Moravia, with roughly 95 percent of the nation's Vine plantings, is the engine room of the Czech Republic's wine industry. The Center of intensively farmed bulk-wine production is also showing great promise as a producer of quality white wines. This is largely thanks to its cool Climate, comparable in many ways to that in Nahe or Pfalz, the white-wine specialists a few hundred miles west in Germany. Moravian winelands enjoy a Vineyard year well suited to the production of Complex aromatics with good Acidity.
Moravia's climate is described by the Czech wine authorities as 'transient': widely continental but with occasional maritime influences when weather patterns blow in from the Atlantic. Brno, the largest Moravian city, is located almost perfectly at the heart of continental Europe, equidistant from the English Channel and the Black Sea. Its continental position and the local topography mean it is relatively Dry (average annual rainfall amounts to little more than 20 inches/50cm) and sunny (2244 sunshine hours on average each year).
As a result of this mild, Bright growing season, aromatic whites such as the Loire Valley's Sauvignon Blanc and the Alsatian trio of Pinot Gris, Gewurztraminer and Riesling are able to ripen slowly and completely.
The grapes develop high levels of flavonoids while retaining the pronounced, crisp acidity which makes them so refreshing. Moravia's position on the 49th parallel puts it at the same latitude as northern Alsace, as well as Champagne and the German regions mentioned above. Its first foray onto the international wine market has shown it capable of taking on these celebrated heavyweights of the white-wine world.
Although still a small part of the overall wine scene, red wine is improving in Moravia, mostly due to technological advances in winemaking rather than any climatic change or newly discovered terroirs.
The Alsace-based group is France’s biggest wine exporter and the biggest private winemaker in the country, with 68 properties spread across the country. It is also the largest exporter of French wine, accounting for around one in every six bottles sold in international markets, with brands including Calvet and J.P. Chenet. The company, whose full name is Les Grands Chais de France, recently shifted its strategy in a bid to become a global wine producer with estates in a variety of premium wine r ...
The Champagne 2022 harvest has begun and picking start dates have been set for the majority of villages, the Comité Champagne has announced. Individual harvest start dates are set for each village and grape variety in the entire Champagne region. This year, dates range between 20 August (Montgueux in the Côte des Blancs) and 6 September (Dormans Soilly in the Vallée de la Marne). The Réseau Matu, a network of hundreds of vineyard control plots, is used to observe the ripening of grapes across th ...
Lucio Tasca d’Almerita died in Palermo this week, on 25 July, aged 82. In Sicily he was known simply as ‘Conte Lucio’, such was the reputation of the Count and the amount of respect and affection people had for him. Lucio was one of the pioneers of winemaking on the island from a technical point of view, but moreover he was able to demonstrate how effective the modernisation of Sicily could be from a cultural standpoint. Born in Palermo on 9 January 1940, he was an athlete in his youth and even ...
