretty impressive Guinness, which was quite good.

SPEAKER_02 1:31

Um Guinness always impressive.

SPEAKER_01 1:34

No, it's not. No, Guinness can be absolutely appalling. Excuse my ignorance. If you get a bad pint of Guinness, you'll know all about it. Right. And you'll know about it for a good 18 hours afterwards, too. You'll certainly know what I mean when I said use the phrase flock of swallows. Um it will be um anyway, yes, but um, but as as as far as wine goes, I've honestly look, I had two wines this weekend that stood out for me. Both because not because they were particularly special, but because they were the exact opposite. There were work horse wines that just yeah, really did the job. I looked them up since on our wonderful website, um obviously wine searcher.com for those of you who aren't necessarily all fair with it. Worth a look always. Um one of them, the Leon Perdigal Cote Ron, which is um has a wonderfully old-fashioned label on it.

SPEAKER_02 2:34

Yes, that's the one that's got that like yeah, it looks like uh sort of 1920s. It does sort of nouveau style.

SPEAKER_01 2:40

Yes, slightly Art Nouveau with a with kind of a hint of Toulouse L trek about it. Yes, fantastic, yeah. And it it was it was lovely. I mean, it was perfectly, it's just what you want, Cote de Role to do, and a a typically massively undervalued wine style, Côte d'Europe.

SPEAKER_04 2:56

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:57

It works, it's warm, it's inviting, it's rewarding. Um, it never I mean, I think because perhaps I never tend to expect huge amounts from it, it always slightly overdelivers. So that was you know, that was a great wine to have, and the other one was a Clay Vineyard um Zinfidel from Sonoma. Oh, nice. Um, it was nice, it was lovely. Again, you know, not breaking a bank, $20 bottle of wine in New Zealand terms, that's about $10 US. Absolutely great. Again, a wine that you wouldn't, it's not sort of wine that leaps out the shelf and says, This is going to be outstanding. Uh it just says, you know, this is a nice wine, and it that's exactly what it was. It was a really nice wine that did exactly the job I wanted of it, which was to entertain myself and a couple of friends. So brilliant. You know, it was brilliant. What about you? No, I I understand you've had a little bit of a wild weekend because you've come up to the big smoke in Auckland.

SPEAKER_02 3:54

I have. I've come up to Auckland and spent the last two nights I don't want to use the word carousing, but it's just it's um it's been busy, shall we say? Uh busy of an evening. Uh the the standout wine for me, just to keep things short, was uh dinner with friends, wonderful friends last night, and the standout wine for that was uh Weingut Van Volt Volksum V-O-L-X-E-M. That's easy for you to say. Right? Yeah, that's even at the time. Saar Riesling 2020. Sar Riesling. Saar Riesling, yes. Which was um a revelation. It was just delicious. And I'm not I'm not one of those people that tends to wax lyrical about Riesling, but this one was particularly good. And it wasn't it wasn't it was a dry Riesling and it had uh and it but it wasn't austere. It still had a nice body to it. It was actually an enjoyable drink. Nice, sorry, sorry for Riesling.

SPEAKER_01 4:46

So it wasn't it wasn't those sort of uh excessively dry sort of gargling razor blades type.

SPEAKER_02 4:51

No they're all steel and nothing else. Yeah, it had it had a bit of it had a bit of a warm heart to it, which was really nice, and I enjoyed that. Um because normally dry reasoning can be a little bit testing. It can be very austere, can't we?

SPEAKER_01 5:05

It can be very disapproving. You know, it looks at it looks that you're like a nun in class, you know, in this in this.

SPEAKER_02 5:12

I feel pretty much like a feel right now for no apparent reasons. Uh should we talk about the Wine News? What's I mean? Let's let's I suppose we should. What have we had? It's mostly been about the US recently, hasn't it?

SPEAKER_01 5:22

Well, it has really, and to be honest, um two of our stories or two top two stories this week are stories that we discussed last week on the podcast.

SPEAKER_04 5:29

Oh god.

SPEAKER_01 5:30

They're still going strong.

SPEAKER_04 5:31

What are they?

SPEAKER_01 5:31

Um Best Value Bourbons. Wow. Which is just, you know, that's the gift it keeps on giving. Yeah. Um, from a readership point of view. Um, and um, or the 100-point wine turnoff.

SPEAKER_04 5:44

Oh, yes, that's fascinating.

SPEAKER_01 5:45

Which was the one, as I said, we discussed it last week, so I'm not going to go into too much detail. But it's just this was this was a a bit a study of a group of people who are so ahead of the curve that as soon as a wine gets a hundred-point score, they drop it like a hot rock and just move on to the next thing.

SPEAKER_02 6:02

I was thinking about that. That's an investor thing, isn't it? That you want to be ahead of the wave, right? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 6:06

They're wanting to get in there before it you want to get it before the price expands. In fact, what you really want is you want to invest in a wine at a point, and then six months later, you want somebody to give it a hundred-point score that massively inflates the price and the demand for the wine, and then so that you can offload yours, you can offload yours, yeah. Yeah, right, right. And you can move on to something else from there. Now, the Sunday story from last week another wine giant struggles with debt, yes, which was about Gonzalez by us, which we we discussed again, we discussed this last week. Um, we just seem to be talking around the same things over and over again. Um which I suppose is you know what are you going to get on a wine podcast? Oh, come on.

SPEAKER_04 6:49

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:49

No, and and that was our third biggest story of the week. Um, beyond that, then was our best value champagne. Yes, always go. Um, that's always going to get people in its value, it's champagne. See, it just goes to prove you don't have to drink prosecco for the rest of your life. You don't have to be forced by circumstance into being a kava consumer. You can don't say the buttons dirty words. Oh well, it's yeah, no, I'm I'm not going, I'm not going to say what I was going to say there. I've had some fantastic cava. I've got some really some of my best friends are caves. But that's that's one of those phrases that just marks you out as something, um, or as a type of person. Um, obviously, lots of people like Proseco, so I'm not going to say that I personally find it in stupid. Um oh, look, I just did.

SPEAKER_02 7:41

Um forbid, good. But no, the interesting thing about that list though, also, which I really liked, was that it was full of names, uh, there were a couple of names that I recognised, yeah, but the rest were just were new to me, which was really good.

SPEAKER_01 7:52

Well, this is good because the idea is that you know, if you're into wine and we are into wine. I mean, this is our this is our job, yeah, this is our livelihood. I was genuinely fascinated by wanted to try them. So you you'd think we'd know them, you know, that but but we don't. And that's the amazing thing. That's what always strikes me when I go to Champagne, not that I go every week. Um, but I you know, on the occasions that I go to Champagne, what always strikes me is just how many producers there are there. Yes. Um, that you never see beyond France, certainly. Yeah, yeah. And that's just and in some cases you don't see them beyond champagne. Yeah, yeah. And most of it is stuff you've never heard of in your life. It's brilliant to that. They're absolutely fantastic. I mean, I've had some great wines from there. I've I've I've had some um some still chardonnay from there made by a champagne.

SPEAKER_02 8:41

Oh, delicious, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:42

It it was, it was genuinely different. But yeah, so the the the the best value champagne is great because it just goes to prove that you can still drink champagne for you know less than a hundred bucks a bottle, certainly, but in some cases less than fifty dollars a bottle.

SPEAKER_02 8:56

Yeah, they really picked my interest now. That was a great little guy.

SPEAKER_01 8:58

And why wouldn't you?

SPEAKER_02 8:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:00

Favourite stories? And the other well, the other big story of the week was that wine was losing the class war. Oh, that was an interesting story, yeah. There's a different thing because when people talk about inclusion and the you know the diversity, equity, inclusion thing, they're normally talking about race, yeah, gender, sexuality.

SPEAKER_04 9:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:19

And they completely ignore class, which is an odd thing for wine because wine has always been a signifier of class in the English-speaking world.

SPEAKER_04 9:27

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 9:27

In the English-speaking world, if you're aspiring to be upper class or middle class even, you drank wine.

SPEAKER_04 9:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:36

Beer was for the lower classes. Yeah. Uh yeah, and weirdly that that you really only come across that in the English-speaking world.

SPEAKER_02 9:43

Maybe because we never produced it. When I say we, it was always brought in.

SPEAKER_01 9:48

When you say we, I say you.

SPEAKER_02 9:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:50

Um, and because it still to this day is something of a signifier of class. Because if you drink wine, you're seen as somebody who at least has an appreciation of wine-making, or at least an appreciation of wine generally, which has always been seen as a class thing.

SPEAKER_02 10:09

Or maybe sees you as being a pretentious thing.

SPEAKER_01 10:12

Or again, or you're an upstart little counter jumper who's desperately trying to claw his way into the into society, as it were, when you're merely out of some parvenue.

SPEAKER_02 10:24

But you never see those at wine tastings.

SPEAKER_01 10:26

No, you don't, do you? Thankfully. That's the wonderful thing for the wine tastings. Everybody is so inviting and inclusive. Do you reckon he might have had a point? Well, I do reckon he had a point because class is really the last thing people think of. When I say him, it's James Lawrence, the writer. I um yeah. And I um and to be honest, it particularly struck a chord with me because I know how it feels. I was brought up working class and Irish, neither of which are associated with white. Right. Um and so despite the fact that I, for some bizarre reason, did the WSCT diploma and so forth, um well, it was many, many years ago. Yeah. I mean, it was this was back in the early 1990s, for God's sake. It was a different world back then. I was young, I needed the money. Um get to the point. So to get get to the point. So but I did, but ever since, I mean, people so despite that, despite the fact that I've been the editor of Wine Search, the world's biggest wine website for 10 years, people still go, Oh, oh, you're Irish. How did how did you get into wine? How did that come to pass? How did you get into wine? And you know, I never bothered telling them, you know, that up until the 1780s, Ireland was a bigger I actually up until the act of union between um Great Britain and Ireland in 1801. Yeah, Ireland was a bigger market for Bordeaux than England ever was. Really? Yes, absolutely. I didn't know yes, absolutely. And after it was after 1801 that everything had to be imported via England so that England collected the import duties on it. Right. It's it's how the United Kingdom has always worked to England's benefit and to the detriment of Scotland, Wales, the outliers and the the rest of the Celtic fringe. But uh, you know, and um I mean this is to the point where um we look at Bordeaux and you see all the Irish.

SPEAKER_02 12:21

That's where I'm gonna go.

SPEAKER_04 12:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:25

So though there always has been uh a link to wine with the Irish, and we're also of course we're great drinkers. Yeah. I mean, let's not be honest. Um you know, once once the once the barrel of stout runs dry, one one's eye automatically turns to you know the bottle the bottle of claret behind the counter. Um made by Frank over in. Yeah, well indeed, my old mate Frank Frank Phelan, the head of God bless him. Yeah, so that that story struck a chord with me because it was it does it this because people are automatically dismissed because of their backgrounds in wine. Oh no, sorry, they're not always dismissed, they're often dismissed by people who went to the right school, whose parents could afford to drink wine or collect wine, um, you know, who were who who went to Oxbridge and who, you know, effectively, you know, the red trouser wearing brigade is what I'm talking about. The Boris Johnsons of this world, right? You know, the pseudo-intellectual types who who managed to glibly talk their way through it, it's talk their way into a second class degree at Oxford. Yeah, yeah, and then and then walk out, then walk out and go, Oh, what shall I do next? I know I should be Prime Minister. Yeah um anyway, but my favourite stories of the week, there are two of them for different reasons, one of them for historical reasons, and that was David Allen's piece about who moved on premier's cheese.

SPEAKER_02 13:44

Yes, an unusual headline, I think.

SPEAKER_01 13:46

It's a very unusual headline, and I'm not sure too many people would have necessarily been happy with the the slightly um nauseating mix of of cheese and Bordeaux, but um it refers to a book that came out at the end of the 1990s called Who Moved My Cheese, which is ostensibly a story about a children's story about mice and somebody's moved their cheese, yeah, and so they have to start reconsidering how their life operates, right? Um, and so it's done in the guise of a self-help slash business management book, you know, because obviously both are the same things, you know, improving your own life and improving the return for the shareholder are obviously the same thing, and I I cannot begin to describe the depths of my contempt for people who think like that. Um yet you used it in the headline, but which is which is why I avoid LinkedIn at all costs, you know, because it's f unfortunately it's far too full of the sort of people who you know go, my wife and children were murdered by a psychopath this weekend, but it certainly taught me how to land a new contract. Um but so but that so that was one story, but it was about how the the the general story was about how producers in Bordeaux are having to change because the paradigm is changing, the cheese is no longer where it used to be. Oh, yeah, they're having to find their own cheese. It's it's just basically it was a look at how things are people are doing things differently these days in Bordeaux to make ends meet, right? As it were. That's now whether that's you know, uh aiming heavily for the uh tourism end of things by having you know Michel and Start restaurants in there, having a spa attached or whatever, you know. A tree house, yeah, or migraine. Or indeed, people who were operating who were making sparkling wine there to attract weddings to their properties.

SPEAKER_04 15:42

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 15:43

You know, so it's um uh it's it's a different way. Married in the medoffling you ten-part series. Sparkling murder sparkling merlot to wash down your your wedding vouch.

SPEAKER_02 15:53

You wouldn't want to spell that on the dress, would you? Oh lord, no.

SPEAKER_01 15:56

And and you know, people making uh planting shardna in Bordeaux.

SPEAKER_02 16:00

Yes, well that came and comes in at the Sunday story as well. But and then the other story, go on, you can't.

SPEAKER_01 16:05

But then the other story that I think is absolutely brilliant was our US editor uh Blake Gray's story about Bordeaux prices tumbling in the US.

SPEAKER_02 16:15

Tell us about that.

SPEAKER_01 16:16

In the retail market in the US, Bordo prices are coming down to a level where merchants who would previously have been hunting out people to buy wines on Premier are now telling them don't bother buying wine on Premier for the same price you can buy wine that's ready to drink now.

SPEAKER_02 16:32

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01 16:32

You you can drink wine with from 2015.

SPEAKER_02 16:35

But why? How come the how come the price has gone down? Does he does he go into it or is it just a he does, he does.

SPEAKER_01 16:40

So then there's a few bits to it, but um a lot of it's just out of the fact that they're meeting the market because people are because there are fewer and fewer people who are willing to spend that kind of money on Bordeaux. Yeah, uh the prices have come down quite spectacularly. So the average price on our database for a red wine from Bordeaux is 19% below what it was in 2023. This is for all wines, so this is the average of all wines, yeah. It includes the top wines, but also includes that very long tail of very small wines that are, you know, yeah, and and deep and cheerful end of the market, as you say. Or the bouton cadase. Or the struggling end of the market, as we also say. Yeah, I mean, just from last year, it's down 15%.

SPEAKER_02 17:22

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 17:23

On last year.

SPEAKER_02 17:23

So, you know, it's a it's a a recent, a very recent thing.

SPEAKER_01 17:26

It is the other thing in the story is that Napa Cabernets are facing a similar reluctance amongst buyers.

SPEAKER_02 17:34

That's been in the air for some time, hasn't it?

SPEAKER_01 17:36

It has. This is one as one person in the story wonderfully says, you know, we don't get many people coming in and say, Hey, you know a $300 bottle of wine that no bottle of Napa Cabernet that no one's ever heard of? Have you got any? Um, which is interesting because it ties back to that 100 point.

SPEAKER_02 17:54

I was actually gonna move on to that. So, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:56

Well, the thing is the the the price of the average price of a of a Napa Cabernet is about $127 globally on our on our database. Yeah, yeah. So that's taking into account all Cabernet's made in Napa. Right. That's about the same as it was last year, and it's about the same as it has been for a while. However, so it's not actually really moving that price. Right. But the thing is, the past three years, um, inflation's uh uh 9.5%. Right. So it should be about $140 now, $145 now, but it's not so effectively it's coming down and it's starting to tip anyway. Yeah, that people aren't paying those kind of money that kind of money for Napa Cabernay anymore. So that's starting to slip as well. So I mean this opens up a lot of opportunity, I suppose, for other people. So for Italian producers, for example, yeah, for producers from their own, let's go back to their own for a minute.

SPEAKER_04 18:46

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 18:47

Um, who can who can produce wines really good wines that are collectible, yeah, that are enjoyable to drink, that maybe don't take quite so long to become ready as classic Bordeaux does, yeah, and which are available for the same price or substantially less. So, anyway, yeah, I thought it was a brilliant story. I really enjoyed it mostly because it was not just a good news story for consumers, but it was a great sort of shop window for our data. Yeah, right. You know, it just you know you can find some great stuff in there. Yeah, um, yeah, so that's it. So that's enough about me, though. Let's talk about you.

SPEAKER_02 19:25

Um well this this was uh an interesting week, and that a lot a lot went down in wine use. The first one was that Henkel um has obviously started to look at maybe acquiring after Freshnet, which they got, I think, earlier this year, they're now looking at bringing Maison Pomerate.

SPEAKER_01 19:42

Oh, so that wasn't earlier this year. Henkel Fresh has been a while, hasn't it? Has it been a while? I'm pretty yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:47

Maybe the deal maybe the deal was finally sort of like signed at the beginning of the year. Anyway, they've now they're now apparently in talks to acquire Maison Pomerate, which was um quite something. The there's a number of interesting stories that came out. There's one about um 19th century bottles of ECEM and pork that had been uncovered. Uh they actually this actual story dates back to the 1980s when communist secret police actually Well, this is good.

SPEAKER_01 20:10

It's good to know we're on the ball newsways. This is the cutting edge of news, bringing in news directly into the 1980s.

SPEAKER_02 20:16

I I remember reading this thinking, oh, okay, this is interesting. When when did the because these these wines had been in uh in a cellar in uh in a in a castle in in Bohemia in in what was then Czechoslovakia, which is now the Czech Republic. And I was like, well, surely someone knew that found these before. And it turns out, yeah, the communists that had had they'd obviously said some. I wonder if they had a wine brigade.

SPEAKER_01 20:40

Yeah, they're just like, oh, this sort of quick go around and go around and collect all the stuff from the cellars. Going back to the class thing.

SPEAKER_02 20:46

They're like bring it back to Russia, bring it back to Moscow immediately. Anyway, the the actual thing was that Ekem had actually Ekem's cellar master, um Tony L. Kawand, had gone to the Czech Republic to assist in a sort of, I think it's like a recorking thing, like you know how Penfields do that sort of thing. They tested the wine using Coravin. They'd Coravin the wines, checked them, and I think what they'd then done was like wines are good. So I think they've gone over and sort of topped them up. Now that was the story. There's all sorts of things. There one came out of Georgia this week as well about how you know there's I think this the Georgian state had opened up this once sealed cellar, which included apparently it was Stalin's, one of Stalin's private cellars.

SPEAKER_01 21:23

Isn't they all? I mean, let's be honest, who has ever opened uh a sealed cellar anywhere in Georgia or indeed anywhere in southern Russia and not and not said, oh, this was one of Stalin's. Dear God, the man must have had booze everywhere. I mean, what sort of an alkie was he? I mean, that he did he he I mean, this is the equivalent of me having bowls of Jack Daniels hidden in the cistern of the toilet. I mean, it's just he just had he didn't have to travel with wine that was already there, right?

SPEAKER_02 21:54

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Him and the Politburo just polishing all of this off. Uh Bordeaux City Divine celebrated ten year anniversary. Oh, it's nice to see nice to see one city divan doing well then. Hennessy's moved into the RTD space, which is like included a Henny Rita, which is another Irish company I might add.

SPEAKER_01 22:11

Hennessey. Hennessey, of course. The name Hennessey comes from.

SPEAKER_02 22:15

Don't give me a very dismissive look there. Oh Hennesser. How dare you? Oh, Hennesser means the son of Angus. Fire out. There you go, things I learn. Yeah, yeah. Jura Appalachian Chateau Chalon celebrated its 90th birthday. But moving on. Oh, and Torres, sorry, Tor Familia Torres got B Corp certification as well, which is a bit.

SPEAKER_01 22:33

Oh, phew! The headline of the Sunday story was that Moldavia. Oh, sorry, yes. We can't help but laughing because the reason I put this story at the top of it and made this the headline story is because it had a really cool picture of a car in it.

SPEAKER_02 22:49

I know. It's quite nice. We went to the Porsche website and we're like, oh yeah, we could do that. Moldavian Winery Owner Commission's Porsche. So this is about uh Porsche 911 GT3 called Tree of Life. Um which has been pretty this is cars basically uh this is a bespoke car, right?

SPEAKER_01 23:08

They well it's it's kind of yeah, well, I mean I I I'm not entirely sure you can design the engine for yourself, but it's I don't think I would still suggest Porsche are still allowing the engineers to do that side of it for you. I'd also like to thank you for taking me back to the 1980s by referring to this as a Moldavian person. Well, Moldavia, of course, being being the um entirely fictional country that Prince Michael was um one of the royal family of in the TV show dynasty back in the days. I think what you mean is Moldovan, Moldovan, yeah, which is an actual country. Moldovan. Like a real country. Uh and not one that was dreamt of by Aaron Spelling. Um now I'm showing my age.

SPEAKER_02 23:52

Apologies, apologies for all uh Moldovan wine fans and indeed Moldavians as well.

SPEAKER_01 23:58

Um but but this is but who wants to buy a buy a a car or design a car go, I want it to look like a tree. It doesn't exactly scream speed, does it?

SPEAKER_02 24:12

No, it doesn't and also so they I guess you design the decor on the inside, you do all the sort of upholstery and things, I want I want a cream and red checkerboard upholstery. I want it to be two colours. It's all fallure.

unknown 24:25

Right?

SPEAKER_02 24:28

So it doesn't look like it's wiped clean. And it's also I I also suspect that I don't know whether the the two-coloured thing as well, because it starts off purple at the front and then goes to a sort of deeper red at the back.

SPEAKER_01 24:41

But it's one of those, it's one of those paint jobs, isn't it, that sort of changes slightly. Yeah. It shimmers to the eye. Yeah, yeah, which are quite it's quite which is which is really cool when you're like eight and you're collecting hot wheels or something, you know. And they're the ones you want. It's great if you're still playing marbles at that age.

SPEAKER_02 25:03

We're taking the mix, but if we could afford one of these, it wouldn't be too bad, would it?

SPEAKER_01 25:06

If I could afford one of these, I'd buy three Land Rovers.

SPEAKER_02 25:08

Yeah. Anyway, so that was it. There was yeah, so this this uh Winery family had had commissioned, especially commissioned a Porsche, which was uh quite a good little story. But it was a great picture. That's it was a lovely picture.

SPEAKER_01 25:22

It was it has lots of it has lots of blurred trees at the back of the characters passed.

SPEAKER_02 25:27

Yeah, yeah, always the the element of speed was was yeah. Uh next one was Medoc draws a blanc, which I thought was quite a nice little headline. That was proud of that. Very good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So this was more on um basically this was a story that had come out of French uh TV in which they'd interviewed someone in Saint-Julien, was well known sort of Médoc uh Zion, better known for Cabernet, Sauvignon and Merlot, and he had actually top grafting Chardonnay of all varieties. Just because he liked Chardonnay, he was like, I'll just put some top graft and Chardonnay onto it. And there was mostly talking about top grafting.

SPEAKER_01 26:01

Well, pop grafting's good though, isn't it? Because it means you don't have to hang around as long to wait for um to have a saleable yeah, or to have a usable crop off it.

SPEAKER_02 26:08

Yeah, yeah, as long as it takes, you're pretty much you straight into it. You've been a couple of years, you're up and running, and you've gone from Merlot to shard up.

SPEAKER_01 26:14

Not like four years normally, four to five years at least, you know, that you're you're waiting if you if you plant them as as yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:22

So it still has costs. I think they would they were sort of quite keen to point out or uh that laboured laboured the point that it was actually relatively expensive to do this, but yeah, I mean return on investment is pretty good. But um, yeah, so it was interesting. Also, that in the you know, if he's looking for an IGP or a Medoc Blanc, I think Medoc Blanc is do I think the first Meloc Blanc wines are coming out from 2025. But Chardonnay is still a minor portion of that blend, it can't be more than 15%, I think. So it's very much a labour of love there.

SPEAKER_01 26:51

Okay, so so we might end up getting um a revival of the old um Australian favourite Sauvignon Chardonnay. You never know. Instead of the Sauvignon Semillon. There are a lot of them used Sauvignon Chardonnay in the old days to make the Sauvignon drinkable. Um possibly in Australia to make the Chardonnay memorable, you know, to just to give just to liven it up a little bit. Give it a bit of a bit of a yeah, especially especially back in the early 90s when a lot of the wines in Australia, the Chardonnay's in Australia were just fat.

SPEAKER_02 27:24

Classified butter.

SPEAKER_01 27:25

Well, they were they're very much like that, very little in the way of acid, and the same colour as a liquidized canary. I mean, it was they were just vibrant and yet fat.

SPEAKER_02 27:37

Apologies to Australian wine fans. Next up, cataclysmic hail slams champagne. So that was uh that was quite a shall we say sensationalist headline for that one, but actually relatively localized. So there's two two communes within Champagne who just got absolutely nailed by the hail uh last week, which doesn't so which isn't great.

SPEAKER_01 27:57

I mean they it's an interesting thing, isn't it? I mean, uh hailnating, hailnets? Yeah. Are they allowed to use those? Don't know. In Champagne? I know there was trouble over using them in Burgundy.

SPEAKER_02 28:10

I think they just got caught out. I think it was just like one of those flash sort of storms. It's certainly from the way they described it, you know, it's just a big bang and then all this hail comes down. And what is interesting perhaps is that whereas other areas of Champagne have seen frost this year and there's been all sorts of things happening, especially while frost has been the main one. Uh, this is one of the zones, and it was what is it, the Montagne, the Coteau du Petit Mois, um just south of Epanay in the Côte de Blanc. And that was one of the areas that had been sort of spared the frosts and now it just got hit with hail. So, you know, it's they're having a tough one in Champagne. It's never easy there, is it? No, no, it's on the edge of viticulture. Next up, 1855.com. Oh remember them?

SPEAKER_01 28:52

Ghost from the past. Right? Yes, a bunch of rip-off merchants, I seem to remember, who um, let me see, took an awful lot of money from an awful lot of trusting people, and basically, in the marvellous words of um former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, spaffed it up a wall. Um just basically wasted it.

SPEAKER_02 29:14

Uh they they were at pains and still are apparently to say that no, they they have actually, you know, we what is it? They say we've successfully delivered more than 38 million euros on premier orders. Yes, how many orders did they have take money for, though? Yeah, right, this is it. So this is the point. Uh there are several thousand clients who are sort of been left holding the pram. What is it? Just holding the baby, sure. Holding the baby, that's the one. Yeah, yeah, the pram.

SPEAKER_01 29:38

Or in this case, holding the empty bottle. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 29:40

Or the the non-existent bottle.

SPEAKER_01 29:42

Oh, like indeed, yes. Yes, the empty cardboard box.

SPEAKER_02 29:45

So apparently, going back, if you go back sort of 10 years, there were 11,000 creditors with claims amounting to 40 million euros, which is pretty much exactly what that those guys were saying they delivered. So it's 50-50. But this is so this is going to court now. Eventually, finally, there's gonna be a court hearing about it in which they are accused of fraud. Uh they're looking at l cases between 2008 and 2014, and it's specifically for about 1,200 clients. I mean, still a lot of people. That is, well, but it's also, I mean were these guys not wound up?

SPEAKER_01 30:18

Yes. Were these guys not jailed? Well, this is it, this is the jail is now what's potentially. Hang on a minute or two. Yeah, yeah, go. Let's let's just say that so they've they've effectively ripped off 40 million odd pounds or or dollars. Euros or euros, it's effectively dollars from people, and yet now it's only coming to court. So, I mean, if I if I walk down the street now, if I walked out of here, walk down the street and stole 40 dollars from somebody, I would be in jail by tomorrow morning. I will be in court on Wednesday, and I will be in jail in prison probably by Thursday. Yes, Your Honor. I I'm just thinking, but for 40 million, oh it's all right. We'll give you 10 years out to sort of sort yourself out a little bit first. Maybe tell everybody who needs to be told. Dare I say it's the colour of your colour, Dom? No, you're dare I say this is class all over again.

SPEAKER_02 31:12

Yeah. Um, but one of the interesting things, and well, there are many interesting things about this case, one of which is how long it's taken to us actually to get this far. The other one is that it came out that sort of I remember I because I went back and did a bit of sort of looking at the past stories about how as 1855.com, they'd bought carveprivay.com in 2010, they'd bought chateauonline.com in 2011, and actually bought physical wine stores of the Cave de Transats de la Transit in 2012. And the actual the authorities had found that even back then, so we're talking what's that, 16 years ago, 67 years ago? Even back then, they're not quite sure how they managed to come up with the cash to do this because they were struggling financially then.

SPEAKER_01 31:54

Because they would got the money in advance of potential investors, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So dear me. Shall I just go over there and join the director of public prosecution or become the director of public prosecutions over there? Because clearly, I would have sort of solved this a lot quicker.

SPEAKER_02 32:11

I think you're on the wrong side of the coin here. I think you should be setting up an internet company which sells wine, which you don't have.

SPEAKER_01 32:18

The problem is, my poor old working class parents brought me up better than that.

unknown 32:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:24

That's the difference between me and these chances.

SPEAKER_02 32:27

The colour of your collar. The final story was actually quite a difficult one. So one one of those ones that you write where you're like, oh. Um yeah. Uh so it basically the the long and short of it was that this is a case which has sort of got a lot of public attention in Argentina, in which two women in a town of Aro Aroyoles, which is close to the Uruguayan border.

SPEAKER_01 32:49

Oh yes, this story.

SPEAKER_02 32:51

Yeah. Uh they came home one afternoon and decided they'd have a crack open a bottle of wine. Uh the actual wine, the wine, if you go to I actually found the um the investigating investigations reports. Uh, they actually got the name of the wine. I don't think people mentioned it because, you know, it's found not, it wasn't the winery's fault. But they came back, saw this bottle of wine, thought, we'll crack this open. Uh they it was underneath the sink, which was probably already a warning sign, or at least underneath the worktop of the kitchen, and it had been there for a while. And they cracked open this bottle of wine, and one of them immediately realized something was wrong, smacked it out. The other one, by the time she'd realised something that was wrong, had already swallowed a bit. And basically what happened is someone had put caustic soda, which is which is a cleaning agent, in the bottle, and it was quite a quite a potent uh amount of caustic soda, which is pretty horrific. Uh it's it's lie. It'll be an appalling way to go. Yeah, um, quite a horrific thing to do, and they had to rush someone to hospital, they had to rush one of these women to hospital. Uh, but they can't work out how it ended up in there. And there's so it's obviously been emptied and refilled at some stage. I suspect the the police probably have their hypotheses. Although there's clearly negligent behavior, they said there's no malicious intent. But they're wondering what on earth happened and how it ended up in there. And yeah, so it was yeah, it was not the same thing.

SPEAKER_01 34:15

It makes you make you think all sorts of weird start spinning weird theories in your head, doesn't it? Yeah, yeah, but that's pretty much perhaps how her and her husband were getting on at the time. Um and I'm not trying to make this a laughing matter, obviously, because it's an appalling way for anybody to die, you know. I mean, but no one died. Luckily, no one died. Oh, well, okay.

SPEAKER_02 34:34

It was okay.

SPEAKER_01 34:34

Well, okay, but I mean, uh let's be honest, her insights are gonna be shredded pretty much. Yeah, that's not gonna be nice. Oh Lord, yeah, very thoughts of it. Anyway, oh that's yeah, that's not great. Yeah, so that was that was that was a rather nasty note to finish up. I'm glad you buried that at the bottom, to be perfectly honest.

SPEAKER_02 34:52

I did. I was wondering about whether I should write about it, but it would yeah, it's sort of yeah, wine adjacent, shall we say?

SPEAKER_01 34:56

Indeed, just be careful in future and just make sure you don't store wines in the kitchen. Don't store caustic soda in wine bottles. Don't store anything bad in wine bottles, folks.

SPEAKER_02 35:07

Just yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:08

I mean, you know, I can.

SPEAKER_02 35:09

Surely it goes without saying, but anyway.

SPEAKER_01 35:12

Yes, well indeed. What have we got to look forward to? Well, we've got lots of things to look forward to, haven't we? We've got lots and lots and lots and lots and lots. But mostly what I want to talk about is we're going to have a special podcast this week.

SPEAKER_02 35:28

We are.

SPEAKER_01 35:29

We're going to record another podcast, a bonus episode for you people. It'll be our first interview. Uh well, it's not really an interview as such, it's more of a discussion, but it'll be a three-way discussion. Well, it'll be mostly a two-way discussion. I shall be just merely moderating it to keep the two warring parties apart. And it will be actually they're not warring parties. I'm just trying to build this something.

SPEAKER_02 35:52

Well, this is right now. You should, yeah, in the red corner.

SPEAKER_01 35:54

This will yes, this will be. Yes, in the red corner, we have you know the working class hero, Oliver Stiles. And in the blue corner. Um of the people, clearly. Um, um, and in the blue corner will be David Allen, MW, um, yeah, uh, formerly of this parish. Yeah, our erstwhile wine director here at um wine searcher. And what's happened is we've already wrote a story two weeks ago now.

SPEAKER_04 36:20

Yeah, was it a week ago, two weeks ago?

SPEAKER_01 36:22

Yeah, it was about Bordeaux and how it doesn't really have to worry about the weather anymore because the weather. So provocatively saying the weather really has very little impact on the wines, at least if you are judging by the final wines, yeah, and you look at the yeah, and you and you look at the actual weather that people were going, oh, but we had to battle this, yeah, as winemakers increasingly do. Um, uh, whereas David thinks that that's not quite fair. He's been over there and he's going to bring the other side of the argument. Yes. And the two of you are going to slug it out in a civil manner. Slug it out over 90 rounds. Yeah, that'll be it. Well, I think we'll just stick to the traditional 15, shall we? Um, um, this this this being something of a heavyweight boat. Um, you never know what we might do is we might.

SPEAKER_02 37:13

I hope we live up to the billing. Geez.

SPEAKER_01 37:15

Well, I think we I think we will because what we're going to do is we're going to have a we're going to have a little drink while we're doing it. Oh, no. Well, is that wise? We're going to have a little glass of wine or something while we're doing it. I think it is. And I think I think it'd be only fair if we had a glass of Bordeaux while we did it.

SPEAKER_02 37:29

Well, yes, yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_01 37:30

Um so we're going to have some we're going to have a glass of wine. Doctor. We may even discuss the gl what's in the glass.

SPEAKER_04 37:36

Right, okay.

SPEAKER_01 37:37

And yes, and we shall see where it takes us. That's how after that, just for our listener out there, just to make sure to keep you excited, if the idea of if the idea of two Englishmen discussing the weather doesn't really get you, um, then I'm sure How could you resist? I'm sure our next one will be, which will be when we will be discussing the US wine market with our US editor uh W Blake Gray. It's great. I'm looking at that. So which will be fantastic. It'll be great to have Blake on the podcast, and it'll be great to uh talk about the world's biggest and well really most important wine market, yeah, absolutely. Which is um the United States.

SPEAKER_02 38:16

And there's a lot being going on over there.

SPEAKER_01 38:17

There's an awful lot going on over there from tariffs. You know, tariffs, the there's well no tariffs, no tariffs, tariffs, no tariffs, yeah, yeah. Um distribution. Well, there's the wine shipping. We've got well, I mean, we've got a story today about how Ohio are now asking the are now asking the Supreme Court to decide on wine shipping, and this could be the one. This could be the one. I feel like I've heard that story like every ten years.

SPEAKER_02 38:43

This is true, but it gets sent to the Supreme Court and they don't really make a decision.

SPEAKER_01 38:47

Exactly. This time they will because this is not a business taking it to court. It's a federal court. This is the actual government, the state government taking it to uh it's the attorney general of Ohio who's asking the Supreme Court to decide. So it's an unusual move, and it's up. But but we've also got, I mean, you know, just last week we heard about Treasury, you know, offloading half of their huge uh US holdings, which I mean I would suggest Bewley Vineyards is safe and Stag's Leap is definitely safe. But there's some other well-known brands that will just be hyped off. Um, you know, so there's a lot of reorganizational reshuffling going on in the United States, and and that treasury deal also includes some pretty impressive vineyards, yeah. But then but then, as we've also been reporting, nobody's really buying vineyards in California. It's not a great investment, not at the moment. I mean, 10 years ago, yeah, you couldn't get them for loving their money. Yeah, but these days, not quite so good. So, you know, there's a lot to discuss, and it'll be great, it'll be great to um to have a chat to them about it. Awesome.

SPEAKER_02 40:01

Have a great week, Don.

SPEAKER_01 40:02

Yep, you too, Ollie. And we will we will talk again soon.

SPEAKER_02 40:05

I think so.

SPEAKER_01 40:06

Yep. Bye now.

SPEAKER_00 40:10

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 winehesarcher.com.