Crus Bourgeois – a steady ship
Having had just 18 months in 2007 to reinvent themselves, after the previous cru bourgeois system was cancelled, the Alliance des Crus Bourgois du Médoc consider themselves fortunate to have saved the name ‘cru bourgeois’ a term which has positive resonance with consumers.
Skinny – a new era for Aussie chardonnay?
Forget skinny lattes, skinny is a new model for Aussie chardonnay – lean, maybe a bit mean, very clean, even edging to green. The style has been around for a while, as Tom Carson, winemaker at Yabby Lake in the Mornington Peninsula explained “these wines have been here in Australia but they didn’t have too much of a voice. Now, everyone is talking about these wines, and how fine they are.”
Vine burial in Russia
Not some ancient rite of passage for dead vines but a way to keep vines alive during the -26 to -27°C winter temperatures
Domaine Nathalie et Gilles Fevre
Nathalie and Gilles Fevre make outstanding wines from their 43 hectare Chablis property, and I was keen to get the low-down on Chablis and minerality from these top-quality guys.
Sauvignon blanc sub-regionality in Marlborough, NZ
What is it about Marlborough that makes this patch of land so well suited to producing the crisp, pungent, immediately-appealing, refreshing mouthfuls of intensely herby and fruity wines that Brits go wild for?
Abbotts and Delaunay
It’s refreshing to admit a vinous volte face, which is just what happened when I visited recently at Abbotts and Delaunay in the Languedoc-Roussillon.
The new Crus Bourgeois – three years in
With the cancellation of the 2003 classification in 2007, the cru bourgeois moniker in Bordeaux was due for extinction, but was saved via a third-party accredited, transparent scheme. Three years on from the introduction of the new system, how are the ‘new’ crus bourgeois being received?
Australia's new cool
Australian cool viticultural climates can generally be found at higher altitudes or latitudes. Many have climbed in search of cooler zones such as the Macedon Ranges, Adelaide Hills, Whitlands at the Alpine end of King Valley, and the Upper (south) Yarra Valley. But maritime areas, especially those exposed to cool, Southern Ocean currents in the Bass Strait as it funnels across lands south of Melbourne, also find cool, and windy, locations. Island state Tasmania gets the double whammy of a high latitude location that is bang in the middle of the roaring forties trade winds.
Crus Bourgeois vintage 2010
For the 2010 vintage 260 Châteaux were awarded the cru bourgeois label. This is up from 246 properties for the 2009 vintage, and 243 properties in the inaugural awarding of the revamped label for the 2008 vintage.
How has Austrian wine changed in the last decade?
A decade is not a long time in viticulture, but for small, niche producer Austria, ten years has seen notable movements in the structure of the wine industry. A comprehensive vineyard survey was carried out in 2009, ten years after the previous one, covering a decade that has seen Austrian wines move into a lauded sphere on export markets.
