The Week in Wine Episode 47

Don moves from a delightful Cuba Libre to a pensive sipping Rum, while Olly is sent a 6-bottle case of wines to review from Central Otago. The top story of the last 7 days is that which covers the "Napa needs to bulldoze vineyards" while Olly's very recent Sunday news roundup (covering falling Bordeaux vineyard land prices) is in second.

Winemaker Chase Renton's piece about Pinot Noir, mental health and his battles with cancer also caught our readers' attention, as did a surprising top 10 of best-value Burgundies which spanned Chablis, the Maconnais, the Cote de Beaune and even some sparkling Cremants.

We also looked at the recent passing of actor and winery owner Sam Neill; the sale of Breaky Bottom; and a recent piece on Clos de Tart has Olly wondering whether wine writers are having a bit of a cop-out when they talk of estates having a 'return to form' if they haven't catalogued a descent in form prior to the takeover?

The wine news roundup covers: drastic falls in vineyard land values in Bordeaux (and an aside about the growth of Cognac's vineyard area); the potentially seismic effects of Cognac's overproduction (of wine) being unleashed on the European bulk wine market; Texas vines in the International Space Station; hail slamming Alsace, Beaujolais, Vouvray, the Ardeche as well as parts of Pfalz and northern central Italy; a sneaky wine fraud in Spain; a fire at a cooperage in Navarra; and Ribera del Guadiana drops its 15% upper alcohol limits for wines, citing climate change.

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 winesearcher.com. Good morning, John.

SPEAKER_04 0:23

Good morning, Ollie. How are you? Top of the world. Top of the world. I've just been uh I've just been watching Spain finally break down the resistance of Argentina in the um World Cup final. Yeah. So good time. Thank God that's over. What a turgid match it was.

SPEAKER_02 0:39

Everyone can get back to a normal normal pattern.

SPEAKER_04 0:42

Well, I can't. I mean, it's just it's bizarre that the most endearingly bonkers game of the of the entire tournament was the one that nobody wants to play or see, which is the third and fourth place playoff.

SPEAKER_02 0:53

Yeah, the playoffs.

SPEAKER_04 0:53

Um, between England and France, which was just mental. Ten goals. It was it was crazy. I've never seen 10 goals in a f in a top flight football match, I think, in of maybe twice in my life. Yeah, right. Um, and and most of those were quite one-sided, so it'll be like 8-2 or something.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

But yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:12

Oh Lord, I mean, this was like a Sunday league, it was just unbelievable. And what England were 4-0 up at halftime. I know. 4-0 up, and then it's suddenly it's 4-3, and everybody's gone, what the hell? And it doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_02 1:26

As an English sort of half Englishman, I I didn't quite know what to do with myself when I saw that score. I was like, What uh how do I react to this? 4-0.

SPEAKER_04 1:35

I just I just as somebody who's you know, as somebody who's Irish and therefore has no great love traditionally of the of the of the English. Um, and to be honest, I was felt a little bit let down by the French too. Um I just thought I just abandoned myself to it. I let I let all tribalism go by the wayside, and I just reveled in it. I threw myself fully into it and just watched it, let it wash over me. And to be honest, it was a much better uh result than the rugby result later on that night.

SPEAKER_02 2:06

Um, what was the rugby? I didn't know about the rugby. What happened?

SPEAKER_04 2:08

Ireland got hammered by the all blacks.

SPEAKER_02 2:10

Oh dear.

SPEAKER_04 2:11

Which was terrible because I was in a pub surrounded by um predominantly New Zealand supporters, which is you know, and God love them, they get very fond of their rugby team.

SPEAKER_02 2:21

They do, they can be quite quite hard work when when the all blacks win.

SPEAKER_04 2:25

Let's be honest, they don't have much else. Um which is which is I I I I I understand brave talk coming from somebody who's lived here for 30 years.

SPEAKER_02 2:34

I was gonna say, keep your voice down, keep your voice down.

SPEAKER_04 2:38

Yes, yeah, shush, they'll hear us.

SPEAKER_02 2:40

Whisper it, whisper it, they'll they'll take that citizenship back. Did you have anything good to drink at the weekend, actually, then? Is the next sort of question.

SPEAKER_04 2:48

Well, those are the the I have to say, given that there was rugby involved, there was a lot of beer consumed. But I did um I did have one lovely little drink on Friday night.

SPEAKER_01 2:58

Oh go on.

SPEAKER_04 2:58

Well, it was more than one. I was drinking some Appleton Estates rare cask 12-year-old Jamaican rum. Oh, it was beautiful. I started out just having a cuba libra, you know.

SPEAKER_01 3:11

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 3:13

Basically dark, basically dark rum and coke with a ton of lime juice in it.

SPEAKER_01 3:17

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 3:18

Excuse me, I always over egg the lime juice because I I find with limes it's can't get enough. I have a lime tree of my own, you see, so I have I have a near constant supply of them, and they're incredibly, incredibly ripe this year. They're just perfect, they're almost sweet, they're just so intense. With the rum and you know, a decent cola, this was it was really good. And Cubalibra is a great drink, I love it. But I then thought, well, it's probably a bit of a waste, really, for you know, 12-year-old um rear cask rum. So I I took to sipping it, and oh lord, it was beautiful, absolutely stunning rum. Uh beautiful, smooth, no burn whatsoever, you know, just a beautiful warmth on the finish. Absolutely lovely. Yeah, tremendous stuff. I can't recommend it enough.

SPEAKER_02 4:08

And what about yourself? Well, I said strangely what happened was I I got sent. This is unusual. I've I haven't been sent wine just as a wine writer for for years, for ages. And then Airburn, which is uh a sort of new, relatively new well, I suppose you call it a housing development restaurant sort of thing. As they do uh, you know, as these things are. Um six bottles. It's a what?

SPEAKER_04 4:33

So it's a winery and it's a rest home. No, a restaurant. Restaurant. Oh restaurant, sorry, I thought you said a rest home.

SPEAKER_02 4:40

Yeah, no, no, it's a sort of it's a it's a real estate development in Central Otago. It's sort of quite beautiful sort of design, just sort of uh outside of Queenstown. And um they decided to send me six of their wines, which are made by um yeah, Sophie Parker Thompson MW. And so I've sort of been working my way through that. Uh but I'll reserve judgment to once I've sort of gone through them and I'll report back.

SPEAKER_04 5:01

Do you do you do you think they're um I mean, are they trying to sell wine or are they trying to sell wine or are they trying to sell real estate?

SPEAKER_02 5:09

That's a very good point. I I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 5:11

That's always the question. I mean, there's always the thought that we'll we'll just chuck in a few bottles of wine as a sweetener. Um, you know, I mean, fair enough. It's this is this is how wine is often run. I mean, you only have to look at the French model, don't you?

SPEAKER_02 5:26

Nothing unusual in that, you know. I mean, have a have an estate, have have wine on the side, do the hotel thing and all of that. So, yeah, I'll I'll report back once I I'll I'll do a bit more research on what is going on at Airborne and all of that. And um, I'll report back on the wines as well. That's something they put more into the bill, which is very interesting.

SPEAKER_04 5:42

Anyway, are they are they sorry, are they are they predominantly pinon noir?

SPEAKER_02 5:47

Yeah, it's I was sent, but it's predominantly pinot noir with a bit of Chardonnay. But again, I'll I'll do I'll do a bit more background on it and get back to you with more details. How was the week in wine, Don?

SPEAKER_04 6:00

Well the week in wine was good. It was a good solid week for stories, and yes to but two standouts. Right two standouts. Now I'm gonna make a guess again. Can you guess what the first one was? I reckon we'll talk about the story of the week? Best value Burgundy. No. Oh no, you will be surprised. It was, of course, Napa Needs to Bulldoze Vineyards.

SPEAKER_02 6:24

Oh from last week, that was late in the week, and that just got all the readers.

SPEAKER_04 6:29

This was this we published this on Thursday, and yeah, it just gobbled them up. It bulldozed them all, in fact. It's um it's basically our US editor W. Blake Gray doing a precept of Ted Hall's latest um Substack, which is uh Ted Hall, of course, is the owner of Long Meadow Ranch Winery in um Napa.

SPEAKER_03 6:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 6:56

And he writes a lot about um his former senior partner of McKinsey, the consultancy firm. What they consult in, I don't know. It's just general consultancy, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 7:04

Yeah, yeah, businessman.

SPEAKER_04 7:06

If you need so if you need somebody to hand a lot of money to, you know, they're the very fellows.

SPEAKER_02 7:11

Um isn't this the same sort of thing that he's been writing before? That seems very samey without he has.

SPEAKER_04 7:17

Well, no, he has. He's been he's been he's been pointing this out before. I mean, his last great diatribe on this was about tasting rooms, right? And how they're and how they're um over overpriced and under delivering in terms of value for money for uh visitors and customers and so forth. Um, this one's about a story that we've covered already this year, really.

SPEAKER_02 7:44

I was gonna say, yeah, that was my thought.

SPEAKER_04 7:45

We had an earlier one where a bank was suggesting a lot of people needed to pull out vines. Well, this is a this is a Napa insider saying we need to pull out vines.

SPEAKER_01 7:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 7:57

Um because I thought this was a fascinating thing. Um, there's 1949 vineyards in Napa County, and 1150 of those are owned by people who neither make wine nor farm themselves.

SPEAKER_01 8:13

Right.

SPEAKER_04 8:13

They just use the vineyard management company to look after them. On the basis that you're not really you don't really have a Napa property if you don't have a vineyard. Yeah. You know, and that this is it. It's genuinely um what did he say? There was a lovely quote, and he said there's a shock to people who bought a house in Napa based on this idea that having a vineyard beside it was a plus, it's an annuity with a view. Um it's a lovely phrase. Yeah. But it's um it's the most expensive ground cover in America, he says. Wow. It's planted because a Napa property with vines is a Napa property, and one without them is merely a house.

SPEAKER_03 8:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 8:57

Um and it's you know, he's got a point. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. It costs money to farm grapes. I mean, just the very you know, just pruning them, keeping them tidy is you know, it's an expensive business. Yeah, and I mean, to be honest, if you're going to that expense, why wouldn't you actually use the grapes? But then you've got to have the grapes picked, so that's expensive. Then you've got to get them made into wine. That's expensive. Bottled, more expense, and then distributed, because otherwise, what are you gonna do with it? I mean, you you literally couldn't drink a vineyard's worth of wine on your own. I mean, I don't think even I could do that in a year. Um, I mean, and I'd I'd back myself to you know set some set some records when it comes to the consumption of vino. Um, you know, so it's uh yeah, it's a lot of people and I think the general thrust really is that a lot of people are going to have to get out of it.

SPEAKER_02 9:55

Right. And also I presume I presume also his point is that you know, we talk about these Napa estates having vines on them and therefore are a Napa estate, but if they have vines on them in this economy, are they that much of a proposition in terms of resale? You know, is it is it are you better off actually selling Napa land or Napa house without the vines?

SPEAKER_04 10:15

Well, this is just just let it revert back to Bush, to native bush, or to to um or or even have it planted under olives or something.

SPEAKER_02 10:22

Yeah, another five.

SPEAKER_04 10:23

Sure, you know, because if you if you want that nice sort of vaguely Italian feeling of looking out over a field of of vines, you know, well, yeah, um olives pretty good.

SPEAKER_01 10:34

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 10:35

I mean, again, there's there are costs involved with that, but oh for sure. I mean never mind, I'm not here to give gardening advice. Um and Laura, you that's a separate podcast. Yeah, that's a separate podcast. Yeah, yes. I'll talk about growing things, you can talk about fencing them in, being as though you are a champion fencer and all that.

SPEAKER_02 10:53

Very funny, very funny. Right, moving on. What was the second biggest story?

SPEAKER_04 10:59

Second biggest story of the week was, and you're not gonna believe this because it's a very recent story. Oh it's your Sunday piece on Bordeaux Vineyard Prices Plummet. Oh wow, okay.

SPEAKER_02 11:11

That was yes that was yesterday. That was yesterday, indeed. Well, we can cover that later on by by sort of rounding it up because we'll come we'll yes, we'll come back to that one.

SPEAKER_04 11:21

It has been quite interestingly though, hang on, I I must just point this out to you. Yeah, that the last the the next most popular story was last Sunday's news roundup, which was Heat Waves Threaten Bordeaux Harvest. Oh, yeah, right, okay. Yeah. Then beyond that, it was fighting cancer and depression. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Which we talked about last week. We did well Oh no, well, no, well it was one of the last week. It was last week, yes. So there was that one. That was the story about Chase Renton in Oregon. He he makes wine with NBA players, and he also uh but now he's he's using wine as a way to uh recalibrate his mental health, yeah, and to uh you know, after he had a battle he had a battle with cancer and depression, um really nice story as a result, and this is how he's dragging himself out of that particular hole. Right, so it's a great story, and I would I'd I'd invite people to read it, it's it really is, and then rounding out our top five, there was the best value burgundy wines, of course, which is hilarious because I I always love watching people's faces when you say value and burgundy in the same sentence. Um, it's famously not a value for money area, although we found some.

SPEAKER_02 12:44

Yeah, I was gonna say, I was look just looking over the the sort of wines that we've got, there's some really interesting stuff. There's some stuff from the Macine, there's um which is really great, you know. I mean, they're still relatively pricey, like you say.

SPEAKER_04 12:55

There's some creme de Bourgoyne. You'd expect Macon wines to be in there, you'd expect Chablis to be in there. Yeah, um, it was the Creme de Bourgoyne that got me. I know.

SPEAKER_02 13:05

I was gonna say, I was gonna say that, literally that. Oh, there's a couple of cremeaux de bourgois in there. Don't think of that. That's a great call.

SPEAKER_04 13:11

Cotebon, yeah, nice, you know, just does sort of village level wines, sort of you know, your maison whatever Bourgoyne Chardonnay and Bourgoin Rouge.

SPEAKER_02 13:23

And to be honest, the the old Bourgogne Blanc and Bourgogne Rouge offer some some of the best value there is around these days, yeah, yeah, especially if you get a nice, nice warm year and something delicious, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 13:33

Puy fouis, you know, peep which people always forget about. Yep. Yeah, so it's yeah, it's it was it was genuinely interesting. I mean, there was the and we're not talking about huge amounts of wine either. I think the most expensive was at oh $38. US. Yeah, $38 US. That's pretty good. Which is you know, that's not beyond anybody's means, really.

SPEAKER_02 13:55

No, no, no. And that's the kind of steel you'd probably like in something like Burgundy, where you want to have something nice for patrol, but not break the bank.

SPEAKER_04 14:03

So what you're looking at in a supermarket, oh sorry, not supermarket, in a restaurant there is you know, probably I don't know, two and a half times that so maybe a hundred dollars a bottle.

SPEAKER_01 14:12

Yeah, which is yeah.

SPEAKER_04 14:14

So, you know, it's um I'm not saying that's that's good value, but it's um you know, it's they're all pretty good. And these are all minimum 90 point wines. Um in fact, I don't think there are any 90 point wines in it, they're all 91s, 92s. And um, oh sorry, there were those one 90.

SPEAKER_02 14:32

Um, yeah. Nice, yeah, yeah, yeah. Good good times. It was quite interesting though, because I think for me last week was mainly marked, and it certainly on my social media feed, was mainly marked by the passing of Sam Neal.

SPEAKER_04 14:44

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 14:45

The famous New Zealand actor and and vineyard owner. Indeed.

unknown 14:49

Indeed.

SPEAKER_02 14:50

It was that we it was that and the sale, the news of the sale of Breaky Bottom, the English, the well-known, sort of well-loved English vineyard that was up for sale, apparently.

SPEAKER_04 14:58

Yes, which, let's be honest, is part of the fondness for that winery is its name, surely. Yes. Which was interestingly enough, kind of the the point of my story about Sam Neal on Saturday as well. It was more to do with his name than it was to do with his wine. On the basis that I felt that people there were plenty of places you could read about his wine. Everybody knows about his wine, yes. Um and everybody knows about his film career too. I mean, you know, not not many people will always have of Jurassic Park fame almost always appended to their names, will they? So it's um great. Do you know something? I'll tell you speaking of Sam Neil, and one thing I was never able to find out because I I did ask him, and he he wonderfully deflected the question um by simply talking about something else entirely. Um why he never got part in Lord of the Rings. I thought he would have been, you know, I mean, they imported a lot of Australians to film parts that could just as easily have been filmed by our dear old Sam.

SPEAKER_02 15:59

True.

SPEAKER_04 16:00

Well, anyway, I suppose we shall never know now.

SPEAKER_02 16:02

Yeah, well, yeah, maybe he was away doing other things. Who knows?

SPEAKER_04 16:05

Well, yeah, quite possibly, quite possibly. He we did come across a very sensit, sensible sort of a chap. So you know getting getting dressed up like a moron and spouting that rubbish that Tolkien wrote. Oh god, very much, very much as um as as Harrison Ford said to George Lucas about the first Star Wars film. You might be able to type this shit, George, but I'm not sure I can say it.

SPEAKER_02 16:30

Um a true craftsman, a true craftsman.

SPEAKER_04 16:36

Oh, absolutely, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 16:37

Anything else of interest last week, Don?

SPEAKER_04 16:40

Oh, you know, there's there's a few bits and pieces. One of my favorites was the story about Claude de Tarte. Oh yes. This is Margaret Rand's story about um bringing Claude Tarte back to back to some something approaching a healthy life. Um it had lost its way slightly.

SPEAKER_02 16:56

I mean it helps it helps that you're owned by Artemis Domain, which is not exactly the world's most run-on-a-strew shoestring budget kind of thing, is it? It's pretty it's pretty well off the capital, shall we say. It isn't, but then I mean they paid a lot of money for it.

SPEAKER_04 17:10

146 million. Well, I mean, that's what they're said to have paid for. There are other estimates that put it at 180 million and and and so forth. It just it's it's a lot of money. Yes, you know, 42 and a half million per hectare. Um but it was underperforming. I mean, it genuinely was. Okay. Um if you if you look at the great burgundies, well, you know, there's certain magnificent wines, and they're all 97, 98 point wines, and they've all got five-star user ratings and so forth. Clodete isn't, it's an and you know, it it really should be. It's a monopole Grand Cru. So one company owns it, one company should really be able to concentrate on that. I mean, it's a it's a burgundy grand cru, for God's sake, and it should be commanding more than it does. I mean, it's it's an $800 wine these days, which is fine in itself, it's more affordable than I'll you know, I'll never be able to drink it again. I have drunk it in the past, right? But I'll I I doubt I'll ever be buying a bottle for myself unless something wonderful happens with the with the lottery.

SPEAKER_02 18:15

We can dream, we can dream.

SPEAKER_04 18:16

Yeah, well, we can dream. But but anyway, so this story is about how Artemis Dominion have spent the past six, eight years since they bought it just redoing everything. How they've I mean, you know, that they've improved the winery, they've improved the vineyards, you know, they've improved their viticulture, and it's all about fixing it up and bringing it back to where it should be. And I just think that's a lovely story because you know, you often hear about oh well, you know, you often imagine that Grand Cru Burgundy is oh, it's fine, it's healthy, it has its own special market that looks after it and all the rest of it. But yeah, it doesn't these then these wineries need care and attention the same as any winery does. Do you know what I mean? It's uh it's it's nice to see that uh that that actually happens, but yeah, so it's no, I just thought it was a nice story, it's a it's a it's a very it's a storied plot.

SPEAKER_02 19:15

Yes, I mean Margaret Rand always, Margaret Rand, when we've talked about Margaret before, she always writes a really nice story, it's always it's always lovely to read. My issue with it is that it's the and and I actually would probably if if our listener knows more about this than than I do, then please let me know that I'm I'm wrong here. But my issue with it is that it's very easy, it falls into those categories of stories which says, oh yeah, this domain was taken over X years ago. Prior to that, it was underperforming, now it's doing great. I'm like, well, I would struggle to find, but again, I I will bow to anyone's superior knowledge on this. I would struggle to find a wine writer who at the time was saying outright Claude Tarte is underperforming. Yeah, well, that's a very good point, actually. It's always it's always been underperforming retrospectively. It happens with Bordeaux estates, it happens with Bordeaux estates all the time. Like I can think of a few Bordeaux estates, and I can just say the neighbors, I can't think of the names now, which is annoying. But I think a few Bordeaux estates, which if they were to be sold or taken over in the next year or so, we would have those stories of, oh, this has been underperforming for years. And yet it's never really outright been said, and it's always easy to say after the fact. And yeah, and it's always a very and it's kind of that's what annoys me a little bit about wine writing, not about Margaret Rand, but it's you know, it's easy to say, oh, these guys have turned the corner. I mean, they've spent 146 million buying it, they're not exactly gonna go, oh well, we've run out of money now. Never mind, you know, let's let's you know try to do that.

SPEAKER_04 20:47

We'll just leave it, we'll just let it muddle along for a while.

SPEAKER_02 20:49

Yeah, we'll just we'll just make massive yields and anything surplus, we'll sell to the local co-op and blah blah blah. You know, no, it's like it's kind of an easy thing to say. That that was my only thing about it. And I, you know, I'm you know, it's code d'etat, you're always gonna be interested in what's going on over there, and you know, they they always break it down into what part of the vineyard does what and all of this, and you know, different pressings and that and stuff, which is fascinating, it's really interesting. But it's kind of for me, it was like, yeah, it's a bit of a home run, I suppose.

SPEAKER_04 21:18

Yes, yeah, it is, I suppose. Yeah, that's true. I mean, and that's true, and that's that's the that's the thing. But I I did I enjoy the story. Yeah, yeah, no, it's nice, you know, love the story, just right.

SPEAKER_02 21:27

It's always fascinating, you know.

SPEAKER_04 21:29

Um, so right, let's move on to um your end of things. Yes. Or or should let's show should we be be more specific and have a look at the Sunday roundup because as I say, it was without a shadow of a doubt, the hero of the of the week.

SPEAKER_03 21:45

Well really.

SPEAKER_04 21:46

Um because a one day performance like that is pretty spectacular.

SPEAKER_02 21:52

Yeah, it helps that Bordeaux Vignard Price's plumber is in the headline. I mean, that's gonna get eyeballs, isn't it?

SPEAKER_04 21:58

It it is. I'll I'll t I'll t I'll take The um I'll take the credit for that. Well it was um yeah, but I mean to be honest, it was always going to be, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_02 22:08

That's there are a number of big stories. The it was an interesting one. I I sort of felt that we'd kind of covered this before and and tried to look back and see what it was. I think we'd actually looked at uh Bordeaux wine prices had generally dropped. Yes.

SPEAKER_04 22:22

This was grape prices, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:24

Yeah. This was one that was actually looking at land prices, and it was published by Sudwest. Before that, though, quickly, just no, let's let's talk about weather later on because that sort of fits into other things. Uh, so this was literally where Sudwest had published latest information on how Bordeaux price land prices, as in per hectare, had fared in the last sort of what, seven years? I think it was 2018 to 2025, pretty much. All of them were down. I think the only one that wasn't mentioned was Pomerole. So we can probably assume that Pomerole's land value has sort of more or less stayed stable, if not gone up, potentially. Polyak though, down, Margot down, Margot was down 25, 27%. So a hectare in Margot, I mean it'll still set you back 800,000 euros or 800,000, whereas seven years ago it would have set you back just over a million. So, you know, it's all relative, right? But you know, Polyak, similar story. Polyak was down quite a lot. I mean, Poyak down used to be 2.2 million euros per hectare, it's now 1.7 million. Sotone and Grav, which you'd generally say were pretty steady performers, and if you looked at the graphs, they they generally were. You look at the Sotone graph, it's pretty much flat up until the last couple of years. And Sotone was steady at around 30,000 euros a hectare and is now dropped by a third to 20,000 euros. Santa Million down, Lalonde Pomerole down. La Londe Pomerole's values of halved, broadly speaking, across the Omedoc, Blaccote de Bordeaux, generic Bordeaux Rouge, it's down over 60%. That's big, isn't it? That's huge. That's a huge drop in land prices.

SPEAKER_04 24:02

But things like Fronsac, for example, right? Half. Yeah. It's down by half. Now Fronsac is, well, I'd hardly say it's up and coming, it's been around forever. But it's a place that's uh getting more and more appreciation. Yeah, absolutely. Great man. I think there's a lot of very smart producers there making very smart wines.

SPEAKER_02 24:21

Absolutely. There's everything going for Fronsac, other than the fact that it's not far from that um was it nuclear power plant. But Fronsac is great, like great wine.

SPEAKER_04 24:31

Perfectly safe. Perfectly safe. Unless there's an earthquake or a malfunction or uh or tsunami.

SPEAKER_02 24:43

It's um it but it is just one of those things where you just like just imagine, you know, you just sort of imagine if you're a producer and you're like, okay, well, tough times are tough, my costs are going up, my sales are going down, I'm I'm tired of this, I want to get out of it. And then you sell it and it's you're selling it for half of what you paid for it, or half of what it should be. Anyway, so it's uh yeah, it was another tough one where the economic situation in Bordeaux is just getting worse and worse and worse. I mean, Bordeaux Rouge, if you're just interested in the basic Bordeaux Rouge Appalachian vineyard, yeah, you can snap one up for six thousand euros a hectare.

SPEAKER_04 25:16

That's not crazy, is it?

SPEAKER_02 25:18

It's not a lot of money. Not a lot of money.

SPEAKER_04 25:20

I mean, how much how much how many hectares do you reckon you'd need to you know to make wine in a serious enough way to uh to to finance your life lifestyle?

SPEAKER_02 25:34

Well, uh this is the this this is an interesting question. It depends. If you're in if you're in Burgundy, a hectare is more than enough. Yes, clearly. If you're in Bordeaux, you probably want a bit more. If you're in Bordeaux, you'd probably want to have five or six hectares, I reckon. Would be just my off the top of my sort of if you can make a decent upname for yourself.

SPEAKER_04 25:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:51

Um the person to ask probably is is Gavin Queeny at Chateau Baudoc, who's notoriously or well or well known to be very open about how things work and and how things are going. He think he's an entrepreneur. Um, but yeah, very interesting. I yeah, I reckon sort of up to ten hectares you probably want to have. So what 60,000 euros? Yeah, so 60,000 that's not a silly amount of money. No, it's not. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 26:13

I mean, when you think when you look back, you know, you could buy six thousand dollars a hectare, or six thousand euros a hectare, which is you know marginally more than that in US dollars. So well, it's about it's about six four, maybe six thousand four hundred a hectare.

SPEAKER_01 26:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 26:28

So multiply that by two and a half or divide by two and a half, and you get the price per hectare, or price per acre.

SPEAKER_02 26:34

Oh, price per acre, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 26:35

Um but anyway, but regardless, so say eight, that'll be 48,000 euros for an for eight hectares of it, when um Artemis Domains paid 146 million or thereabouts for seven and a half hectares in Burgundy. Two very different worlds. That's everything you need to know. That's about it's about three thousand dollars, three thousand times cheaper.

SPEAKER_02 27:03

Yeah, but it's interesting, it happens in Bordeaux too. That's and they said in Sud West, for example, a plot in Poyac is fifty-six times more expensive than one just over the border in the name of neighbouring commune of Saint-Sauveur, you know, in the uh which is in the Omenoc. Wow, it's great. You know, there's massive, there's massive discrepancies just for the name.

SPEAKER_04 27:22

But yes, so but also this means it doesn't just mean that as a winery your your fortunes will rise and fall, obviously, according to fashion and and and weather and and everything. It'll it'll you know, I mean how much wine you manage to make, how much wine you've got on hand. So how much you have to sell, if you have too much, it's costing you money to keep it. If you don't have enough, you can't make enough money. Yeah, so you you need that Goldilocks amount of wine to make but but underneath underlying everything, what uh effectively underpins the financial nature of winemaking is the fact that you own uh the land. That's your security.

SPEAKER_02 28:04

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_04 28:05

Now, if the value of that is halved, yeah, that's gonna have a huge impact on so many growers and winemakers there. It's just I mean, it even and even with the prices that they're getting for their grapes collapsing and and now the value of their land collapsing. I mean, it's this is just gonna be unsustainable for people, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 28:26

Yeah, I think so. And it's just another kick in the safe, unfortunately. That's just another that's another in a long list of of litanies, I suppose. Uh it is what was interesting about the rest of it was the rest of this piece was they actually showed how vineyard plantings in certain regions had progressed, or not. I mean, a lot of them, you know, it's well publicized grubbing up in Bordeaux, in in the south of France. But what was interesting, especially given that we've covered this, we covered this slightly before. Do you remember many years ago there was a story about cognac overproduction? This is before China got involved, and there was a grower, initially anonymous, who sort of posted and said, Well, actually, our overproduction is purely down to the big houses because we all planted a bunch of vines, and the the amount we overplanted, the amount we're overproducing can be pretty much broken down by or sort of is equal to the overproduction, is equal to the overplanting that we get on at the behest of these big houses. Well, when you look at the progression in hectares of vineyards, and most of it's regression, like so Bordeaux, been massive regression in in plantings. There's, I think, what do we say, vineyard land has shrunk by almost a quarter in border in the Bordeaux region, which is huge. So they've you know 23,000 hectares of vines have vanished. But in cognac, interestingly, plantings have actually gone up. I mean, they've dropped recently, but they actually got went up by over 18,000 hectares between 2017 and 2025.

SPEAKER_04 29:55

My God.

SPEAKER_02 29:56

So there might be there might be a certain element of truth in what that man was saying. Oh, we assume it's a man. Yeah, so quite interesting, especially now given how sort of cognac is sat.

SPEAKER_04 30:06

Well, and that leads us nicely into the next story, doesn't it?

unknown 30:10

It does.

SPEAKER_02 30:11

This story was cognac tsunami. A tsunami of ugni blanc from from cognac. So I have a theory about this, and I wrote I put this in the piece. So basically what it is is that the story is that 200 million litres of ugni blanc produced in cognac could end up in the French bulk wine market, yeah. Which would just cause it would have it would it would it would be like a tsunami, it would be it would be like a sort of natural disaster occurring in the bulk wine market. 200 million litres of low-priced Ugni Blanc, sort of generic white wine, hits the French bulk wine market and it would just send prices plummeting and then have an impact on Spanish white wines. Because we're talking, we're not talking pricey wines. For a start, it's ugni blanc. It's like airen, you know, no one's no one's going out and saying, Hey, can you get me your you know a bottle of airen, please, or a bottle of ugni blanc would be fantastic. Thank you, waiter. No, it's it's very much like this is the low-end stuff which goes into two or three euro bottles of wine, generally you know, bottled in plastic bottles that you find in supermarkets across Europe, Vanderpay Europeen or whatever it is. Yeah. So the it the impact on the Spanish wine industry could be large. Now, I do look reading it, and this is from Vitisphere, like a lot of our stuff we get through sort of the French channels, it's from Vidisphere. Reading the piece in Vidisphere, I suspect that this is this threat, this is actually sort of a threat. This threat by Cognac is an attempt for them to say, hey, we want to tap into the 14 million euros that remains from the 40 million euro fund that was originally released by the EU to send Cerplus Red and Rose wines to distilleries. I think it's just a bid by them to say to either the French government or the EU, hey, help us out here with this extra money to get rid of this wine because we're going to overproduce this year. And this is their way of saying, come on. It's basically sort of not bribing them, it's not the right word, but it's it's sort of holding their their head over a barrel or whatever it is.

SPEAKER_04 32:14

Well, it's certainly holding their feet to the flames, isn't it? I mean, it's holding their feet to the flames. That's it's very much very much a case of cognac cognac growers and producers standing there looking going, hmm, nice bulk wine market you've got there. It'd be an awful shame if anything happened to it.

unknown 32:29

Ha! Exactly.

SPEAKER_04 32:31

Yeah. There's a certain element of of a kind of old school mafia um approach there.

SPEAKER_02 32:40

Yes. Yeah, so that was that was the interesting, that was quite interesting, I thought. It was very, very interesting, but I suspect it's part of a political gambit. I think we're we're on a political gambit thing here. The next story was Texan Vines in space. We go through Blake, right? We got that one through. Blake sent that one through. Yes, indeed. Fantastic. This is a story about how uh three grapevine seeds are going to be put up into the International Space Station and they're gonna research how they fare once they get back to Earth and are planted. It was my understanding of it. One of the vines, one of the vines is Lomanto, which is was produced, it's a hybrid produced by um Ted Munson, who's a you know a bit of a hero in the region, given that he was the one that basically he he developed the root stocks to stop philoxifa in in Europe. So he's he was he's been awarded the Chevalier du Mérite Agricole by the French government and all that.

SPEAKER_04 33:33

And he's like there we go.

SPEAKER_02 33:34

Well quite quite an impressive chappie. Anyway, one of his hybrids is going to space and they're gonna Oh fantastic. They're gonna see what happens and plant it. The only thing that did seem unusual was that they're taking seeds up there and not grape cuttings. Now, either either the initial story or the people who wrote the story, it's things texts standard with the people who wrote the story, either they've dumbed it down for their readers and it is actually gonna be cuttings because cuttings make sense. Cuttings is how you propagate vines, you don't propagate vines from seed. Cuttings is how it's done. So I I either the Texas standard dumped it down, standard dumbed it down for the readers and didn't want to explain that it's cuttings that go up into space, not seeds. And so they just said seeds just so that people could kind of understand what was going on, yeah. Or it is actually seeds, which seems a very strange thing to do, but uh you know the scientists they'll they'll they'll know what they're at and they'll know the reasons behind it. So yeah, very interesting. Seeds in space.

SPEAKER_04 34:25

It is, and let's be honest, and Texans seeds as well, you know. Yeah, they'll they'll feel very much at home up there.

SPEAKER_02 34:32

I mean, both famously large places, and um, you know, and as Blake, as Blake pointed out to us, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 34:40

And so somewhat of a desert. Well, quite a bit of desert in the middle of them.

SPEAKER_02 34:45

Yeah, there is, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, to be fair.

SPEAKER_04 34:47

Anyway, but carry on. Let's let's get back to the weather for a minute and more great news.

SPEAKER_02 34:51

The weather continues. So we I said hail continues to hit France. This story evolved over days, as you as you were quite aware. Initially, it was what it was. I think I said initially it was Vouvre, uh no, hang on. It was the Ardèche, that was it initially, and Vouvre, which got hit by hail, and then it emerged that Beaujolais had been hit by hail, and then right up in the northern, northernmost point of Alsace. Well, I love about these stories is that I learned stuff as well as I'm writing. Like, oh, I didn't realize there were Alsace vines right on the border with Germany, right, right up north on Alsace. It's kind of it's off of any the majority of Alsace maps you see. Like if you get like the World Atlas of Wine out or something like that, and have a look, the the place that got hit isn't on there. It's not, you can't see it. It's way up north, but apparently also hit into went into Baden in Germany. I think no Fouts. Fouts in the Fouts, Germany got hit by us. But then it emerged, it wasn't just France, it wasn't just Beaujolais, and it wasn't just Alsace, it was Emilia Romagna as well. They had 120 kilometre hour wind gusts in central in central Italy. And I actually saw on social media, I think it was a vineyard, actually, like literally on the ground. I don't know whether I'm assuming it was vines. It looked like it was very highly trained, so it might not have been, but if it was highly trained vines, and they they'd gone up quite high, but obviously these gusts of wind had just flattened them, and they were just flat on the ground. Um Valda DJ, they'd been hit. Um Trentino, 200 hectares hit by hail. So all of this warm weather and hot weather that Europe has famously been having recently has sort of turned into hail, as does these weather cycles do.

SPEAKER_03 36:33

Yeah.

unknown 36:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:34

So there's been a lot, there's been a lot of hail damage around about, and we're still it's still quite early on to know what on earth is going, what one earth the um the damage actually is. So doubtless that will come come through over the next few days. Yes, I imagine. But there's been a lot of hail, hasn't there? A lot. I think it is, I think it is because it it correlates to that really hot weather. But once that sort of once that passes, you you I suppose naturally, I mean people who are bet on climate will tell can correct me here, but naturally you get these quite big rainstorms, thunderstorms, hailstorms.

SPEAKER_01 37:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:07

So yeah. Next up, two two people were jailed for a hundred thousand euro wine scam. Finally, some good news. This was quite something. I had to I had to spent a little while reading through exactly what happened here, and as I was reading it, I was like, there's some things here that I'm gonna struggle to say legally. So basically, so because because there's a number of people involved, um, some of them appear to know each other, and some have not been charged or not been convicted, and others have. So let's just stick to what is what has happened or what let's stick to the facts, ma'am. Let's stick to the facts. So basically it's a pair of people, one of them is a sort of go-between. And one of them is uh apparently a charge of a trucking company based in Rioca. And what this go-between did was he basically used forged promissory notes, or promissory notes that just ended up to be, you know, weren't weren't honored, to order like wines, this consignments of wines in total worth just over 100,000 euros. And basically what happens then is they these orders are placed to a bodega to a bodega that's sort of in that in the Burgos area, so it's kind of kind of Ribera, Del Duero, kind of not. Uh, I think they just make sort of relatively standard wines. These wines get picked up by the these pallets of wine get picked up by the trucking company, and then they're diverted. And then they get diverted to a warehouse, warehouses in Rioca and in uh Navarra, and they're then onsold to other companies, while they then sort of say to the original winery, hey, that this has been delivered to Valencia, this is where it was delivered to, but it's all fake. And so they were done, they were sort of done with for fraud, basically.

SPEAKER_04 38:52

So so presumably then once these wines had been delivered and it's and it assured them that it was delivered to Valencia, um I I presume then some fictitious company in Valencia was um was pursued for the payment eventually.

SPEAKER_02 39:08

So yeah, basically. They tried to cash the checks and they the checks bounced.

SPEAKER_04 39:15

Oh, dearly me.

SPEAKER_02 39:16

Yeah, so it became aggravated fraud. There was a similar case prior to the one that they were charged for. Well, no, that they were they were convicted of, but they couldn't be charged for it because the bodegas in question was still actually under administration. And so the key defendants couldn't legally enter into contracts on the company's behalf. So I'm not sure where that leaves them.

SPEAKER_04 39:36

But this is this seems like this one company is being targeted. This what this one producer is being. The one winery, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:42

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And there are if you go, you can actually find you can if you do a bit of digging, you can actually find the the judgment online, you can find the the judgment, and there's some very interesting things about who is involved and how they know each other and the the in the involvement of the third parties. I mean, this is this is so I'm being very, very nebulous and vague because I've got to be careful. Uh, but it is quite interesting. It's quite interesting. Who knows who? And yeah. And who gets convicted and who doesn't. Yeah, very, very interesting. But that was that was the long and short of it. What would happen there? Next one was a fire at Spanish barrel firm. This is a Navarra-based barrel company. Actually, since I put this news up on social media, uh, an Englishman who makes wine in Rioca actually got in touch with me to say, yes, this you're right. This is, you know, Intorna Tonilleria, based in Navarra, which is about 100 kilometres, 60 miles southeast of Rioca. Well, actually, southeast of Logroño. So it's actually pretty closer to Rioca than you think. Um, and he said, Yeah, actually, we actually buy barrels from them, and it sounds like it's been actually quite a nasty blaze, and there's been actually quite significant damage to this barrel company. So our thoughts go out to these guys. That's it's a tough time for barrels. Well, it is.

SPEAKER_04 40:52

Who'd who'd be Cooper?

SPEAKER_02 40:54

Well, exactly. Well, there was another story which I sort of undernared about putting in, which was that you know, Francois Frere, which anyone who's worked in the wine will know who Francois Frere is. They're they're one of the major barrel makers in France. They were profiled in a recent uh economic piece by Liseco, I think. Well, one of those French uh business weeklies, uh saying that you know they're they're not they're not doing great in terms of finances, they're doing okay, they're not in no they're not in any trouble or anything like that, but financing and the profits are dropping quite significantly. And so, yeah, who would be a who would be a Cooper right now?

SPEAKER_04 41:29

Oh, yeah, it's just it's heartbreaking, really.

SPEAKER_02 41:32

Yeah, yeah. And so this this there was a fire at a there was a dramatic fire in a warehouse at this Cooper, and there were there were images online of helicopters coming in, dropping water. Pretty serious. Luckily, no one was hurt, but there's obviously quite a bit of damage, and wish them well and hope everything's all good out there. And finally, finally, Spanish region drops alcohol threshold. This was the news that Ribera del Guadiana, which is sort of in Extremadura, it's quite a warm, arid part of Spain, uh, has dropped their maximum alcohol limit of 15%, saying that climate change basically is such that we can't keep making our producers stay under that 15% limit, and that if you need to, you can go above. Yeah, should should the climate should the climate push you that way?

SPEAKER_04 42:19

I mean, that's quite a that's quite a high bar to start with, isn't it? I mean, I realize it's it's central Spain, it's bound to be really hot and all the rest. But that 15 is still pretty good. I mean, given given there'll be a usually be a half percent leeway, isn't there?

SPEAKER_02 42:36

Usually yeah, yeah, yeah. It's and also if you think about it, yeah, they're talking about climate change. I I was in Spain, what, ooh, 17 years ago, shall we say? I started with us, I moved to Spain. There were wineries, there were wines coming in that were around about 16% alcohol then. Wow, yeah, easily, easily. Okay. Uh it become but the problem is A, you start to run into issues of how you differentiate from fortified wines in terms of tax. I'm not sure what it's like in Spain. Again, if anybody knows, let get in touch, let us know. And the other thing is also that when you get that quite high level of alcohol, it starts to poison the ferment itself. Yeah. So you you actually start to have issues with with stuck ferments, and all sorts of things start to happen inside ferments and inside fermenting grape juice or grape must that start to pose problems for actual wine, the basic wine making.

SPEAKER_04 43:29

So it's quite they do tend towards the raisin eat by the end as well, don't they? You know, yeah, yeah. You get that you get that kind of burnt cheap port finish. Pretty cooked. Cooked to use a modern a modern word. How about that? Yes. Well, that's this is this is climate change, you know. So maybe we should all just get used to drinking, you know. Go go back, let's go back to Zinfandel.

SPEAKER_02 43:54

Hey, it never went away.

SPEAKER_04 43:56

Petty Sarah for everyone.

SPEAKER_02 43:58

It never went away, Don.

SPEAKER_04 44:00

No, it didn't in my house. Excellent. I've always loved those high alcohol ones.

SPEAKER_02 44:08

Rebere Rivera Guadiana will be down, we'll be right up your alley then, mate. I should be I should be searching them out. Good man. And you'll also get the they're not they're not pricey wines either, so you'll be you'll be you'll have a great time. Marvelous. Be good on the wallet. Uh what do we look forward to this week, Don?

SPEAKER_04 44:23

Well, this week we've got a few things going on. We've got a story. Oh, we've got a very interesting story from Kathleen Wilcox talking about how it's look, we all know how hard it is for wineries at the moment.

SPEAKER_01 44:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 44:37

But she's talked to a few people who've leveraged various different things, so like sort of pallet shifts and market shifts and and new technology and stuff. But they're turning these, they're using these changes to uh leverage their sales, to increase their sales. Um and we're often talking about double-digit growth in a you know in a pretty dry market. Yeah so um that that'll be interesting for anybody who's um looking to uh increase their sales.

SPEAKER_01 45:07

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_04 45:08

Um so that we have that, and what else do we have? Oh, we've got a very interesting story about Sicily and its future. Yeah, they're now they're now actively promoting sparkling wine.

SPEAKER_01 45:20

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_04 45:21

Um so instead of the traditional sort of big red that uh uh Sicily and Etna particularly. Talking about, you know, we're talking about consumers tend are you know they're drinking a lot more white and rose wines and lighter wines and you know the more precise wines as the um you know as the uh you went very English there, don't I? The great wine educators of our time would have it. Um and yeah, so it's uh there's there's a lot of sparkling wine around down there now. They're making an awful lot of it. So um, you know, a lot of it under the Terra Siciliana IGT um classification, but also the Sicilia duck and the Aetna doc. You know, I mean 20% of the wines come from Aetna. So it's it's just really good, but they're making it from all sorts of wines Narello Mascalesi, Caracante, you know, the traditional traditional Chardonnay Pinot War.

SPEAKER_02 46:16

But also I'd brace myself for Grillo, sort of being all over the sparkling.

SPEAKER_04 46:21

Oh, that's in there as well, along with Caparato, Enzolia, Zabibo, but also Shenan Blanc, and and and the one that just that shocks me is Nero Davila. Oh yeah, interesting. I mean Nero Davila, you don't I mean I for me, Nero Davila is another one of those big reds that I love so much.

SPEAKER_01 46:38

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 46:40

You know, but um no, they're using it to make sparkling rose in. Um okay, and I'll I for one will be definitely interested in that.

SPEAKER_02 46:48

I loved it, yeah. I'd be so fascinated to try some of those wines.

SPEAKER_04 46:52

Oh lord, yes.

SPEAKER_02 46:54

Gosh.

SPEAKER_04 46:55

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 46:57

That's a really good note to end the podcast on, I reckon. Just dreaming of sparkling Sicilian wines, unless you have something else for it. You've got to love it, don't you? Yeah, absolutely. I'm very much here, I'm here for it.

SPEAKER_04 47:11

Oh, I'm definitely here for it. Um and I can't wait for that particular tsunami to break over my head and consume me in much the same way as I'm as I will try and consume it.

SPEAKER_02 47:25

To get pulled into an ocean of sparkling growth.

SPEAKER_04 47:28

We're all about the consumption.

SPEAKER_02 47:30

Absolutely. Well, and that's a great note to edit on, Don.

SPEAKER_04 47:33

Marvellous.

SPEAKER_02 47:34

I know. Well, next week we shall see.

SPEAKER_04 47:37

Next week will be my last podcast for a while. Don't worry, listener, it's only for a while. I'm taking some time off, so we're going to have some um very able deputies to step in and replace me. Um, something uh you know, obviously most people would consider impossible. But um but we shall see. We shall see. Um big shoes to film, though. I'm off to Europe for uh four weeks. Well, specifically, I'm off to Ireland for three weeks, and then um I'm spending some time in Bangkok while in Phuket in Thailand on the way home. Oh nice. Because even though there is even though there is a heat wave in Ireland at the moment, I'll and I'll put heat wave in inverted commas there, um it'll be I'll still be needing a little bit of vitamin D, I should imagine.

unknown 48:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 48:23

After three weeks, after three weeks in Ireland.

SPEAKER_02 48:25

Yeah, and keep a keep make sure you keep tabs of what you've been what you've been drinking.

SPEAKER_04 48:30

I should be sending you photographs. We can we can we can put we can put them up in the we can put them up in the um in the comments on the on this on our podcast.

SPEAKER_02 48:49

I was gonna say it's uh yeah, uh what's the word? A mosaic of Guinness.

SPEAKER_04 48:54

Oh, I intend to have those poor buggers at the Guinness Brewery working overtime the entire time I'm over there.

SPEAKER_02 49:01

Okay, well we'll talk we can talk about that a little bit more next week and then off.

SPEAKER_04 49:05

Yeah. Excellent.

SPEAKER_02 49:06

Well, you have a great week.

SPEAKER_04 49:07

Yep, you too.

unknown 49:08

Thank you.

SPEAKER_04 49:09

All the best. All the best, mate. See ya. All right, bye.

SPEAKER_00 49:13

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 wineheadsearcher.com.