The flavor of grass in wine of Wallonie

Police ordered the evacuation of more local residents in the Landiras area yesterday (Monday 18 July), with Liber Pater’s vineyard in Graves also evacuated as firefighters continued to try to contain a large forest fire that has been burning for the past week. A ‘fog’ of fire smoke behind Liber Pater vines on Tuesday morning (19 July), said owner Loïc Pasquet, who was briefly able to return to the site. Smoke hasn’t been a problem so far, he said. Credit: Loïc Pasquet. ‘The pol ...

I’d visited Kakheti, Kartli and Imereti before – Georgia’s dominant central wine-producing zones; but never the wild exterior. From the ice-crisped cemetery grass of the 11th-century church of St George, dominating the mountaintop village of Mravaldzali, we looked north across the mountains of the Greater Caucasus, Europe’s highest. The silence, and the vista, was daunting. Hundreds of dry, drab valleys lost themselves in as many snowy peaks. Russia lay beyond. There was, apparently, a way over: ...

Medway councillors in Kent have voted against plans to build the ‘Kentish Wine Vault’ English winery on ‘green belt’ land located in a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB), surrounding the small village of Cuxton. Plans for the major winery development were submitted by Vineyard Farms Ltd, sister group of MDCV UK Ltd, which is controlled by Mark Dixon, the billionaire British businessman resident of Monaco. Designed by leading architecture group Foster &am ...