The Winery Floreali of King Valley of Victoria

Traditionally the wine auction market took the summer off. Although the season has lengthened recently, summer is usually a fallow period. This year, speculation was rampant – will the market (and the prices) continue their upward spiral? The first fall sales have now been conducted, and if prospects for the wine market remain strong, a few clouds linger on the horizon. Wine auction results in 2021 broke all previous records and set a new benchmark. With sales in major auctions of over £500m, th ...

Josh Jensen was famed for producing elegant, silky Pinot Noirs at Calera Wine Company on the Central Coast.  Leading wine critic Robert Parker Jr once described Calera – the company that Jensen founded in 1971 – as ‘California’s Romanée-Conti.’ Jensen completed undergraduate studies at Yale, but his love of fine wine blossomed while completing an MA in social anthropology at Oxford University in the UK. He was a key member of the rowing crew at both universities, but he still found time to devel ...

Whenever I visit Domaine Richaud, just outside the village of Cairanne, the winemaking team remind me of friends I made at free parties in the 1990s in fields and disused warehouses. I’m not talking dreadlocks and dogs on strings, but there’s always an anarchic frisson in the air. You get the impression they know how to enjoy themselves. Perhaps it’s to be expected, given the radical furrow Marcel Richaud has ploughed. He’s approaching 70 now, but still thrums with pent-up energy, his ice-blue e ...