The flavor of blood orange in wine of Don Valley

The arrival of Covid and the ensuing lockdown restrictions had serious repercussions in the hospitality sector and severely disrupted supply chains, particularly in the drinks sector. Champagne, one of the world’s most recognisable and exported wines, was severely hit by travelling restrictions – which initially impacted the luxury sector Champagne dominates – and the closing of on-trade outlets. The 2020 slump As a result, in 2020, Champagne sales plummeted; a 10% decrease year-on-year in March ...

The focus of the symposium, unsurprisingly, was on the challenges posed by climate change. As if to illustrate the immediacy of the threat, the symposium took place during a heatwave, with temperatures of over 40°C  in Bordeaux and extreme weather events recorded across the coountry: parts of southwest France saw violent storms and winds of 112kph on the evening of 20 June, while vineyards across the Médoc and St-Emilion were damaged by hailstones ‘the size of golfballs’. As Olivier Bernard of D ...

Given the sheer climatic diversity, the California 2022 harvest was a story of variability, specific varieties and varied approaches to making it all work out. Yields are down, nearly across the board. Still, winemakers and vineyard managers report high-quality fruit throughout the state, and the prediction is that the potential for fantastic, complex wines is high. There was tremendous variability up and down (as well as across) the state. An uneven growing season, with uneven effects throughou ...