The flavor of tarragon in wine of Lemesos

Last year, there was much mirth on wine Twitter about a particularly excruciating tasting note. You’re right. The wine trade needs to get out more. But still… this one was a beauty. It began well enough – really quite beautiful, in fact. But before long the imaginative descriptions were getting more ornate and strained. It moved from poetic to meaningless before finishing with a reference to Burnt Norton – the first of TS Eliot’s Four Quartets – that put it firmly in Private Eye magazine’s ...

On 19 September 2021, the Cumbre Vieja volcanic ridge in the island of La Palma, Spain began a massive, three-month long eruption, that was a catastrophic event for this westward island in the Canarias. The volcanic fumes caused breathing problems as well as the cancellation of flights and fruit harvests, including grapes. Despite 7,000 people needing evacuation from the flow of the lava, there was only one fatality during the entire eruption. As the lava flow eventually covered over 1,000ha, mo ...

In the last board meeting of 2021 for the regulatory council of DO Terra Alta, in Catalunya, Spain, a long list of changes was approved. The most prominent was the making of a very strict certification system for wines that are 100% Garnatxa Blanca given that it’s their flagship grape variety. But perhaps the most interesting item is a bit further down the list that allows certification for a type of wines that in Catalan are called “vins brisats”. The name refers to white wine ...