The Winery 60/40 of Sonoma County of California

Foley Family Wines has returned to the acquisition trail in California by announcing its acquisition of Sonoma’s Chateau St. Jean from the Americas division of Treasury Wine Estates, owner of Penfolds in Australia. Foley said it ‘plans to restore the winery to its former glory’. A fee for the deal was not disclosed, but the purchase includes the historic 1920s chateau building, a 6,000-square-foot visitor centre, a winery facility and almost 32 hectares (79 acres) of estate vineyards. Fole ...

The luxury wine group bought Bottom Line Ranch in the San Miguel District for an undisclosed sum. It is exclusively planted with Cabernet, featuring seven top clones on three drought-tolerant rootstocks. Alex Ryan, chief executive and president of The Duckhorn Portfolio, said the sub-appellation’s climate is ideal for producing world-class Cabernet Sauvignon. ‘There is a reason why Paso Robles has the most Cabernet Sauvignon acreage of any appellation in California outside of Napa Valley,’ added ...

How’s the weather been this year? Awful. ‘La nature m’écoeure’, one of my wine-growing friends posted on Facebook on 8 April, having been out to look at the frost-crippled shoots on his vines that morning: ‘Nature disgusts me’. It takes a lot to make a wine-grower feel that. He wasn’t alone. Jeremiads echo around the northern hemisphere as 2021 closes. It’s been the year of all the miseries. None suffered more horribly than the growers of Germany’s Ahr valley, where floodwaters caused by the fou ...