Richard Woodard

1 week ago | thedrinksbusiness.com | Richard Woodard

Terrazas de los Andes has explored progressively higher altitudes in the winery’s quest for a fresher flavour profile, culminating in the creation of the Moët Hennessy-owned bodega’s remarkable Extremo Malbec. But Terrazas is also bullish about the prospects for Chardonnay, as Richard Woodard discovers. Terrazas de los Andes’ newly unveiled icon wine, Extremo Malbec, is well-named, and for more than one reason.

3 weeks ago | just-drinks.com | Dean Best |Richard Woodard

Distillers across Europe could be barred from labelling their products as ‘rye whisky’ thanks to a recently rediscovered agreement between the EU and Canada dating back to 2004.

3 weeks ago | news.wine.co.za | Richard Woodard

You can’t try to make top-level Chardonnay or Pinot Noir anywhere in the world without, at some point, the inevitable comparison with Burgundy being made. It may be lazy, it may be facile, but there it is: for many, the Côte d’Or remains the benchmark by which all others are measured. A lot of winemakers, perfectly understandably, try to fight it, determined to forge their own identity and reputation, and to be the best expression of their location without the need for external reference.

3 weeks ago | just-drinks.com | Dean Best |Richard Woodard

Danish whisky distillery Stauning has axed about 25% of its workforce and cut production by 50% after Diageo announced that it was withdrawing support for the Distill Ventures incubator programme.

3 weeks ago | just-drinks.com | Dean Best |Richard Woodard

In the mid-2010s, Douglas Murray, a 50-year veteran of running Diageo’s distillation processes in Scotland, found himself in the remote west of Denmark inspecting Stauning, a tiny operation started a decade earlier by nine friends who’d decided – based on a tasting of a transcendent 1977 Ardbeg – that they’d like to make some whisky. Stauning’s working practices were a world away from the Darwinian model employed at Diageo’s plants. Floor malting. Low yields. Weird mashing practices.