Winery Deskovic Malvazija

Layers of colour in the sky before me: indigo, peach, salmon. In the rear-view mirror, the gold was catching fire. As I drove down through the lonely, Mistral-chilled vines of Babeau-Bouldoux towards nearby St-Chinian, I was thinking about what Christine Deleuze of Clos Bagatelle had just said. ‘When you came to visit 10 years ago,’ she reminded me, ‘you said we needed to wait another decade for a market breakthrough. Today you’ve said we need to wait another decade or two. So when, exactly, wil ...

Bordeaux’s administrative court of appeal has effectively validated the St-Emilion 2012 Classification after rejecting long-standing complaints from three châteaux. France’s national appellation body, INAO, said the decision upholds an original court ruling from 2015. It added the complainants still have two months in which to appeal the judgement, however. Legal challenges to the St-Emilion 2012 Classification have been a feature of the past decade in Bordeaux. INAO said it was ‘reassured’ by t ...

The dark days began when I learned from a visiting Canadian friend about the death of one of the kindest, most gentle and most skilful Pinot winemakers I’ve known, Paul Pender of Tawse Winery. He died in a senseless and tragic act of violence on the evening of 3 February, outside his Lake Erie cottage. A stranger, subsequently charged with his murder, had (it seems) knocked on his door, asking for help. Paul’s sudden, untimely loss has left his family, and the broader Canadian wine community, di ...