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Nov 15, 2024 | 
news.wine.co.za | Oliver L. Styles
Winemaking can be a perilous game. If two deaths two days apart last month (a 78 year old in Rias Baixas and a 76 year old in Saint-Mortan, in the Côtes du Vivarais) did anything other than leave two families heartbroken – the latter was found, heartwrenchingly, by his son – they also serve as a reminder that wineries are incredibly dangerous places to work. The prime cause of death – or, at least, the one that gets the most attention in the press – is carbon dioxide (CO2) asphyxiation.
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Oct 9, 2024 | 
news.wine.co.za | Oliver L. Styles
We all know that wine needs to attract a younger generation, but how young is too young? At the beginning of this year, French satirical paper Charlie Hebdo ran a number of pieces on the influence of the French alcohol lobby on politics and particularly on the health and wellbeing of French citizens. It focused primarily on the country's major wine lobby, Vin et Société, which represents half a million wine and wine-adjacent businesses in the country.
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Sep 14, 2024 | 
news.wine.co.za | Oliver L. Styles
Sure, we can debate whether or not a wine critic can give a 100-point, perfect, score for a wine. Profile-boost or genuine assessment, take your pick. But perhaps we should look at a far greater problem: perfect scorers. Because there are no more accidents, no more outrageous personality statements, no more pannings of top names. By and large, blind wine tasting has been completely dropped from the repertoire of the wine critic.
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Aug 8, 2024 | 
news.wine.co.za | Oliver L. Styles
Last week, Meiningers took a moment to examine the four main reasons behind wine’s consumption decline. None of them (healthier lifestyles, inconstant consumers, lower alcohol levels, and drinking quality not quantity), I believe, came near to the single, obvious cause: most consumers don't have that much spare cash any more.
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Dec 5, 2023 | 
newsbreak.com | Oliver L. Styles
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Dec 5, 2023 | 
decanter.com | Oliver L. Styles
Marlborough’s problem is one of transition: for people visiting New Zealand, even for many nationals, it is a place you go past if you’re going somewhere else. Its location – a 30-minute drive south of Picton (the main port of entry to the South Island via the Cook Strait car ferry from Wellington) – means people are either trying to make it north to the ferry or continuing south to Christchurch, Otago or even west to Nelson and the West Coast region.
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Dec 3, 2023 | 
winebusiness.com | Oliver L. Styles |Laura McKenna
We catch up with one of the winners of a prestigious wine scholarship from the Golden Vines awards. An Indian MW student working in New Zealand has won a scholarship sponsored by a Port house – now that's diversity. The Diversity Scholarship & Internship Programme, run by Liquid Icons and the Gérard Basset Foundation, are available for any BIPOC (black, indigenous and people of color) student wishing to study for the Master of Wine or Master Sommelier qualification.
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Nov 26, 2023 | 
winebusiness.com | W. Blake Gray |Oliver L. Styles
On returning to Texas, our US editor is pleasantly surprised. Ten years ago I took a wine trip to Texas Hill Country. I loved the quaint shopping strip with cowboy stores and country-fried steak restaurants and I found a few wines I could tolerate. I tried to sell a story to a big magazine, but unfortunately for me, the wine editor was from Texas. He said he knew all about Texas wines and the magazine would never recommend any. A decade passed before I revisited.
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Nov 12, 2023 | 
winebusiness.com | Barnaby Eales |Oliver L. Styles
The EU spends billions on its wine industry, but a watchdog has criticized how that money was spent. Spain's Castilla La Mancha (CLM), Europe’s biggest vineyard area, is reeling from one of the worst harvests in decades, highlighting concerns over the European Union's restructuring and conversion of vineyards program, which accounts for the lion's share of EU wine sector funding.
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Nov 4, 2023 | 
winebusiness.com | Don Kavanagh |W. Blake Gray |Oliver L. Styles
Environmental campaigns, competition controversy and a war-torn harvest – it's been another busy week for wine news. Lots of news this week, including the announcement that European wine production was down seven percent in 2023, according to the EU's agricultural unions Copa-Cogeca. France leads the big three in volume terms with both Italy and Spain seeing major drops in yield compared to last year.
