Grapes grown at altitude taste different. As you go higher, temperatures drop and the fruit is exposed to more ultraviolet (UV) light. Higher UV leads to higher levels of anthocyanins (and therefore darker-coloured wines) as well as enhanced production of protective compounds - most notably the phytoalexin resveratrol.
Read more...Argento has appointed The Drinks Sampling Company (DSC) to take on the sampling campaign of its Malbec and Chardonnay wines over the next six months.
Read more...The most baffling thing about Sauternes is how its producers survive. It's not just the unpredictability of Botrytis cinerea; in 2004 the yield at Chteau Climens was less than four hectolitres per hectare (4hl/ha). At Chteau Suduiraut in the same year they left three-quarters of the grapes behind. The opening price of the wine, what there was of it, was 32 at Climens, 22-26 at Suduiraut. Both prices were less than the cost of production.
The Co-op has just added four own-label Fairtrade wines from Argentina to its list, the first UK retailer to do so.
Mendoza, Argentina, will be the host of the Annual General Membership meeting of the Great Wine Capitals Global Network for the first time in November this year.
The Argento Wine Company is relaunching its key Argento brand at a higher price point, starting with its two main varietal wines - Chardonnay and Malbec.
Read more...Chilean winery Via Montes is investing in a new venture in California's most famous wine region, the Napa Valley.
Read more...By Stuart Peskett
The new director of Wines of Argentina's inaugural UK office plans to double the country's market share in the UK.
James Forbes, senior buyer for Oddbins, will take up his new post at the end of July, and said he hopes that Argentina's UK market share will increase from 1.8% to 3.6% within three years.
How did you start?
I was a management trainee at the Coconut Grove, then went on to manage the Hampton Court Brasserie, Sweeney Todd's in Northampton and The Golden Pheasant in Oxford. And then I managed a caravan park in the Lake District.
Fine wine merchant Mayfair Cellars has gone into administration after a scam whereby top Bordeaux and Burgundy was allegedly sold to other London wine merchants.
Last month, a press release arrived at Harpers Towers declaring that the recruitment process was under way to find a UK director for Wines of Argentina's London office. This will be a challenging appointment,' it said. They're not wrong.
Read more...Simon Farr, one of the founders of London-based distributor Bibendum, is returning to work for the company full time after five years as non-executive deputy chairman.
Farr, who co-founded the company with Chris Collins in 1982, will take up the role of head of wine strategy, as well as taking responsibility for the host of joint ventures Bibendum has set up in recent years - such as the Argento Wine Company, Boisset and Lion Nathan. He was buying director at Bibendum until he stepped down in 2000.
His decision to return to a full-time role at Bibendum comes just weeks after high-profile joint managing director Dan Jago unexpectedly left the company. Bibendum also recently hired a new chief operating officer, Jeremy Young, recruited from DHL.
Last week Bibendum featured in the Sunday Times' 'Top 100 Best Small Companies to Work For' list for the third time.
Generally speaking, you should be wary of anyone who begins a sentence with In the old days'. Usually, they'll be talking about bygone eras when the bobby on the beat would give unruly youngsters a swift clip around the ear, or when footballers were real men, kicking a laced leather ball around a mudbath, cheered on by flat-cap-wearing hordes of working-class folk.
What made you open this style bar?
It was something the next generation of the family wanted. When the Antouns first came to London, after 25 years of running restaurants in Paris, they chose Hobart Place for the classical style of Lebanese dining. Then the Mango Tree took over next door; there was an empty space between that and Noura, so they thought, Why not something new?' For us, Volt means electricity, energy!
Guilty or not guilty. Happily, that is neither the question nor the answer for the Grand Jury Europen (GJE). As it sips, swirls and spits its way through the evidence presented by more than 150 anonymous vinous witnesses, it may well consider cases of assault, breach of contract, deception, extortion, fraud, negligence, price-rigging and treason, as well as mitigating circumstances such as crimes passionnels and diminished responsibility. But its decisions will not be rendered in a stark one- or two-word verdict. Rather, they will take the form of a summary, with charts and graphs and scores out of 100. As such, some will find them harder to accept than others.
The Argento Wine Company (AWC) has appointed Amelia Nolan as its general manager.
A graduate of the University of Adelaide and Roseworthy College, Nolan joins Argento from Constellation Europe, where she worked in marketing and sales for the Cellar Door division. She has also been brand manager for Hardy's.
AWC MD Dan Jago said: I am delighted that we have got someone of such a high calibre on board - this is just what the Argentine category needs. With Amelia's leading brand experience and international outlook, we are very positive about Argento's future.'
The picture emerging from Britain's high streets is of a mixed Christmas and New Year. While some companies are reporting better-than-expected like-for-like sales compared with 2004, others have issued profits warnings, and there are fears that business in the first few days of the New Year have been very slow. Majestic Wine, however, did better than most by increasing its like-for-like sales by 5.2% in the nine weeks from 1 November to 2 January.
Oeneo - the French-owned closure company formerly known as Sabat - has opened a plant capable of mass-producing Diam, the world's only taint-free' cork-based closure.
Paul Hobbs, the consultant winemaker best known for developing Argentinian Malbec for the likes of Nicolas Catena, has warned that Argentina is in danger of concentrating too much of its effort on the Malbec grape variety.
When Warren Adamson was starting as an apprentice in worsted spinning at Feltex Yarns in New Zealand, Fernando Ferr was graduating from the Universidad Catlica Argentina with a business administration degree.
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