A Wine Giant Leaves the Stage | The Week in Wine Podcast

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 wine-searcher.com. Good morning, Don. Good morning, Ollie. How are you? I'm great. How are you? Oh, tremendous. Over the moon, in fact. Fantastic. Did you have a good weekend? I had a lovely weekend, to be honest. I caught up with some family. I caught up with some old friends I haven't seen for a while. So, yeah, it was lovely. The weather was nice, of course, so that helped. Yeah, apologies for the listener in Northern Hemisphere. Yes, indeed, our Northern Hemisphere listener, especially our listener in Europe, who will no doubt be... You know, gradually the night's drawing in around you and suddenly it'll dark at four o'clock in the afternoon. Yeah. Yes. Miserable. But you've got Christmas to look forward to. So, you know, there you go. And in North America, you've got this is the month, of course, of Thanksgiving and America's favorite holiday, which is Black Friday. We're there. I thought you were going to say All Hallows Eve. And I was like, well, that was just a couple of days ago. And we had the unusual spectacle in New Zealand of having it in daylight, which is sort of Halloween, which is marvelous. I saw some merry children walking around in their scary costumes, which is fantastic. One small boy was going around with a very frightening mask on. It was a mask of John Key, who happens to be, oh sorry, not John Key, Christopher Luxon, who happens to be our Prime Minister here at the moment. So he was definitely trying to scare a few people. Thank you, people. Did you have anything nice to drink at the weekend? I had some lovely things to drink on the weekend. I'll tell you what I had. Go on. This was interesting. I had a, so I went out to dinner, and it was this fantastic restaurant called Cazador. Okay. It's a wonderful, it's a game restaurant, so they're claimed to be famous. They kind of shoot everything that goes into, that appears on their menu, and it's just beautiful. Right. But the wines are great, so they do a lot of wines by the glass, which is nice, and they don't. You know, they're not really tearing it up with the, um, as far as the prices go on it. Um, in fact, weirdly enough, the whole page of Sherry's, they do quite a lot of Sherry's. You'd really like it. Now we're talking. Now we're talking. But what, what I had was a Pais. Pais? As in like the South American? Indeed. That's the one. Fantastic. How was that? It was, it was different. It was, well, I mean, it was very different. So it's Chile's, for those who don't know, Pais, I'm not sure I'm pronouncing that correctly. It's also known as Mission, you might know it as Mission. Yeah, Mission, Pais Criollo. Red wine grape, you know, turned up with the conquistadors in the 16th century. It's Chile's oldest historical grape variety. And it was just really good. I mean, it's light-bodied, but incredibly fruity, quite bright, just really lovely. Lovely. Really lovely. I mean, to be honest, it did pale slightly in comparison with the Zinfandel that I followed up with, which was one from the Prisoner Wine Company, you know, Saldor Zinfandel. Right, yeah, from one extreme to the other, yeah. Yeah, which was lovely. It's, you know, that's, that's. Pretty reasonable, too. It's like a $30-odd bottle of wine, ex-tax, of course. I should point out as well, yes, that it was pointed out to me this week that I made a terrible error last week. What did you do? What? When I spoke about the global average price of something on WineSearcher. And, of course, I should have known this, and I don't know why I didn't. The prices that we have on WineSearcher are ex-tax prices. I'll just point out, they're not the actual retail price, they're the ex-tax prices. So in some places, there will be the actual retail price, but in other places, there might not be. Is that because tax is then applied when you come to checkout, as it were? In many cases. In the United States, for example, yes, it is. Yeah, okay. All right. Yeah. Yeah, I'll check. And so, anyway, I just thought I'd clear that up. But the ex-tax price globally is $29, which is, you know, pretty reasonable. Are we talking about the price? Oh, sorry, I'm not talking about the price now, I'm talking about the Zinfandel that I followed. Back on the Zinfandel, yeah, yeah, nice. Man, the one thing I liked about it was just that big blackberry nose in it. It's absolutely wonderful. I grew up picking blackberries as a child. You know, we'd go out and walk along the country lanes and there'd be thick brambles on either side and you'd just pick countless, innumerable blackberries around the place. And the taste of them was always... Astonishing. And, you know, that beautiful smell you get off your hands after it. It's just wonderful. Awesome, Don. Yeah, so, Anne, did you get up to anything good this weekend? Not really. Did you get up to any good wine this weekend? Not really, to be honest. I had a couple of those Airborne wines that were sent to me, but there was nothing too remarkable about those, the ones that I had there. There's a Riesling, which was a dry Riesling. At least it sort of... For the Riesling that I had, at least it gave you an indication of what you were going to get on the back, you know, on the back label. Yeah. Because sometimes with Rieslings, you're a little bit like, oh, what's this going to be? And you can sort of tell from the alcohol level as well. So it was 11%. And then they said, yeah, it was a dry Riesling. I was like, okay, cool. So, yeah, but nothing. It was, yeah, as far as I was concerned, nothing to write home about. So nothing really to talk about, to be honest. Perfectly serviceable wines, but nothing. Yes, nothing outrageously good. Shall we move on to this month's top stories? Why not? Sorry, that was a bit of a flat ending there, Don. Well, it was a little bit. I mean, you disappointed me slightly there. I was expecting something a bit more dramatic. No, nothing. Nothing at all. I'm sorry. Sometimes you have those weekends, Don. Sometimes those weekends just... I suppose somebody must. Yeah. I'm happy to live vicariously through your ridiculous game meets and pies and stuff like that. Like incredibly debauched lifestyle. Yeah, it was very nice. Yes, well, don't worry. Don't worry. I'll share the gout with you as well. No thanks. Anyway, so, right, it's been a big month. Oh, well, October was a big month. For readership. In fact, it was our best month for readership since May. We have more readers ever than May. So, hopefully, I think we're doing something right. I have to say, it's a strange bunch of stories that make up, say, the top five. Yeah. We've got one runaway leader, of course, which is Sauvignon Blanc, of all things. Sauvignon Blanc, the world's best Sauvignon Blanc was far and away the most read story this in October, by a substantial amount, by more than double its nearest rival. I can only assume that this is because people just love Sauvignon Blanc. Consumers love Sauvignon Blanc. And I imagine because Google would have picked it up as well and passed it around to loads of people, because we did get a lot of people who wouldn't be who would have been first-time users, first-time readers of Wine Searcher. And hopefully we've managed to keep a few of them with us. Nice. Nice. And interestingly, next, then it becomes a spirit fest for a little bit, because Saturday's story, which just. Crawled in at the very end of... Which is your story, go on. Well, modesty prevents me. Yeah, absolutely. Stop it. The world's best Irish whiskeys. Yeah, right. Which went absolutely crazy. Thousands and tens of thousands of readers already, and it's only been up since Saturday, so that's very gratifying both for myself and for Irish whiskey, I should imagine. Mm-hmm. It was an interesting story in itself, I thought, No, because looking at the... The position of Irish whiskey, it was starting to lose ground. It was starting to erode all the gains that the sector had made in the previous sort of 15 years or so, until bizarrely. At a golf tournament in Ireland in September, President Trump, one can only assume that it spiked his Diet Coke, Oh, okay. in a fit of uncommon goodwill, So, um... eliminated the tariff on Irish whiskey going into the US. And it's clearly given it a big shot in the arm because it's all coming back now. Interest in it is up and sales would appear to be rising too. So, you know, that was good. That was a good story. World's Best Bourbons. Yes, always popular, rightly so. Always a big deal, yeah. And then there's a couple of Australian stories. Yes, I saw that. Obviously, the World's Best Australian Wines, which you know you'd think would be the big one. But even more widely read than that was the story about Australia joining the Global Vine Pool. Yeah. We discussed this in depth a couple of weeks ago. We did, yeah. Yeah. And. The story is basically that Australian governments are paying growers to remove vines. Yeah. Um. After 20 years of challenge in the Australian market, it's finally come to this. It makes it really simple. I think it's a similar system to what they're doing in Europe from what I understand, is that they're actually not necessarily... Paying for them to remove vines, but they're helping to ease the transition, is that correct? Yes, that's it. They're helping them to transition from vines to something else, to some other fruit. Yes, it's not simply, you know, tear out the vines and we'll give you some money. It's financial incentives to change focus, effectively. Effectively. Yeah. Although, one has to say, in a country that's been in a drought state for around 20-odd years now, or more longer, probably, moving to things like nuts and... Other fruits can be incredibly water-intensive, so I'm not entirely sure where the water's going to come from, especially for things like hazelnuts, which are very water-intensive, avocados. Compared to them, grapes are ideal for a drought-ridden country. True. Very true, actually. I mean, that sort of mirrors discussions, and we've talked about this as well, with Bordeaux. We've talked about Bordeaux and its water irrigation issues and requirements. Yeah, very similar conversations. What else has been... Begin the month, Don. Well, the only other really big story is one of the world's best Merlots, obviously, which is... Oh, yeah. There's a surprise topped off by Petrus. Bruce. But an interesting list. There's quite a few Italians in there. Masetto, obviously, unsurprisingly. But, yeah, a cool little list, actually, those Merlots. You sort of sit there and you're like, oh, yeah, Merlot is... Because we tend to... It's an easy... What's the word? It's an easy one to take the mickey out of is Merlot. Bless it. Well, it is, and let's be honest, everybody has, haven't they, ever since that terrible Sideways film? Oh, God, yeah. Actually, yes, that's a very good point. How much of that is actually just due to a throwaway line in a film about Pinot Noir? There's a throwaway line, exactly, especially a throwaway line that was picked up by people who really didn't understand the joke when, at the end of that movie, he's drinking Chablis. But anyway, the only other really big story of the month was the story about the Supreme Court hands wine a Pyrrhic victory. Ah, yes. This is the one where it refused to hear the appeal by Ohio against Ohio's own court. Saying that it was illegal for it to prevent outside shipping. And so now the problem that Ohio wine sellers are going to have is now that Ohio will have to change its law. And as a result, it can do one of two things. It can liberalize and open up to outside wine shipments, or it can perfectly legally just close it off and have no wine shipments. Right. That'd be interesting then. We'll see what happens there. Well, indeed, we will. Do we know what the indications are? Does Blake have any idea? I don't think so. I mean, this is the problem with it. We just don't know what's going to happen next. I mean, the problem with this is because it's such a big, big story and everything, the changes in it, they happen so incrementally that, you know, we're still talking about Granholm versus Heald. You know, that's still a... A live case as far as, you know, wine shipping goes. And that happened in 2005. Yeah, that's good. People start talking about wine shipping in the States and my eyes start to glaze over a bit. I'm like, oh. Well, of course, because it's very much suddenly nothing happened. Yeah, that's exactly what I was going to say. It's hurry up and wait. Yes. You know, you get kind of excited and you think something's going to happen and then it doesn't. And then, of course, the legal system is just so achingly, glacially slow and nothing ever happens suddenly in it. And it's, I mean, you know, by the time they're carrying me off You know, my final reward. Or my just desserts, depending on your opinion. I'm You know, I'll still be going, starting what's happened with the Ohio case? And they go, we're still waiting. There was another continuance. It will, like the poor, always be with us. Yeah, right. Like the poor and Sommeliers claiming that Riesling is on the comeback trail, to it will always be with us. speak. Can I just point out as well, though, that while good news is good news and bad news is bad news, and I do have a reputation, I think possibly unfairly, although possibly also self-granted, on this particular podcast for being quite Pollyannaish. And if I may just diverge for a moment, I did get an email from one of our listeners in Europe, and also one of our contributors in Europe, the wonderful Caroline Henry, the rebel of champagne. Yeah. Long may she fight on, the good fight. Yeah, absolutely. She sent me a small quote on Pollyanna and that policy. Yes. And said, we would demonstrate to everyone that we are cheerful, that we are optimistic, that we are happy, that we are looking for the best feeling thought that we can find and that we've practised so much that we often find it. And then as people say to you in accusing tones, oh, you are a Pollyanna, simply announce to them, Pollyanna lived a very happy life. So that's what I'm going to do from now on. Whenever I'm accused of the heinous crime of being optimistic, I've just got to point out that Pollyanna lived a very happy life. Yes, that is a very valid point. Unlike Cassandra, of course, who didn't. Unlike yours truly, this sort of wizened old hag. No, no. I do apologise for mixing up Hayley Mills and Greek myth there. That would have been jarringly dissonant to a lot of people. Yeah. Shall we talk about the week? Shall we talk about the last seven days? Let's talk about the week rather than the month. I'm, I'm, I'm... Well, that's it, that's it. I'm better on recent history. Yeah. So the big news, obviously, last week was the passing of Marvin Shanken. Well, it wasn't a Wine Spectator. Yes, indeed. Indeed. And we've put out an obituary today written by Blake Gray, our U.S. editor, who's had a lot to do with both wine writing, the Wine Spectator, and so forth. I mean, he was even contacted by the New York Times to comment on Mr. Shanken's passing. Hiya. And he makes a very good point. While Robert Parker probably changed how wine is made, More than anybody else in the past 50 years. Marvin R. Shanken certainly changed how wine was perceived, particularly in America. Right, yeah. That it was a big thing, a rich thing. It was a, you know, and it was a very lifestyle thing as much as anything else. Which I suppose when you look at, you know, the fact that he was a massive cigar aficionado as well and clearly liked to live life to the full probably isn't startling breaking news to anybody. But that was the big news of the week, I think, really. I mean, Wine Spectator has been a fixture for 50 years. And... And he's been involved with it for most of the 50 years that it's been going. He took it over in 1979 and changed it from really just a little kind of a trade journal to a massive publication. I mean, yeah, it was huge and still is. I mean, don't get me wrong. It's one of the few. It's also one of the few places where wine journalism is taken seriously still, alongside here and Decanter, for example. And, you know. Drinks Business, arguably. arguably. There are, you know, but there are, there really aren't that many places where wine writing is a serious business. There are some newspapers that write about wine, but I'm not sure that their hearts are really in it, to be honest. I sometimes get that feeling. I mean, you know, it's almost like... The newspaper's not the columnist. Well, no, exactly, exactly, absolutely, the newspapers, the publishers themselves rather than the columnists. So the columnists, their hearts are absolutely in it. I mean, they're putting themselves on the line for it. I mean, this is their living. But it's, yeah, I just feel kind of a lot of newspapers, they just think that having a wine column is something you're supposed to have. It's, you know, it's, oh, well, you know, they've got one, so we should probably have one, and we won't put too much resource into it, and that'll be it. I mean, it wasn't always thus, but that's kind of what it's become. Well, in the meantime, as we go back to our week in news, I mean, obviously, the world's best Irish whiskeys is the big story of the last week. Despite being published two days ago. Yeah, yeah. Despite being published two days ago. Tens of thousands of readers. Tens of thousands! It's all going to my head. I'm Also, followed by the world's best Merlots. Yes. Also a relative newcomer. tired. Indeed, yes, indeed. And the story about older generations still being thirsty for wine. This is effectively pointing out that Generation X is still doing all the heavy lifting for everyone. You won. We did mention this last week, didn't we? We did mention this. The other big stories of the week have been, well, obviously this one keeps giving too, the fact that Champagne has ditched its expansion plans. Ah, yes. Well, that is quite big news, and that goes back decades. Yeah, it does. 25-odd years. Cheers. Yeah. And so, once again, the aforementioned Caroline Henry, she brought us that one, and we even managed to scoop Vitosphere with that one. Excellent. Effectively, we got it out before anybody else did. And well done to everybody involved. Absolutely. Pass on the back. It's there for yourself, Tom. Absolutely. We'll form a very small circle, you and I, and pat each other on the back for a job well done. I'm done. Well, in the absence of Caroline Henry actually being in the same country as me, you'll have to deputise on her behalf. I'll deputise. We should get Caroline on the podcast as well, do a little champagne special, especially in the run-up to Christmas. Well, also in the run-up to other news this week, it really does appear like champagne has stopped bouncing along the bottom and is actually nudging upwards. Apparently. sales are looking like they might be recovering. There are green shoots on the horizon. That's not it, is it? That's a terribly mixed metaphor. Green shoots are on the horizon. Yeah, I think it might be bamboo. So... LAUGHTER That's the only reason I can see it. But, you know, there's a light at the end of the tunnel, as they say. And this time it's not a train. Well, I'm not convinced. We'll see how we go. It might be a burglar's torch. Yeah, you can be Pollyanna and I'll... Well, you be Cassandra then, and I'll be Pollyanna. We can be the ugly sisters. Tooth tooth. Yeah. Let's see, the other big news of the week, or other well-read stories this week, I should say, rather than big news, was your interview with Serge, Thank you, Serge. the wonderful meteorologist. Yeah, Serge Jakab. Yeah. Yeah, that's it, Serge Jakab. The coolest looking man in wine, surely. Pretty good, isn't it? There cannot be. I mean, we've got these kids. He's virtually stripped to the waist and wearing a cowboy hat. Yeah. I mean, does it get any better than that? And yeah, he was pretty much dressed like that for the interview as well. He apologised. He apologised initially for not wearing the hat. But then he just reached over and then just stuck it on his head. And I was like, oh, no, we're all right. Yeah, so, no, really, really interesting chat. Really interesting stuff. Yeah, and just, yeah, so fascinating. Talked about climate change. I think, yeah, the biggest thing was, like, I was trying to see, I tried to ask him, you know, is, you know, can, for instance, Bordeaux, just, is there a way back for Bordeaux? Can its climate go back to what it was? And he's like, no, it's too late. It's already Toulouse. Basically, he's like, you know, the Bordeaux's climate is now what you'd associate Toulouse with 20 years ago. So it's already, like, Mediterranean, pretty much. And the Bordeaux's climate has now shifted to the Loire, and everything's just shifting north. I mean, it's quite interesting. He was quite positive about part of the generally. He was like, well, if you look at it, broadly speaking, there's never been more available viticultural land across all of France. I mean, admittedly, it's all gone north, but you've never got potentially more available land. And the other thing he also said was actually, although he's quite… Not necessarily doom and gloom is not the right phrase, but he's very, what's the word, forthright about climate change. But what he was very honest about was, he said, actually, although climate is causing problems, the biggest problem wine is facing in France is socioeconomic, not climate, which is quite sobering. He was actually the biggest threat is people not drinking and people not being able to afford to drink. Yeah. Yeah. Super fascinating chap. Really good. Yeah. Well, it's interesting that Bordeaux should be the new Toulouse, or Toulouse should be the old Bordeaux, perhaps. And the Loire, the new Bordeaux. Maybe they'll be able to ripen some Cabernet Franc up north there. Well, it'll be interesting. It'll be interesting. It'll be interesting. I'll say, as wine heads north, French rugby heads south. Sometimes I'm just... It's quite interesting. All the northern French teams are in the bottom half of the French league. Anyway, that has nothing to do with wine or anything else for that matter. It doesn't matter. Squeeze that one in. Well, I was just thinking of Toulouse and Bordeaux, two great rugby teams in France. Yes. And Bordeaux would love to be the new Toulouse at the moment because Toulouse are on top. But Bordeaux is second, so, you know, it's not too bad. I never had you down for a fan of French rugby. Oh, I love French rugby. I love all blood sports. Um, that's, that's. That's not true. I don't like blood sports, but I do love the level of bloodthirstiness that you tend to find in French rugby. It's like watching... If you can imagine... This is a strange image. If you can imagine artillery as cavalry. Charging on each other. That's kind of what it's like. Huge men running as fast as they can into each other. And, you know, it's... It's the ultimate in Darwinianism. It's, you know. It's just survival of the fittest. Yeah, anyway, it's a wonderful sight to behold. Not And beyond that, funnily enough, it's Sunday Stories, which leads quite nicely into your end of things. So let's have a talk about the Sunday Roundup this week. at Yeah, again, it's been a busy week. It was a busy week last week. Lots going on. A bit of sad news in that Leon Bayer, which is quite a well-known Alsace winery, all. is closing its doors. Yes. There was more AI stuff from Bodega's Cepa 21, or Cepa 21, which which is in Ribera del Duero, launching its own wine recommendation bot, which is another one of those. Big auction return in Hong Kong for the former finance secretary Henry Tang's cellar, which is more classic Bordeaux, Burgundy, Rhone, and Champagne. The news that Remy Cointreau actually saw a sales uptick also was picked up. Oh, wow. Which was quite nice. So a bit of positive news from Cognac for once, which was good. But the headline story this week was Vega Sicilia's first white wine is going to hit the market. Yes, indeed. Yeah, nothing new in that Vegas Sicilia is opening a winery and Ribera del Duero sort of making white wines. We've talked about that several years back. But yeah, this is actually the 33,000 bottles of the 2024 about hit the shelves. For what I was quite surprised at, it's a modest 40 euros a bottle. That's pretty good. Isn't it? Get yourself a little white Vegas Sicilia. I mean, it's not going to be called Vegas Sicilia, but yeah. So, yeah. So there we go. And their new winery is in construction. It's due to start producing wine next year. Yeah, not a lot to add, really. Pretty straightforward, that one. Next one was Bernard Magret. When will that man slow down? Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Hey. No time ever, probably. Yeah, it seems to be. He's just released... Actually, this is interesting, because we did mention this on a couple of podcasts ago. Remember we did the world's best Bordeauxs? Yes. And I was surprised that there were a couple of wines that snuck in there that were, like, not second wines, but were special cuvées of things like Petrus. And I wondered whether we were going to see more special one-off cuvées in Bordeaux. Well, here we go. Bernard Magret has launched 22 of them. Combining all sorts of things. So, PC4, for instance, is a blend of four vintages of his Chateau Pape Clément. LTC. LTC5 is Latour Carnet 5, so five vintages of Latour Carnet blended together. There's a right bank and left bank blend of Chateau Fombroche and Latour Carnet. My five gems, mes cinq pépites, is across his five estates. Mm-hmm. Amphora, which is Chateau de Grand-Cheyne, which is then his Medoc estate, aged in clay amphora. So there's all these individual one-off cuvées, sort of wines. Sorry, aged in what? Aged in clay amphora. Oh, dearie me, I thought you said Clown Forum. And I was wondering, what on earth is the Clown Forum? I did the Clown Forum in the Medoc. Yeah, that'd be quite good. I leave the jokes to other people with this one. Oh, no, I'd pay good money for that. That'd be quite good. You could have a Harlequin label. It'd be quite good. Comes with its own jaunty bonnet and a bell. Oh, dear. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Let's not do that, please. Let's not talk about clowns and circus. I'm going to call it Circus Arts. Oh, dearie me. Okay, moving on. Sorry, it's just I have a real problem with mimes. Oh, mimes? Yeah. I'm not a huge fan of clowns. No, I don't mind clowns. I love clowns, in fact. I once had to interview a couple of clowns from the Irish government, from the Moscow Circus. Oh, wow. One of the funniest times of my life. I interviewed these two guys, and they did it entirely silently and just did everything with facial expressions and slapstick. It was just, it was magnificent. And I just so wish I could have filmed it, because it was marvelous. And then they invited me out into the center, into the ring that night. Yeah. I cruelly belittled my ability to, or my inability, I should say, to control a hula hoop. It was, you know, they just brought me out there to make me, to make, to belittle me, basically. Yeah, that was, that was, well, it was not in the best possible taste. They were wonderful. But mimes, no, mimes. I'm very much, I am, I'm very much of the school that thinks they should be forced to learn the words. I've never had a problem with mimes, clowns. Well, I've never had a problem with mimes. I'm sorry. I'll tell a lie, I've had a problem with proper mimes, you know, the ones who pretend they're stuck in a box? Yes. I mean, that just infuriates me. I did know a guy, I did, yeah, I used to know a guy growing up who had this terrible habit of stopping in the middle of the street. Applying his shoulder to an invisible door and trying his best with great effort to get through it and then coming up with an entirely invisible key out of his pocket, putting it in the lock and getting through the door and then putting his shoulder to it and slamming it close from the other side and then just carrying on. With the rest of his day, he was magnificent. People used to gather around to watch him. He didn't even do this for money. It was just something he did. It's just the same thing he did. And then he moved on from that and he started pushing an invisible wheelbarrow around in front of him and weaving in and out of people the whole time. And people would literally jump out of the way of this invisible wheelbarrow. And then, of course, the greatest day of his life was the time when he went into the... Into the library, the town's library, and the librarian said, you can't bring that thing in here. Anyway, sorry, but to get back to what we're talking about, let's get back to the news, shall we? Let's move on. Bordeaux pesticide campaigner gets day in court. This is Valerie Mouha, who, it's about five years ago now, when she was convicted of denigration or defamation against the wines of Bordeaux for publishing 22 Bordeaux wines with high environmental value certification, actually contained pesticide residues. Yeah. So she's getting her appeal. It certainly seems that she's been pretty hard done by. She wasn't able to appeal until she'd paid the original fine, which I find quite unusual. But, you know, she's convicted in the Bordeaux court, so perhaps that's not too surprising. Anyway, she's going to get her appeal being heard tomorrow. We're doing this on Monday. So she's going to be heard on Tuesday in Bordeaux. OK, well, the appeal begins on Tuesday. Yeah, so interesting times. Yeah, we'll see what comes out of that one. Cremant de Bourgogne gets vineyard naming rights. This is that Cremant de Bourgogne have changed their production parameters so you can now put single vineyard, name of the vineyard on the label. As long as the wine's entirely from that vineyard, away you go, which I think is great. I like that sort of stuff. It's really cool. Cool. Yeah. Yeah. And it's important to remember that a lot of Cremant de Bourgogne is actually made in Beaujolais. True. True. So, yeah. Ups and downs in the bulk wine market. So we're now into a new season of bulk wine. You know, the harvest has just come in for 2026. This is Northern Hemisphere, obviously. And so there's a few stories that came out at about the same time. One was that things had done pretty well for Vin de France category for the French bulk wine market for the last season. So 25, 26 season had seen sort of modest growth, shall we say. Modest, small levels of growth. Whereas a story out of Spain was saying actually the start of this season is actually starting pretty slow and that things are looking a bit tricky. So they said the Spanish website said the outlook for bulk wine in Europe generally, which is predominantly French, Italian or Spanish wines, was marked by lower prices and cautious buying. So, yeah, we'll see how that goes. But it doesn't look like the market's too keen to get into the new season of bulk wine. And finally, Txakoli gets a commemorative stamp. This is from Spanish National Post Service Correos, which has issued a pair of commemorative stamps which have honoured the Basque region, which is in the north of Spain, for those who don't know. And one is Txakoli, and the other is Oizkal Ochellabeef designation. And so, yeah, there's two wonderful stamps. One is of the cows in this... delightfully verdant pasture the other is a bunch of grapes white grapes hanging down and the next to those are two official stamps and then there's sort of three unofficial stamps which which are the each sort of separate sub-region of Txakoli uh all right yep you know what i mean so you've got uh Getaria, Getariako Txakolina, Bizkaiko Txakolina and Arabako Txakolina So, yeah, that was interesting. The set costs three euros. So if you're in Spain or you happen to be passing through, grab yourself a set of Spanish stamps featuring some very happy-looking bulls and a bunch of grapes. Well, how do you know they're happy-looking? They just looked happy. Did you examine them with a magnifying glass? No, no, no, they just looked happy. They could be fuming. I mean, they could be really angry. They're small. The pool's going to be exceptionally... They just looked happy to me. They looked happy to be in that pasture. They looked nice. I'm assuming, I'm making assumptions that they could be absolutely enraged at having their photo taken. Not quite as enraged as they were when they were led onto the truck taking them to the works. Oops. . Oh, John! Oh, whatever. But yeah, it is a beef designation. . Hello. . . So yeah, it's not. . Oh, yeah. . Yeah. . Yeah. They're not there to make the country look pretty. . . . Oh, God. . . Hey, this is blood sports. . Rear its ugly head again. . Well, it's not sport, but yeah. . Yeah. . Um, No, it's not a sport. yeah. . . It's not a sport. . . It's a business. . . Yeah. . How is the week looking ahead? . . . . This week's looking pretty good, actually. In fact, I think our readership will continue strongly this week. Excellent. He said, hopefully. Hopefully we've. We've got, well, apart from today's obituary of Marvin Shankin, we've got a very interesting story about Cremant d'Alsace. Oh, yeah. Alsace, as we've reported, is not having a great time of it. But it's, you know. Things are tough. People, for some reason, aren't buying Gewurztraminer. I Don't be rude. I'm not being rude. But, you know, I mean, it's a tough sell. don't And so is Riesling. And selling Alsace Pinot Gris know. in a world that's still... Who considers Pinot Grigio to be the height of sophistication is, you know, again, that's not easy either. Making Cremant, you know, so a sparkling Alsace wine is a great idea. And not only that, but it's the whole Cremant thing is doing quite well in France generally. Yeah, true. You know, Cremant d'Alsace, Cremant de Bordeaux even, you know. I'm sorry, not so much Cremant d'Alsace, Cremant de Loire, Cremant de Burgundy. You know, these are good. They do well. They're not overly expensive. Good traditionally, you know, traditional method, sparkling wines with a sense of place. Yeah. So, you know, why wouldn't you really? And so there's a story about this might be a way for Alsace producers to maybe. Find a little something to hold on to in tough times. Yeah. And also our best ofs are going to be, of this week, are I would imagine going to be hotly anticipated on Wednesday. We should be running one of best Chardonnay Yes. Yeah. Without meaning to detract from the suspense. Suspense. It's fairly likely, I would imagine, to contain an awful lot of burgundy, white burgundy. Yes. Although, to be honest, I think I'm doing it a disservice by merely referring to it as white burgundy. I'm going to do. This is as far from Bourgogne Blanc as it gets. You iconoclast, yeah. Indeed. And then the next weekend we'll be running Best Vodka. And let's be honest, nobody particularly admits to being a vodka connoisseur, a vodka lover. But judging by the sales figures, lots of people are. Hmm. You know. Vodka's a funny beast at the best of times anyway What? because it provides absolutely nothing except alcohol. In its finest, purest form, it tastes of nothing. It's just alcohol. So it brings no flavour whatsoever to a cocktail or to any drink. Ah, yeah, no, yeah, yeah. A fairly hefty spine of pure alcohol. Yeah. So anyway, it'll be interesting to see which ones are the best. I mean, because how do you define best when it comes to something that the better it gets, by definition, the less it tastes of anything? Well, I quite liked it on its own. I remember in my grandparents' place, they had a bottle of Stolichnaya, in the old spirits cupboard. And I do remember occasionally of an evening sort of sitting back and watching French TV and having the odd snifter of vodka and quite enjoying it just on its own. It's quite nice. Just on its own? Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. On the rocks? Not even. Just room temperature in a shot glass. Yeah, in a shot glass. Yeah, I'm thinking that's quite nice. God, you paint a depressing picture. You're fleeting. Okay. No, it was genuinely enjoyable. No, genuinely enjoyable. There was that, and then there was one, I think I once had a drinking session in Paris with a Russian, several Russians, actually. I'm sorry. And that was caviar and vodka at a pace which remains a mystery to me. It's sort of like, yeah, you do one bite of the caviar on the thingy, on the blini, and then one shot of vodka, yeah. That's pretty good, though, because let's be honest, caviar is good for that. It makes you thirsty. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The saltiness of it is brilliant. It all sort of makes sense. You're like, oh, yeah, okay, here we go. It does make sense. And indeed, to be honest, vodka and oysters is a lovely mix too. Oh, I've never done that. But I remember having dinner with some Polish gentlemen once. And everybody, like they invited me to dinner. And so I came along and they said, bring a bottle. So I thought, oh. They're all going to be drinking vodka, so I'll bring a bottle of whiskey, which I did, and I offered him my bottle of whiskey, and he just says, put it on the table in front of you. Okay. Um, that's a good, a good, I mean, everybody, literally everybody around the table bar me was drinking vodka, and dinner consisted entirely of a large jar of pickled onions in the middle of the table. It was, frankly, the most depressing night of my life. I can't believe. It's just awful. I was starving. All there was to eat were pickled onions. Oh dear, washed down with either vodka or whiskey. Oh Lord. Anyway, yeah. But let us not be downhearted because, you know, vodka is popular. And it's also not the worst thing in the world. No, absolutely not. And there's a lot to be said for something that brings alcohol to the party. And on that note. And on that note, indeed. Thanks, Dom. We'll catch up next week. Have a good week. Absolutely. I'm looking forward to it. And yeah, we'll see what the week brings. Take care, mate. Thanks, Lisa. All right. See you. All the best. Bye. Bye. Thank you for listening to the Week in Wine news podcast. For more than all that we discuss and for price and retail information on all the wines near you, including comprehensive coverage from our pro membership option, go to wine-searcher.com.