The Winery Don Renzo of Buenos Aires of Patagonia

After a two-year hiatus due to Covid, the UK Sommelier of the Year competition was back with a bang and saw Arnese bag the highly-respected title on Monday 18th July 2022. He pipped this year’s runner-up Agnieszka Swiecka (The Five Fields Restaurant) and 2019 runner-up Gareth Ferreira (Core by Clare Smyth) to the post. The competition is organised by The Caterer in partnership with the UK Sommelier Academy (UKSA) – a new non-profit organisation, officially launched yesterday – which provid ...

When I started my nomadic winemaking project, in 2018 at Niepoort Vinhos in Portugal’s Douro region, I had no idea how large a part Spain would go on to play – I certainly never intended to make it the locus of my project. So how did it happen? Yes, there was an element of chance and taking opportunities where they arose. But also, among the talented winemakers to whom I pitched collaborations, I sensed an openness and a readiness to collaborate which seemed particular to Spain. Held in June las ...

Approved by the INV viticultural institute on 1 July, Balcarce is the fourth GI to be named in the province of Buenos Aires. The province was largely abandoned as a winemaking region in the 1930s following a law permitting wine to be made only in the Andean Cuyo region, but is is slowly making a name for itself once again with cool climate vintages. Encompassing coast, prairie and the Tandilia mountains, Balcarce is located 37 miles from the Atlantic Ocean and has until recently been known for p ...