The Week in Wine Episode 45

Pinot Blanc seems to be increasing its profile of late, with Don tasting a nice example from Alsace this weekend and Olly getting asked about the grape on the fencing piste! Olly enjoyed a Hawke's Bay Albariño over the weekend.

This week, the recent 250th Champagne Roederer birthday bash gets the most eyeballs, while both the best-value Chardonnay and best-value Irish whiskey stories whet the appetites. As does, it must be said, a couple of stories on Italian white varieties. All of which surprisingly outperformed our story on Neymar Jr's foray into the world of wine.

We also look at the latest Succession-esque developments in the ongoing Castel drama; there's more wild weather in France (not only heatwaves but hail and wildfires); a Rioja bankruptcy that's "meticulously planned" and a nuns' appeal for a new tractor to tend their vines makes it into the headlines and hearts of the French public.

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_01 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, John! Good morning, Ollie. How are you?

SPEAKER_03 0:25

I'm good. How are you? Um great. Great. The sun is shining. It's morning. We've uh we've survived a stormy night, so you know, all good. You've had some wild weather up in Oakland, I hear. Oh, fierce, fierce altogether. Yes. Buckets of water being flung against windows and howling rain and or sorry, howling wind. Rain doesn't howl, rain just batters on tin roofs. Um, but yes, it's it did feel like some of the outdoor furniture was being shifted around by by invisible forces last night, but it's all still there this morning. So nice, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:00

Nice, nice, cool. Did you have anything nice to drink during those those wild and stormy nights?

SPEAKER_03 1:06

Well, it's been well, yeah, it's been one of those interesting kind of weekends again. I uh I had a very busy kind of drinking day on Saturday, but it was mostly beer because I was watching a lot of sport on television, so in various places. So um I that that was it, but um, as far as wine goes, I had one wine that I really loved this weekend. I haven't had it for ages. It was Pinot Blanc from Alsace. It was uh 2023 uh Giselbrecht Pinot Blanc. Yeah, nothing spectacular or special about it at all, but a really, really nice wine. Just brilliant, beautiful, rounded, integrated flavours, beautifully integrated. In fact, it's one of those wines where you know there's all these different flavours in it, but you can't quite tell where one starts and one finishes. You know, so it's got that lovely sort of integrated fruit character in it. Um, just really nice, yeah, and it's just such a pleasant change from you know big Chardonnays or savagely sour Sauvignons or um, you know, or or who knows what raclings, the sort of you know, the sort of racings you open, you've got no idea what it's gonna be like. Somebody and somebody somebody at the four tables away is going, oh my god, is there a kerosene lamp in here or something? So yeah, it was just really nice, and um um really a really good all-round wine. Do you know what I mean? It was it was nice with a bit of food, it was nice on its own, it appealed to people who drink different types of white wine too. I'm very much in the Chardonnay camp, or my partner has traditionally been in the Sauvignon Blanc camp, but um we were both perfectly happy drinking this wine.

SPEAKER_02 2:50

You're the second person actually to talk to me about Pinot Blanc in recent memory. In recent memory. Yes, yeah. I I was and this is very strange because I was I was when I was up in Auckland, when was it a couple of weeks back?

SPEAKER_03 3:01

Uh I was sort of I was on the paste, had a match with uh with a young chap who's actually part of the New Zealand team, and we came off and he said um because he just I'll just point out this before um before anybody starts getting worried that he's been chatting up um young guys in Auckland. Um he is a fencer. So when he says he was on the piste, he was fencing, he was not um drinking, not not drinking, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:27

So carry on. Carry on. And and uh and we sort of unplug afterwards because you do it electric through electrics and everything. As we're unplugging, and he knows I work in wine, he said, Um, I had a really nice wine the other day. I was okay, what was it? It's oh, it's a Pinot Blanc. Do you know about Pinot Blanc? And I was like, yeah, I know I know a bit about Pinot Blanc, but it was it and he's like, it was a really good wine. I said, Yeah, they they can they can be really good. Um, they can be quite bland, which I think you know they they suffer from that reputation, especially in the higher circles of the wine industry. But um the what do you mean Pinot Blanc? Do you mean among the wine snobs? Could be. But a well-made Pinot Blanc is a thing of beauty, delicious, really nice, nice wine. Exactly. It's great, good times. Yeah. Uh what did I have? I had a I had a couple of glasses of Kenzie Mangatahi Alberino from 2024, which is a small producer. He's actually he actually is sort of based half between Hawkesbare and Auckland, but he's got his own uh Dave Mackitoff's got his own brand and he brought round an Alberinho. His mangatahi Alberino from 24. Delicious, lovely, very you know, beautiful, fresh Alberino acidity, but very interesting, quite quite a lot of body and texture, and almost felt like this fruit was quite very quite sweet up front on the mid-pallette, which was very, very interesting.

SPEAKER_03 4:44

So yeah, uh tiny production and it's it's interesting how how many New Zealand wineries are hitting up the Alberino. I don't know. No, isn't it? I mean, it's um and and they seem to be good too. I mean, I really like the ones I've tried. It's a little surge.

SPEAKER_02 5:00

I think also what's happened, which another interest which is another interesting facet of a I suppose contraction of the wine industry, is that whereas normally lots of large players would take Alberino for themselves and produce it from growers, growers are now having to find outlets for Alberino, and it it falls upon the little guys sometimes who are like, oh yeah, I've always wanted to make Alberino, there's some free now. Let's give it a crack. True. So, yeah, yeah, interesting times. How was the week in wine? What's what are the big stories this week last week? It was pretty good, actually.

SPEAKER_03 5:33

And and it was I'll tell you what I like about this week, it was different. Oh, okay. Um interesting, and I'll tell you, I'll tell you for why. It was different because the big stories of the week were stories that we ran this week. This was we're we're so far this month. Well, certainly last month, we had a lot of ghost stories, if you know what I mean. There were stories that had hung around for a long time, being yeah, I mean, this is great, don't get me wrong. I I don't care if people read old stories or new stories as long as they're reading stories on our site.

SPEAKER_02 6:07

And it's it's a sign of a good story, right? That it's got it's it's got a tale.

SPEAKER_03 6:10

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. But um, this week's been very different, it's been all about the stories of this week.

unknown 6:17

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 6:17

Um, and so let's have a look where we're starting off with. The top story was Roder Pops Corks for Crystal.

SPEAKER_00 6:24

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_03 6:25

This is the 250th anniversary of Louis Roder, and the 150th anniversary of their Crystal Prestige Cuvée, which is um, you know, was you know, famously it was invented for the one of the Tsars of Russia, one of the Romanov czars, who wanted who had very specific things about it. He didn't want a punt in the bottle, he wanted it to be clear glass, and so forth. And and so it's um and that's still how you get Cristel today. Um it was an interesting, it was a great story. I I really enjoyed it. It was written by Caroline Henry, our resident correspondent in Champagne. Yep, she lives in Aubvilliers, uh, which is Don Perignon's home, of course. Yes, um, yeah. So she could she couldn't be any more embedded in in Champagne, but it was a it was it was a genuinely interesting story for me because um it's not often that Caroline gets invited to the kind of mainstream champagne things like this because she has often been slightly, how should we put this, critical of Champagne's workings, its goings on with its you know the the way it uh handles itself when it comes to the environment and when it comes to reporting the news accurately, so giving the numbers and so forth. But anyway, yeah, so it was nice, it was nice, and it's it was a nice, you know, it's like just a good natured story, and it was a kind of story it was befitting a celebratory occasion, you know. It was this was not a story high on contention. Um but it was you know, it's nice, it's just nice every now and again to sort of vicariously share in a happy occasion. Right, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 8:13

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:14

It's it's um it it's it's like old was it Mark Twain who once said he never wished anyone dead, but um he he read certain obituaries with great approval. Um so not not quite that bad, but you know, it's it's kind of it's nice to um you know it's just nice to sort of as I say vicariously be part of the celebrations.

SPEAKER_02 8:36

There's a thing that I I I I I have stuff, the same things gets leveled at my writing occasionally, and I'm very quite down on the wine industry. And it comes from and Bordeaux, it comes from a place of love though. It it comes from a place of like let's do better and let's try and make everything work better and and be better. Yes, I think that's that's the idea. And you and you'll get it, you'll get it with anyone who's sort of inside the industry in that to that degree.

SPEAKER_03 9:01

Well, this is true. It and it does always remind me of when my children were young, and I used to say to them when they'd done something wrong, I'm not angry, I'm just very disappointed. Yeah, it's a it's a sort of parental disappointment level. That's what that's all you've got. It's not it's not you know malice or ill will.

SPEAKER_02 9:20

No, no, no, yeah, yeah. It's just like, come on, guys, come on. Let's let's at least or just you know, just a way of looking at things that are slightly different or a bit interesting. I yeah, and I it was interesting because I saw so many people on Instagram who I follow who are at that party. Yeah, it was obviously quite a big it's always quite a big party.

SPEAKER_03 9:36

It was quite a big party, and hilariously, if you look at a lot of the Instagram pictures from the the Instagram feeds of people, of I mean, I've seen a few of them, yeah, where they keep posting pictures, and as the night goes on, the quality of the picture I think probably reflects the the uh true uh level of the party at the time. It seemed to be the party went on for quite some time.

SPEAKER_02 10:06

The quality of the picture and the uprightedness of the participants, yes, indeed, in some cases, who will remain nameless. Bless you all, hope you all had a lovely time. Not that I was jealous of you guys hanging smooching around in in the halls of the mighty in the middle of summer in France while we while we shiver our things off in New Zealand. Anyway, fantastic, good times, and a great and a great little story also of um Peter Liam diving for a shipwreck and getting some bottles of crystal out of the water, which is quite exciting as well.

SPEAKER_03 10:38

That was the other part. I love that because that's that shows a level of dedication, doesn't it? It does.

SPEAKER_02 10:44

I mean, I presume he was somewhat bankrolled by I would I would I should imagine so.

SPEAKER_03 10:50

I I should imagine so, but it's not just you know, sort of I'm so fond of this wine, I'll drink it at a free party. But but I will I'm also so fond of this wine that I will dive under the sea to rescue bottles of it.

SPEAKER_02 11:04

Yeah, I mean, fair enough. Like you'd certainly um earned it. Looking at all the gear he was wearing to go get those bottles. I was like, wow. Indeed.

unknown 11:12

Indeed.

SPEAKER_02 11:14

The Baltic isn't known for its temperate waters either.

SPEAKER_03 11:18

No, no, in fact, in in in English, it's it's rhyming slang, well, it's it's slang for freezing.

SPEAKER_02 11:24

Yeah, yeah. Baltic.

SPEAKER_03 11:26

Anyway, let's move on. We can see. The rest of the top five are all from um uh stories that were published this week, but they can be neatly grouped into two categories. One is the best values, so we had best value chardonnay was the second most read story of the week, which is which was a good this is a nice story because I like the best value chardonnays because what we tend to do is we tend to remove burgundy from the equation. We do a separate one for burgundy, and although yes, I I could see a few people laughing now, thinking of burgundy and value in the same sentence, but um it will I can almost guarantee you that the white burgundy list of best value will be filled almost entirely by wines from Chablis.

SPEAKER_00 12:13

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 12:13

Um, due to the curious nature of uh that Shablis is somehow still considered part of Burgundy, but anyway.

SPEAKER_02 12:20

And price slightly lower generally.

SPEAKER_03 12:22

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:23

But very I thought that was a really interesting list as well. Some really different countries and different places, uh, quite a few from Chile, obviously.

SPEAKER_03 12:29

Um Chile, Argentina, Austria.

SPEAKER_02 12:32

Austria, I was gonna say Austria. I'm really keen to give some of these wines a try. Oh, it's so good, you know. That was one of one of the wonderful things about those best value stories is you're like, oh, oh yeah. And there's some I've tasted. Like I remember tasting some of them, like the Metitic one and the Tabali, I'm pretty sure I've had the Giesen fooder, which is from New Zealand, also great Chardonnay, quite pricey that one, but you know, just getting the scores.

SPEAKER_03 12:56

But um yeah, but I mean we can get stuff like the Buscado Vivo Almeto. Um I want to try that. I want to try that because it's it's basically it says want the dead or alive on the front. So brilliant, and I want I desperately want to try the Vingtlachner from Austria, because I genuinely never think of Schardner when I think of Austria.

SPEAKER_00 13:19

Neither.

SPEAKER_03 13:19

I just sorry. Gruner Weltleaner, yes to Pinot Gris, yes to Sauvignon Blanc, even yeah, and Riesling, of course.

SPEAKER_02 13:26

It's very strange because I tend to I slightly because it's sort of I suppose a mathematic equation that we produce these best value lists or these best wines lists. I'm always a little bit skeptical, but there's something about especially these ones where I'm like, I really want to try these wines, and I think that's a really good thing. I think that's you know, that proves value in a place.

SPEAKER_03 13:45

True. Now the other um the other best value story that we had this week was the obviously the best value Irish whiskies, which was of course, which was that's the cause close to my heart, obviously. Um, um anything special? Well, what got me there well yes, yes, and I've got to say, I mentioned it in the st when I wrote the story, but I'll mention it again now just so that there's absolutely I know where this is going.

SPEAKER_02 14:09

Go on.

SPEAKER_03 14:10

No doubt about this whatsoever. The best value Irish whiskey we could find on our database was one called Kavanaugh Irish whiskey. And I just wanted to say this has nothing to do with me, and it has nothing to do with that kind of strange odd nepotism you get when you see something with your own name on it. But I again I desperately want to drink this whiskey. If somebody can get me a bottle of this and get it to New Zealand, or even get me a bottle of this and get it to Ireland, because I'll be over there in four in four weeks' time. It was quite it was good, it was some odd, non not mainstream whiskies, shall we say? So I mean you're you're you're not looking at the Jemisons and the Bushmills of this world here. No. There are some um well-known ones, Kilbegan, of course, is reasonably well known. It used to be known as locks originally, but due to a concatenation of names and the association of locks with a certain type of hospital in Ireland in the 1900s. Perhaps it was decided that they would call it Kilbegan instead. For anybody who doesn't know about that, I would suggest looking up the Locke Hospital, familiarly known as the Pox Doctors. It was uh yes, it was one of those kind of hospitals, and so it's understandable then that um that possibly they changed the names. The Concanon blended whistry whiskey is an interesting one. It's uh technically made in County Louthe, it's made at the Cooley Distillery, which is was owned by Taylor's. I'm not sure that I don't think they own it anymore, but um it was a distillery that was that came online in the late 80s um and was the first sort of independent distillery in Ireland for a long, long time. But um, but this one is named after the Concannon Vineyard in California in Livermore Valley, I think. Yes, um, and it's aged in Concanon casts.

SPEAKER_02 16:04

Oh, right, form of ours, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:05

Yeah, they they used to hold Concanon Petit Sarat or Durouf.

SPEAKER_00 16:09

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_03 16:10

Um that's cool. What a great story. Aged in that. It's a cool little story, isn't it? Yeah. And uh yeah, that made our that made our list as well. So what happened to Neymar? I would have thought Neymar would have been all over our all over the thing. He was just outside, just nudged outside the top five. But um, but the other two were two little white Italian grapes that nobody really knows a great deal about. One of them is Trebbiano Spotolino or Spolettino, sorry. I was just going to go back to the colour.

SPEAKER_02 16:41

I was just gonna work out how to say it. I was trying to get my mouth around the word spolettino, spolettino.

SPEAKER_03 16:46

Trebbiano Spolettino. It's from Umbria. Yep. And um it's you know, not many people know that, as they say. It's it's made in Montefalco, which is um Sagrantino country.

SPEAKER_00 16:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:59

Really. Um Sagrantino, the Montefalco is, you know, is a very well-known red wine. But this is the white wine of Sagrantino, oh Montefalco. 50 hectares of grapes are planted to um Spoleto. Oh, it's planted to uh Trebbiano Spoletino, which is named for the village of Spoleto. And as the story points out, how big is 50 hectares, you ask? Well, the Vatican City is 44 hectares, and Disneyland in California is 65 hectares, so it falls between those two cultural icons. Um, yes, and the other one, the other white wine was Vernaccia.

SPEAKER_02 17:36

Yes, two great little stories, those that made me thirsty. Made me thirsty, which is always a good sign, right? You're like, uh it's it's also Italian whites. There's something about Italian whites. I think it's the texture and the freshness and everything else.

SPEAKER_03 17:49

And you're like, oh I you know and and this was um this was mentioned very uh heavily that this is not the new burgundy. He was not saying it is the new burgundy. Nobody suggested for a moment it was the new burgundy, although it could fill a place that white burgundy used to fill on US wine lists. Yes, well, in that it's a dry oaked white wine, yes and um it was I think this story actually came as part of a challenge when um Blake, who wrote the story or US editor, informed me that he was heading to San Gimiano again. And I said, Well, good luck finding an original story there, because you've been writing it for years now that um San Gimiano is great wine and horribly underappreciated. So good luck finding a new angle on that, and just to prove that he could, he did.

SPEAKER_02 18:50

He produced well that well done, right?

SPEAKER_03 18:52

Good job. So there you go, and that was it. And and then um outside of those stories, the next big story we had was um yes, Neymar. Yeah, no, who is currently unable to find a way past the um Norwegian defence. Um still nil all in um uh the MetLife Stadium, New Jersey.

SPEAKER_02 19:16

Yeah, 66 minutes in, apparently. So that'll that'll date our podcast immediately, won't it?

SPEAKER_03 19:21

Well well, yes it will, yes it will. Now on you you fool! You fools, you've let it out of the bag. They know when we do this. They know we do this on a Monday morning. Yes, oh dear, anyway. Um, but yes, so let's talk about Neymar. Oh no, but this is Castell this time. Of course it is, that was the previous week, wasn't it? Yeah, what am I talking about? See, this is what happens when you start talking about living in the past with stories. Right. This is the hanging. Now, this is brilliant because this gave me a chance to put succession and plot in the same headline. Nice, yes. For well, for fans of the HBO show, that will have surely gonna be.

SPEAKER_02 19:57

Well, there are there are there are very much sort of elements of that, aren't there, in this whole Castell thing?

SPEAKER_03 20:02

Oh Lord, yes, this is fantastic. This is um this is the story of a French giant that is going through transition and the transition isn't going too well. So um tell me more.

SPEAKER_02 20:17

So this is as as uh French regional newspaper Sud West characterised latest developments, this is a new episode of the Castell soap opera. And and they're kind of right. This is and for those of you who don't know, if you I suppose you sort of say if you've been living under a rock and haven't read any business news for the last six months, six to twelve months, um, you won't know that Castell's boss and CEO, overall boss, Gregory Clare, has sort of been pitted against Pierre Castell founder, his founder, the founder's extended family, which generally includes his daughter Romy and his um, I suppose nephew, nephew Anna, who's sort of main Alas Alas Castell is the CEO at Castelvin, which is the wine arm of Castell, huge French drinks business. And they're just uh one one news outlet referred to Castell as the um I think it was inadverted commas discreet. The very discreet Castell. I thought, well, not not in the last 12 months it hasn't been. It's been very much airing the dirty laundry recently. Anyway, the the latest is that Romy Castell has been accused of forging her father father's signature to gain power of attorney, basically, and she's been charged by this in in Geneva. The Swiss authorities are looking into it. She denies the charges. Absolute nonsense. Castell himself, old man Castell, is age 99. I think he's now in Portugal. I suspect in some sort of retirement home in Portugal, and it's sort of unavailable, really, to weigh in on all of this stuff. Uh, what has also come out, the main thing that's come out this week, is that basically Gregory Clare has ousted Romy and Alain Castell from. the board of Castelvin, which means that Ana Castel is very likely to lose his CEO position in that regard. These I mean, it's like you say it's succession basically. It's it's just this sort of interne sign conflicts, except at this time it's a sort of between the between the siblings and the family versus this sort of CEO that's been brought in to run the whole thing.

SPEAKER_03 22:21

No, I was gonna say it's it it really is one of those kind of the family gathering to hear the will type of stories and suddenly being shocked and stunned to find out that it's all been left to the gardener. Yeah yeah yeah exactly this in this case it's all been left to the accountant which doesn't seem to have been I mean we'll see it's probably a sensible business idea but who knows you know um it it's so difficult to get to the bottom of these things given that there's so many shells to it it's like sort of like an onion whatever there's Castelvans is owned by a Luxembourg based holding company which itself is overseen by a Singaporean hold holding company which is controlled by a trust which a banking trust the Societe Generale based in Singapore which itself is sort of answered to an independent management firm and it's all very like yeah nebulous and hard to work out what's going on but by and large uh it seems that Gregory Clare is the top dog and everyone else is trying to work out how on earth all this fits together wow yeah and just just it's this is not a just kind of random faceless company either I mean just to personalise this for wine lovers these are the owners of Chateau Bechel is it are they not?

SPEAKER_02 23:35

I don't know actually that's a very good question.

SPEAKER_03 23:37

They certainly I think you'll find that they own Chateau Bechel.

SPEAKER_02 23:41

Wow Listel Bardeleste they've got these major brands supermarket brands well known paps city brahim will be known to anyone who's been in the French supermarket Nicolas wine stores that was owned owned by Castell um I didn't know about Chateau Bechel that's interesting uh yeah huge I mean they're number three in the I think number three in the world well certainly certainly in terms of Bordeaux brands um so um yeah behind one of its own um sister companies Malasan and and um yes and and behind Mutong Cade of course but um the giant Muton Cade but um they're beer producers as well I mean so obviously they're a yeah they're the it's I mean it's big it it's it's no longer they're no longer a brewing and winemaking company really anymore no no no no there's everything there's everything under the sun they produce and well and you know we've we've also talked about how they got in trouble or certainly there were accusations of them being participants well not participants but being linked to war crimes in Africa through some of the Lord do you remember that through some of the connections of of the militia that they um that they paid I do remember that were linked war crimes in Africa yeah yeah they got they got big holdings in Africa I can't if you give me a minute I'll find the story yeah yeah they were linked they were linked to an armed group implicated in funding an armed group accused of mass atrocities in the Central African Republic in a report titled Cultivating Atrocities a subsidiary of the French Multinational Drinks Corporation conducted business with the militia army the Unité pour la paix en Centre Afrique or the Union for peace in CAR uh in order to secure its refinery and sugar plantations in the country. That was quite a damning report anyway yeah anyway so let's let's carry on because we we've got more wild weather haven't we we got more wild weather there's one thing that I I realized uh that came through also is that it wasn't so we talked about what rough freak weather wise in France so with the heat wave's well known there are issues that when when you get this level of temperature some vines will actually just shut down there's clearly been and I've seen pictures of grapes desiccated to raisin levels uh and and sort of irretrievably in Bordeaux I've seen I've heard the same has happened in the Loire. The grapes are just not shaded they've just got this direct sunlight and they're just getting shriveled up and they're not even ripe yet with that happening uh there's been more wildfires in the Longedoc so the Minovir they start had wildfires civil fires have broken out but what's happening is that vineyards are acting as firebreaks which is one of the discussions that are being had at the moment because the Longadock is is now known for its wildfires and what they found last year in the terrible fires last year was that vineyards because of their nature they actually act as firebreaks they stop the um the forest fires from spreading so they're actually quite useful.

SPEAKER_03 26:34

I mean it's not great for if you if your vineyard is caught in the middle you know between smoke taint heat damage and the rest of it you know well true but it's it it's it's better than it's it's better than the whole place boiling up isn't it I mean exactly so yeah so there was that there was local then you know to add add insult to that there was localized hail in Peak Saint Lou on Monday.

SPEAKER_02 26:56

God's sake and then also I also I also just read that there was there was also hail in Turin in Molui in Turin in in the Loire. So not only so this is isolated you know you get this this very hot weather and then you know it follows then that you have these massive hailstorms which is crazy. So yeah it's um it's been a bit mad in France weather wise lately. So we'll see. Despite the hail though you know if you this these are localized events of hail and as someone said in the in the region you know the crop load is good disease pressure is low and the vines have withstood the first major heat wave well so you know fingers crossed fingers crossed for the rest of it. Yeah true now we've got an we've got we've got another um bankruptcy story but this one's good news how does that work yeah yeah interesting I think this is part of a so Borega Sanciera which is in Rioja um this was again I read this from uh who was it Technovino uh in Spain so that there's sort of couch this in very positive terms is like it's filing for voluntary insolvency but this is part of a meticulously planned corporate restructure strategy I think what it is is they're moving from a cooperative model to a straightforward wine company model and this is part of the um financial restructure they need to have that's the way it's it was sort of sold if you will uh so this is just apparently this is not really a a proper bankruptcy as it were this is just like a way for them to reorganize themselves fiscally in order to move on and then just become a straightforward winery. Yep yeah which kind of makes sense we'll see we'll see whether that is correct or not I mean it it certainly seems legit so yeah marvelous marvelous but we've also we've also got some very happy nuns I used in heaven the nuns are in heaven over the wine cell so this is because the French the initial French reports used the phrase auxange which means uh with the angels which is a similar way of saying you know they're they're absolutely overjoyed yeah so like we say oh we're we're in heaven over over that so well we do but but we also when we in English the idiom with the angels tends to mean deceased yes yeah yeah so you want to avoid that let's let's avoid that no no so it's a group of winemaking nuns at the Solar Monastery which is uh an Orthodox Christian monastery in the south of France uh we've actually they featured on our stories before they they sort of tried to they've done the same thing a couple of years back and they had had a sale of their wines in order to buy an intercept machine which is for for use in in in vineyards to sort of cultivate vineyards. Now their tractor's broken down so they're like oh well no so they had a they had a wine sale initially hoping to shift 5,000 bottles of their organic wines and this much publicized appeal across several areas of the French press saw their sales hit 9,000 bottles.

SPEAKER_03 29:49

Oh my god yeah yeah literally wow this is fantastic so then if you so so this is how this is how all those wineries with massive oversupply of stock can do it just get a couple of nuns to sort out the sales find yourself a decent sob story and you know and it's but I think they're genuine and it was very interesting I think people uh people find that kind of story quite endearing and obviously and that and you know they've done it they they're gonna get themselves a new tractor by the sounds of it and they're chuffed just as Domitilboutier who is the head of communications for Divine Box was chuffed for their on their behalf and so Divine Box is Divine Box it is uh an online wine sales company that deals exclusively in wines made by religious orders wines and any produce made by religious orders I suppose France Spain and Italy would be the last places where there are enough religious orders making things really to uh to make it worthwhile but that's this is brilliant and and we'd like to assure everybody that no nuns were harmed in the making of these of this story. But um also it's nice to see that they're rather more practical than simply leaving it all to prayer. Yes no no these these very much these nuns are in the fields doing the harvest doing the doing all the work all the way through so yeah what have we got to look forward to Don well it's another you know it's a it's a wide open week anything could happen but um but to start with we've got a bit of an update on uh French wine's new North Star which is Brittany a place where I might I'll just interrupt this broadcast for a moment to tell you that um Norway I've got one up airling broad Haaland Haaland has um stuck Norway ahead in the 79th minute anyway I'll just I'll just say that I think we're like everyone else we've got one out on the football indeed but um so this is a story by Barnaby Eals who's been following this for us which is about wine or wineries in Brittany which is now allowed it used to be allowed but but by French law but because of uh a change in the way the EU administers wine growing areas in Europe in the European community um it's now meaning you know they could people can grow there and quite a few have and they're having massive festivals and so forth to um celebrate this and the first wines are coming in so yeah yeah it's um it's it's exciting it's exciting so it's uh it's basically all about being at the uh at the birth of a new wine region and a very different wine region too because yeah it's not one that's necessarily been explored before it's not like you know your your subappellation splits off into even the even smaller subappellations and you know and so you've got some idea of what the overall appellation wines taste like this these are brand new wines so you know that's an interesting story and it's um nice to break some news um yeah yeah yeah although I mean readers of readers of our Sunday stories will will will have seen there's quite a bit you know we've covered quite a few of these new domains in Brittany over the last sort of five years we have been following this for we have been following this for it's really fascinating okay I look forward to reading it I can't personally I cannot wait to taste them yeah um we've we've also got a we'll also have a best value rum story this week which I can I can promise you will be wonderful um lovely um even if I have to write it myself yes and we'll we'll also be getting updates from the US from um Blake on there's a couple of things he's got going on over there. I don't because I'm not sure which stories are going to arrive first I don't particularly want to give them away but there's certainly be a couple worth uh keeping an eye out for this week so you know just drop in every day and see what we've got.

SPEAKER_02 34:00

Right.

SPEAKER_01 34:01

Can I really yeah okay alright I was yep I was gonna make some noises in the in the sort of in the realm of tariffs and things but um I'll I'll keep my mouth shut and we'll yeah I'd I'll just yeah just hold fire for a moment um and let's see let's see what emerges shall we we can reconvene we can reconvene in seven days exactly well why not indeed I mean after all it's we have to now we've got a podcast victims of our own success yeah here we go okay don't you have a great week and we'll catch you too old see you mate talk next week bye thank you for listening to the Week in Wine News podcast for more on 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 wineheartsearcher.com