The Winery Augustin Dumontet of Bordeaux

Surging demand for luxury Champagnes in the past two years appears to have changed the region’s profile on the secondary market, said Liv-ex, a global marketplace for the trade. ‘Once a relatively modest price performer, Champagne has become the best performer over the past one and two years,’ said Liv-ex in a new report published this week for members.  Its Champagne 50 index, featuring Krug, Cristal, Dom Pérignon, Salon and Taittinger Comtes de Champagne among others, has risen in value ...

Jestin said he has decided to retire after 35 years of helping to develop Maison Dourthe and Bordeaux in general – from exploring new vineyard management and winemaking techniques to promoting wines on the international stage. ‘Although no longer involved in the day-to-day side of the business, rest assured that I will continue to support the company as both stakeholder and trustee,’ he said. Dourthe, founded in 1840, has owned fifth growth estate Château Belgrave since 1979 but also has several ...

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 ...