The flavor of chalk dust in wine of Palestine

Colin Hay, a professor of political economy with a special interest in the Place de Bordeaux, considers the different ways of approaching en primeur purchasing, ahead of this year’s 2021 campaign. Buying en primeur wines is a rather strange and, arguably, arcane system of buying and selling in which the consumer purchases the wine typically in the early summer following the vintage even though it will not be bottled and delivered for a further 12-18 months. It is, in effect, a futures mark ...

In the same way that a private domaine can support a family, a co-operative winery can support an entire village. So when the Cave de Cairanne was effectively declared bankrupt in 2014, a whole community of growers was left hanging from a thread. ‘Closing a co-op is like closing a church. It supports businesses, families, generations,’ says Denis Crespo. He’s an unlikely saviour, as his roots are in natural winemaking. But he provided the necessary electric shock to get the co-op’s heart pumping ...

The situation has been developing for a long time. But the potentially explosive elements are growing in intensity and coming together as if by some invisible magnetic force. In 2011, Regulation No. 1169 (which amended earlier regulations going back to 2006) was adopted in European Parliament calling for a system to provide food nutrition information to consumers. Shortly thereafter, the French Ministry of Health instructed Santé Publique France, the national public health agency, to create a co ...