The Week in Wine Episode 44

Don drinks an Alsace blend from New Zealand producer Yealands while our end-of-month roundup is dominated by spirits headlines, with value Tequila and high-end Bourbon grabbing much of the attention in June. Bordeaux prices, the news that the worst is still to come for the French wine industry and a surprise show from Chile also add to the month's big stories.

There's speculation that the wine world might be getting tired of tariff talk and a brief look at a story on the evolution of style and soil in Sancerre in the light of climate change. We also touch in the ongoing crisis in Cognac and a tidbit from the tiny Pécharmant appellation of South West France which has landed itself in hot water after choosing an events company tied to Christian nationalists and with reports of far-right slogans and outright racism at previous iterations.

This week's stories are dominated by news that Brazilian soccer star Neymar Jr. is launching a range of wines in his home country; a couple in a €7 million scam in northern Loire; proposed changes to the Crémant de Loire production parameters; massive Spanish producer Felix Solis posts a bumper year in 2025 and a bottle commemorating Diego Maradona's 'Goal of the Century' is re-released.

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 winehightensearcher.com. Good morning, Tom.

SPEAKER_02 0:24

Good morning, Ollie. How are you this fine morning? I'm pretty croaky. How are you? You do sound great, but um, yeah, you sound terrible. What's the matter with you?

SPEAKER_01 0:34

I just got a seasonal cold, you know. In the petri dish, in the petri dish that is our household. Thankfully, we're not in the same studio. That's all I can say. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I probably should have a calling a sicky today, Don, but Well, you probably should, but too late now.

SPEAKER_02 0:50

You've proved yourself eminently capable of work. So um Right.

SPEAKER_01 0:55

Uh it's the end of the month. It's rolled around again. Yes. So let's let's do it, shall we? How do you want to start? Do you want to start with the weeks or the months stuff? Well, let's let's let's start with the week, I think. Okay. What were the big stories this week, Don?

SPEAKER_02 1:09

Well, the big stories what the big story this week is you never asked me, did I have a nice drink on the weekend?

SPEAKER_01 1:14

I'll delete the exclusive I just used. Yes, it did. I'm out of sorts. I'm out of sorts, that's what it is. Did you have anything nice to drink at the weekend, Don?

SPEAKER_02 1:26

Yes, I did. I could say this because um we were talking just before we started this recording um about this particular wine. And what it was was what's known as an Edelsvicker, which is a noble blend. It used to be a word that was used often in Al's Ass back in the day for um field blends of the noble varieties there, so the Pinot Gris, the Gewurzes, and so forth. And this is exactly what the Yelin's PGR, which was the the wine I had. It's a single vineyard field blend of Pinot Gris, Gewürz threw me, and Riesling. And it was excellent. It's it slightly surprised me because I've never been a huge fan of Yeelin's wines. I you know, they often didn't they weren't they didn't stand out enough. You know what I mean? Right. Yeah. They were they were perfectly acceptable wines, offensive to nobody, but nothing really stood out and said, hey, we're great. But this really was. It was brilliant. It's a it's a surprising blend, and it really works. It's it's a beautiful see all the parts of it, but you can't really see the join between them. Right. Yeah, yeah, nice, nice. So I'm I'm presuming it's a co-ferment because you do get that very seamless, a seamless kind of spectrum of flavour across it. From the sort of the pear, the pear of Pinot Gris to the lychee of and rose water and ginger of geburts and that beautiful, those beautiful citric Riesling characters. Yeah, yeah. Um but yeah, that was a really interesting wine and not something that I would normally drink, to be honest. But um it was really, really good.

SPEAKER_01 3:10

Awesome. I think it must be one of those difficult things if you're a large, and yeah, this is large by New Zealand standards, to produce noteworthy, well not noteworthy is not the word, but individual wines, if you know what I mean.

SPEAKER_02 3:21

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, the problem with a big concern in New Zealand at the moment is that effectively they're they're aiming for, and this sounds sounds like a terrible dismissal, but it's not meant to be, but they're aiming for super supermarket status. Yeah, they're looking they're they're looking for the high volume sales. So consequently, as with almost all supermarket wines, things to tend to become a little bit formulaic. Yeah. So the Sauvignon Blanc will be cookie cut or Sauvignon Blanc, you know, that will taste like pretty much every other Sauvignon Blanc. And and of course, then we're talking about Marlboro, so they all do taste the same anyway. But with a few heroic exceptions, yeah, and so it's but you know, they know what they're aiming for. They're they're tr wanting to sell a lot of wine, so it's probably best. But it is interesting that they're doing these this single vineyard series that they do. Um I mean I've had the Chardonnay was pretty decent. The single vineyard Chardonnay was was good. I really like the Alberino. The Alberino is brilliant, and I think partly the reason for that is the coastal nature of the vineyard.

SPEAKER_01 4:26

Yes, there's also and also uh head winemaker um Nat Christensen also worked at Reaspicious as well, so she knows Alberino. Oh yeah, yeah. Which is a help. It's always a help.

SPEAKER_02 4:37

Well, it is, but I think Alberino has also helped a lot by being in its natural environment, which is why the same. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And there are there are a few more coastal ends of New Zealand's wine industry than where Yeland's is. It's stuck out Seddenway out east, east, uh sort of northeast Marburg, the very northeastern tip of um the New Zealand South Island, out out near the old uh the the salt flat. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:07

Quite quite an unusual place in the world.

SPEAKER_02 5:09

It really is. It's an odd place, it's a kind of a desolate kind of place.

SPEAKER_03 5:14

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_02 5:15

So did you drink anything of memor memorable on the weekends?

SPEAKER_01 5:18

Uh not really, no. So it's quite quite nice that you had something nice to drink. I had a couple of Chardonnays, uh, I think, yeah, but nothing, nothing outrageously memorable, honestly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:30

So well let's get let's get back on on track then.

SPEAKER_01 5:33

Yeah, let's get back on track.

SPEAKER_02 5:37

Last week was dominated by Buffalo Trace. And the story about Buffalo Trace is proof of concept.

SPEAKER_01 5:43

Ah, this was this is the lowest strength, the lowest strength whiskey.

SPEAKER_02 5:47

Exactly. Now normally with bourbon, what you get is you put it into the barrel at 62.5%, 63%. Alcohol, so about 125 proof. And what happens then is the magic the that magic between that happens between wood and spirit forms. So the wood the spirit will extract some flavour from the wood, the wood will extract some of the harsher elements out of the whiskey, and so when it will it will all round become a s a milder, more rounded drink. But what Buffalo Trace were doing was thinking, well, what if we could alter that interface between wood and whiskey by putting it in at a lower ABV, a lower proof. Yeah. So that doesn't tend to suck as much timber from as much juice from the timber and as much flavor from the timber. Whereas the um and and again by the same time, it doesn't need to be as rounded and so forth because it's already pretty round. And so it's an interesting, it's a great yarn, actually. It's a lot, it's a good story about uh how distillers are having an impact on things. And um Buffalo Trace, of course, being the big bourbon producer, they've because they're the the the sheer number of brands they produce is bewildering. But the the they produce some of the biggest brands in the world. You know, the Pappy Van Winkles they're produced at Buffalo Trace, yeah, Sazarac, you know, Eagle Rare, WL Weller. Yeah you know, there's there are lots of them, and and they're all produced at Buffalo Trace. Um so yeah, that was that that was that was the big story of the week. I mean just having Buffalo Trace in the headline is great, but being able to put in sort of in the sort of the sub intro to add Pappy Van Winkle in there just really gets people um gets people's uh take on the go. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01 7:35

Nice, nice, and any other any other any other big stories from last week?

SPEAKER_02 7:39

Yes, well it was not so much from last week, but the week prior almost. It was not this Sunday story just gone, but the one before, which is French wine's crisis is only beginning. This is the one where we talked to we we talked about last week. Yeah, but where the Vigneron and former rugby player um Bertrand, is it?

SPEAKER_01 8:03

Yeah, Gerard Bertrand, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:05

Gerard Bertrand. He's down in Provence, is it or Languadoc?

SPEAKER_01 8:08

He's down in Languedoc, yeah. He's got he's got a number of properties. He sort of spans quite a lot of Longedoc. It kind of it's it's weird talking about his operation because it's it's basically a negos. He basically buys fruit and buys wine across the Longedoc, but he also has he also has vineyards. So it's kind of like a negos estate kind of combo. Still a hangover. We keep getting these hangovers. And there was no um there's no more there was no more tariffs. Is everyone just tired of tariffs now?

SPEAKER_02 8:36

I you know, something I think we are. I think we're kind of sick of it now at this stage, just a very word tariff and a headline doesn't really it doesn't really grab the attention the way it used to, mostly because you know, because of the the boy who cried wolf effect. Yeah, I suppose we're we're all a bit sick of tariffs, tariffs, tariffs. Yeah. Some little boys squealing all the way down the road, the tariffs are coming, the tariffs are coming. So maybe that's all gone. I'll tell you what was uh quite a surprising one for me, yeah, was the the third biggest read of the week was Solser's Lucy Future.

SPEAKER_01 9:14

Oh, no, I'm gonna really get story.

SPEAKER_02 9:18

Yes, yes, absolutely. And Solser is a religious hearts. Yes. This is true. Mine included. Oh well indeed, but I wasn't expecting it to be top three story one of the top three stories of the week. And yet that said it's it's a lovely story. It's a lot of it to do about um how the soil is impacting um efforts to mitigate climate change in in the Loire generally, but in Sancerre in particular. And yeah, it was a fantastic, it was a fantastic story, and I would I would urge anybody who's interested in either any of Sauvignon Blanc, Saint-Serre, Soil Science, or Climate Science to go and have a read of it. It's a it's a fascinating story.

SPEAKER_01 10:05

Yeah, I mean, I remember go on. Sorry, carry on. No, no, I I remember I interviewed the late Didier Dagono 20 years ago. I remember him talking about it then. And he and yeah, he was he was planting, he had experimental, and it's well known, but he had experiment experimental plantings of things like Riesling. Just because he was worried that that that you know serving them was losing its flintiness, it's sort of that real mineral acid edge over the years. And he was still like, you know, we need to be looking at things, ways to bring it back up. So it's still a well-known thing. Yeah, it's fascinating. Fascinating. How about the month then? How was how was the month of June? What what are the big stories for the month of June?

SPEAKER_02 10:42

Uh the big story for the biggest story for the month of June was the world's best value, tequila's, which is still going. To be honest, uh three of the top five stories for the month were about spirits. The Buffalo Trace story is also one of the biggest most stories, which give you some ideas. It's only we've only it's only been out a week. Yeah. Um in fourth, though, was uh the best value bourbon, which comes from before from May. And that's still if we were talking about hangovers, the bourbon hangover is clearly the one that's clearly the one to avoid, it's the one that lasts for more than a month. And that's an impact on the readership figures that it comes in at number four in our monthly story. But what's interesting then is what the other two stories are um in the top five, and they're both wine stories. At number five is Bordeaux prices tumble in the US, which was a story we did quite early on in the month. Um it was about how retail prices in for Bordeaux wines in the US are collapsing. Well, not collapsing, but they're they're coming down quite a bit, you know, so 15% differences year on year. That's uh that's quite substantial. Yeah, and it's it we're not just talking about the basic Bordeaux either. We're talking about you know, proper appellation borders, you know what I mean. You know, so we're we're talking about poyaks, and we're talking about Santa Steph's and so forth. And it's um, yeah, it's it's so it's hitting everybody across the board. So that was it. I'm not surprised that's one of the top five stories.

SPEAKER_01 12:28

No, especially especially at the end of On Premiere. Like it was kind of like that towards the end of Enpremo, it was it was nicely timed as well. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 12:36

And now the what the what the second most read story of the month is the one that still slightly baffles me, and it's the story about how Chilean wine is not selling in the US.

SPEAKER_01 12:47

Oh wow. I wonder if I wonder if they um I wonder if it's one of those case one of those stories, and you get this occasionally, where basically it's picked up by the wine industry in the home country. I remember I had a story, it was years ago now, but somebody at the OIV had picked it up and referenced it in a and the OIV was like the UN of wine, it's based in France, and you know, it's very wine trady, it's it was very not about consumers, it's very much about the wine industry itself. But when you get a link like that, it can and it gets people's eyeballs on that story, and it just blows up out of nowhere. I I wonder if sometimes that happens.

SPEAKER_02 13:24

Um I had a look at that, to be honest, and very little very little of the readership is from Chile. Oh wow. Indeed, South America generally. It's it's all it's in t almost entirely US, obviously it's most of it, um, followed by the UK, followed by Australia. Oh wow, and some New Zealanders as well reading it as well. But uh it's it's mostly down to that, and uh which is quite odd because as you say, this we've done this before where we've had I don't know, a story like you know, world's best valued Spanish wines or something. Yeah, and it gets picked up by an organization into Spanish, yeah, and and as a result, we'll get this huge spike in readership for the story, almost entirely coming from the one country, from Spain, for example. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um and you will get that. You you will get country-specific readership spikes, but not in this case. This is really interesting to me. It suggests that there's a lot of interest still in Chilean wine, yeah, and a fondness for it. Yeah, and which uh but but then again, which was referenced in the story, nobody seems to be buying it. So I mean, we shouldn't laugh, really. It's a really no well no, we shouldn't, but uh it's a really deep quandary for producers in Chile because there's obviously a lot of as I say fondness for Chilean wine out there in the market. But how do they turn that fondness into hard cash? How do they convert that sort of popularity into sales? Yeah, um which I suppose is a it's it's a microcosm for the entire wine world at the moment, isn't it? True, true, very true. Everybody wanting to trying to um wanting to sell things. Uh but yeah, but that was it for the stories, really. The readership this month's been excellent. Um I'd like to thank I'd like to thank our reader. He's definitely uh our reader tells me a lot of bases. He's been going over and above while our reader, our reader in France, just like to say hello to Caroline at this stage. She's been picking up the slack in Europe, which has been really good. So, right, let's talk about the weekend's roundup.

SPEAKER_01 15:45

Yeah, okay. So before we do that, uh there's a couple of things that didn't get included because they're kind of bubbling away under the surface. We know we know them already. The main one, there's a there's a bunch, and they're there, so they're not really newsworthy. They weren't really, they didn't really merit being part of it, but they're they're going on at the moment. One, obviously, is cognac. Like Hennessy came out last week and said the next 12 months are going to be decisive for cognac. Like, well it's kind of we kind of know this. Anyone who's listened to the podcast, anyone who's sort of kept an eye on what's going on, certainly in what I do on the Sunday stories, is pretty aware that things in Cognac are not going great. And it's it's they're going through a really tough time. The purchases, because it's a lot of it's like an ego system, a lot of it is purchases of uh spirits or purchases of wine to be made into spirit by major companies, so that major companies aren't carrying all the risk. Well, the problem is that puts the risk down onto the small guys, and the small guys are pretty angry, pretty annoyed. So, anyway, but that that's the thing with that. So Hennessy came out and said, you know, Hennessy obviously famously just come out with like a ready-to-drink RTD's cognac based on cognac, basically. Yeah, you know, apparently um wine prices in cognac, this is all from Sud West, actually, which is a very big regional newspaper in that in that kind of western coast of France, southwestern coast of France, saying that um vineyard prices in Charente and Charant Maritime, which are basically the two major areas for producing cognac, are down by half. Like they've been half. Vineyard prices are down like 52, 57%. Wow. Which is which is, you know, pretty huge. Uh another one, another story which is kind of it was a weird one. Uh basically, this is Pet Charmand, which is uh an appellation in the Southwest, have basically hired Le Canon Français, which is a it's kind of an events group that does these big long tables, old-style French sort of food, with they get a band in to sing, you know, 1980s French songs, which you know anyone who's lived any sort of spent any time in France knows that the French have this sort of very fond memories of of past and the glory years of the 80s and 70s and and French song in those days. Anyway, they have these big sort of festival things, but the issue with Le Carol France is there's and this has been covered by quite a few major newspapers, there's a big link between Le Carol France and quite far right or Christian nationalist far right owners. Whoa! Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there's a big there's a big to-do in France, it's quite niche, which is why I didn't put it in. There's kind of a big to-do in France about, you know, was this the right thing to do? Is it the right thing to do? There's a bunch of people in Petramand going, like, we just want him to have a party. We don't we know, sorry, we don't know what's going on. Wine is a political, and people are going, yeah, but you shouldn't have go on.

SPEAKER_02 18:37

I can I can just imagine them marching to their tables, one arm extended in front of them, vessel on.

SPEAKER_01 18:46

You we laugh, but it got like that. So it's this um there was a a national or regional um radio station did uh sort of you know, went in with a hidden camera and and recorded one of these things happening in in Normandy, and things got pretty, pretty rough. Now, you know, it's people who are having a party and having having a bit to drink, but there's some pretty nasty undercurrents with this. Anyway. Moving on. Moving on. Neymar has launched a wine range. How about that?

SPEAKER_02 19:20

He can't leave the field to Messi entirely, can he?

SPEAKER_01 19:23

No, well, I think what's interesting about Neymar's wine range is he's obviously very well structured. He's got uh Desilviano Jr., who's Brazil's first MW, to give him a hand. And you can you can sort of see, you sort of see he's he's got some good producers in his lineup. He's using Terra Astral in Chile to make his entry-level wines. He's used Faustino and Paco Ilola in Spain to make his sort of legacy level wines, uh, not his legacy level wines, his heritage level wines, legacy level wines, Abadia Retuerta and Castilleon, and Romain Giuviane in Chateaufap. What was interesting is his blue line, the sort of ultra-exclusive line, of which I couldn't find much information, is gonna be Bordeaux, of course, I guess, but he's using SGC. Now I had to look up SGC. Now, SGC was a sort of called a disruptive kind of Legos brand. And even calling it Legos brand is a bit unusual. Basically, it was established just over a decade ago by a hedge fund manager, Arnold Christians, and it was this, and he kind of like put out this story that he'd found these parcels of land in Bordeaux, which were up there in terms of quality with anything else that was produced in the 1855 classification, and he sourced these finds and produced sort of you know generic omidoc, generic PIAC, generic Settiminon. And I think even James Robertson went over and rated them like 19.5 and name drops of uh, you know, first quality, blah blah blah. But then it's been strangely quiet on that front for like the last 10 years. We haven't really heard much of SGC until now. So it looks like Neymar's sort of picking up the slack in terms of SGC's Bordeaux production. Oh what I thought was interesting was that it's I think it's clearly aimed at Brazil in terms of like as the wine market. And it could be a good thing for the Brazilian wine market. I mean, and we know Brazilians produce wine, we know they drink wine. Um, with the Mercosur trade agreement, there's all sorts of talk about South America right now. But it could be really interesting for the Brazilian wine industry or wine trade, shall we say?

SPEAKER_02 21:19

Oh, exactly. Exactly. Why not? And to be honest, um it's perfect timing if you want something, if you want somebody from football from international to be front-footing your your campaign in the in the wider the wider wine world.

SPEAKER_01 21:36

Yeah, that's good good times. Uh the next one was quite incredible. Uh middle-aged French couple are up in court for a massive wine scam. So they had they bought a vineyard. They bought a vineyard in the Loire, where it's in the Sartre, which is like a lost area. They're sort of just north of Namont, which has never been really known for its wines. And they'd established a five hectare domain and got a lot of retirees to let just invest a lot of money. And we're talking up to up to seven million euros. Oh, yeah. People individually investing like hundreds of thousands of euros to get like six bottles of wine a year as part of their dividend. And then, you know, because it was all fine it sorted sort of financed vineyard holdings, the idea was that the holdings would produce money and then so they they'd get dividends through from that. It never really eventuated. A couple of the people got wines back, but there was certainly none of the returns they were promised or told they would get. They've bought a Ferrari and some Chanel clothes and things like that. So it's quite but yeah, so the the sentencing for that is due in August, I think end of August. Uh it's not looking great for them. They've already got 11 convictions for fraud. Oh, and among other things, you know. So it's it's not gonna be it's not gonna be great. Uh Crement de Loire changes could isolate some producers. This is a talk that the Creme de Loire official protocol of winemaking could be changed, and which they're gonna try and actually make. If you're making Cremon de Loire, it has to have a certain percentage or minimum percentage of Chenin Blanc. Yeah, yeah, I mean you can understand it, you know, Chinat Blanc, flagship great variety of the region. But there are a couple of people who up until now had been making hay from the fact that there wasn't there weren't too many stringent production protocols around Cremon de Loire, and there's quite a few people like, for example, Domain de Varinel, which makes 100% Chardonnay or 100% Pinot Noir, Cremont Blanc, or Cremont de Loire. And they're like, well, are we gonna are we about to get kicked off? So we'll see. Watch the space, is what we said. Um, and that's another one. Next one, uh, go on.

SPEAKER_02 23:43

Sorry, I just need to go back to that one for a minute. Yeah. Because I have to say I've had sparkling Shannon and it's fantastic. Yes, okay. More of it, it is magnificent in its sparkling form. And it's it's a genuine, it's genuinely different to your normal standard sort of Chardonnay Pinot Noir blend or Pinot Chardonnay blend, whichever way you're doing it. And it's it's it's look, I'm all for it. Bring it on. More of it. Absolutely. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:15

Right, moving on. Uh Felix Solislavantes, so a massive central Spanish wine giant, that's a huge produce uh producer. Uh actually recently in the headlines or a couple of years ago, for accusations of sort of fraud in Val de Peñas. Do you remember that? Vaguely.

SPEAKER_02 24:30

Oh, yes, yes, not more than vaguely, yes.

SPEAKER_01 24:35

There was a spat between them and the other major producer whose name escapes me at the moment uh in the region. That's right. And wasn't one blaming the other for something? Yeah, there was all tit for tat. It was a classic, it was a classic European wine region falling out in so many ways. Anyway, uh they've had they've had bucking the trend. They've had a very good 2025 uh sales uptick of 5%, net profit of 29 million. Wow. It's broken its own records of 2024. Uh now obviously Felix Solisavantes is a huge company, like m like incredibly big. Like their turnover is 420 million euros. Wow. Yeah, yeah. And they've got they've got branches in Chile, they're looking to grow their um de-alkalized and 0% wine categories. Sales are growing. And they've they've talked a little bit about the headwinds, which include sort of US trade tariffs and other issues. But by and large, things are looking good if you're a bulk wine producer. Well, not bulk wine, but like you know what I mean. Quite sort of relatively uh high quantity wine producers. Entry level. There we go. The next story was a little one for the for all the uh England and Argentina fans. Uh this is a relaunch of the goal of the century wine, which is references Diego Marathona's uh incre like I honestly, you could not have two very different goals in one game. There was obviously the hand of God one, which England fans will remember with great bitterness, the first goal of that of that qualifying away.

SPEAKER_02 26:07

Yeah, I might suggest that um Irish and Scottish fans will remember with a warm glow of joy that many many years to come.

SPEAKER_01 26:16

I can just hear you chuckling through all of this. It's quite it's quite good. Um but then four minutes after the hand of God incident came, I think, quite rightly, one of the what's considered one of the greatest goals of the World Cup, which is basically where Maradona single-handedly runs well over half the length of the pitch, touches the ball 11 times, darts around four England players, and just slots the ball in the back of the net. It's quite an incredible run of uh footballing skill.

SPEAKER_02 26:46

It also gave rise to one of the greatest footballing quotes in history, and I can't remember who it was. Was it Higuera or somebody? The player who tapped the ball to him in the first place, like who gave Maradona possession in the first place, just inside his own half. Yeah, um, he tapped the ball to him, it was about eight-foot pass. Yeah and then afterwards, when somebody said what a great goal it was, he said it's the least he could have done after that beautiful pass that I laid it on for him in his own half. It was magnificent, but yeah, it was it was a thing of beauty that goal. Um the the I can't think of anything since that's come close to it. You know, obviously, people who believe football started in the 1990s think that Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo are, but I mean to me to me they're just trotting after the likes of you know Maradona. I was my old friend used to obviously say, you know, Maradona, Maradona good, Pele better, George best.

SPEAKER_01 27:48

Well, we I think you've said that in at least three or four podcasts so far. I'm just trying to re nail the point home.

SPEAKER_02 27:57

There was before any of these upstarts, except possibly there was this marvellous little permanently drunk Irish Irish master. He was as good as any of them.

SPEAKER_01 28:12

Um yeah, so the wine is called 1609, which is the timestamp of the goal. It's a 2023 Argentinian Malbec, uh produced in Lujan de Coyo. Uh it's who said it. The that label uses an infographic to reconstruct the complete trajectory of the play, including distance, time, and opponents beat him. I mean they're just lauding it over the over the Brits. Uh transforming each bottle into a piece linked to Argentine football history. Okay. And the final story he had was that Gonzalez VS, which will be known to listeners because they are very recently been struggling with debt and trying, struggling to refinance their debt, along with a number of major companies lately, wine companies lately, have auctioned off of some historic wines through Christie's. And the last time we did that was in 1994 with Michael Braubent, when Michael Braubend was around. But this includes uh a bottle, two-bottle lot of the ultra-rare Pio the Ninth 1846, which is a Moscatel which was bottled in honour of the appointment of the Pope Pio uh the Ninth in 1846, uh, which came with a 1997 Palo Cortado. I suspect the buyers were probably after the 1846 Moscatel, but who might judge? Another one included was a single bottle of uh Oloroso from 1886. It's fantastic. That would be showing some interesting caramel. I mean, for my for my money, the best were the Matuslam cream cherries from 1908, 1909, and 1911. Three of those three bottles of that. Imagine that. Fantastic.

SPEAKER_02 29:42

Everybody's got food cherry in your away, yeah, it's fantastic. Well, they're bought by somebody's grandmother.

SPEAKER_01 29:53

I mean I mean, to be fair, they went for what six thousand dollars, US dollars? That's not outrageous. But like for but for you know early 20th century vintages. Yeah, even like it's I know it's cream cherry, but what what the hell, man? You know, it's six thousand dollars for that. Yeah. Fair enough. Fair enough. So two thousand dollars a bottle. Yeah, I mean it's pricey, but it's not ridiculous.

SPEAKER_02 30:17

No, it's not, isn't it? When you can yeah, like you say, when you take into consideration the venerability of the bottles, I mean they're yeah, they're old.

SPEAKER_03 30:27

Yeah, mate.

SPEAKER_02 30:28

Yeah, anyway. Uh what have we got what have we got to look for to, Don? Well, we've got a couple of interesting little Italian stories coming up this week. Oh, nice. Our our US editor was who went to Italy for a while, and this is basically his his um composition on what I did on my holidays.

SPEAKER_01 30:45

It's all right for some, isn't it? Well, we're well, we're labouring here in the in the south, in the cool, wet south.

SPEAKER_02 30:52

Yeah, keeping the ship of the wine searcher's ship on the straight and narrow. Yeah. Um he's swanning off around. But um, it's interesting because he went to two areas that are known for specific wines, but he's writing about other wines. Um he went to Montefalco and instead of writing Sagrantino, he's writing about Treviano. Um interesting. At the best of times.

SPEAKER_01 31:26

No. True.

SPEAKER_02 31:27

But this is and he also went to San Gimiano. Oh yes. Um I told him if he was gonna be able to get I'd I'd buy him a drink if he was able to dredge dredge a story out of San Giuliano for the third, fourth year in a row. Um he didn't, he's had a look at something else instead. Umaccia from around there. But it's it's the evolution of a style there that would was at one stage grotesquely overhooked that it was undrinkable, but now it's um it's actually coming out as a nice thing, but he is absolutely definitely not saying that this is the next white burgundy.

unknown 32:05

Right.

SPEAKER_02 32:14

Because it's the that is the laziest. I mean, we've used it ourselves, God forgive us, but it's the laziest headline you can possibly write. I'll just go just uh make a point here of saying to any um freelance writers out there who are thinking of pitching to any editor, don't ever pitch the new X.

SPEAKER_01 32:38

Because there were a slew, there were a slew of book publications in the wine industry and probably probably elsewhere in like what the early 2000s. There's a new France, it was Andrew Jefferson New France, there was the new Spain by John Radford, and and so on. It went on and on, the new everything. And so I think, yeah, things that maybe we've moved on from that, thank goodness.

SPEAKER_02 32:58

Yes, we have mostly. We've also got a story this week coming up about old vines, but but without lining up the usual suspects, as it were. So we're not talking to people in the Rhone, and we're not talking to people in Lodi, and we're not talking to people in Barossa Valley.

SPEAKER_03 33:13

Right.

SPEAKER_02 33:13

Instead speaking to producers in Argentina, in Sicily, in Jura. Oh, that's cool. Interesting. It's different, it's a it's a different um take on it. It's not necessarily saying old vines are superior, it's it's just a look at the bonds thereof. And to be honest, it's the sort of thing you can go back to every now and again because attitudes to old vines do change. Yeah. Um not just from consumers, but also from producers, from growers even themselves. Yeah. You know, the amount of old vine grapes that they wish to use in blends and so forth, you know, is it it changes and it's it's as much fashion as anything else. So but that's a that'll be a nice interesting story, I think.

SPEAKER_03 34:01

Fascinating, yeah, I'm interested.

SPEAKER_02 34:02

Oh, great. We we've got another couple of best values coming up, you know. So we're not quite finished. We haven't wrung all the juice out of that one just yet, but we're getting so we'll be getting to the um we'll be getting to the uh big names shortly. Um we'll be getting to the Californias and the Bordeaux and Organization. Um you know, areas where uh yeah, value is probably going to be a relative term, I should imagine.

SPEAKER_03 34:28

Right.

SPEAKER_02 34:30

But by the same token, it will be it will but there will be value to be had.

SPEAKER_01 34:37

Yes. Yeah, there we go. Nice, awesome. What a way to bring in the new month. Well, here we come July. Oh, can't wait. Can't wait for the first time. I mean there's there's talk in some places of harvest starting at the end of July in France. Given the heat.

SPEAKER_02 34:56

It wouldn't surprise me given given the the the level of um increased temperature that Europe has been um experiencing in the last five to ten years, to be honest. Uh right. I remember quite a few years back doing a story or mentioning in a story about an Italian producer who had been harvesting Cabernet Sauvignon in July. Things have been so warm that year that he was he was harvesting Cabernet Sauvignon in July.

SPEAKER_01 35:27

Can you imagine?

SPEAKER_02 35:28

July in July. Anyway, dear lord, harvesting cabernet, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:38

We live in a changing world. We do indeed. We do indeed. Well, uh, let's catch up next week, Don, and see how the world has moved on since then. Brilliant.

SPEAKER_02 35:46

Okay, look forward to it.

SPEAKER_01 35:48

See ya, mate. Have a good week.

SPEAKER_02 35:50

Cheers, Ollie. Bye.

SPEAKER_00 35:57

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 wine searcher.com.