The Winery 94558 of Napa Valley of California

Domestic sales dipped by 1.7% year-on-year to 138.4 million bottles, but exports surged by 4.3% to 187.5 million bottles. That pushed the overall category into modest volume growth, with sales up from 321.8 million bottles in 2021 to 325.9 million last year. Value sales also smashed through the €6bn (£5.26bn) barrier for the first time, suggesting that the industry has now emerged relatively unscathed from the pandemic. Maxime Toubart, co-president of the Comité Champagne, hailed the figures as ...

Champagne doesn’t have much of a reputation for collective-mindedness. Ever since the region’s governing body decided to force growers to lower their yields during the Covid-hit summer of 2020, fearful of an oversupply of bottles and an undersupply of occasions to drink them, growers and houses have been grappling with a series of disagreements. First there was confusion and protest from a group of ecologically minded vignerons unhappy with the region’s quiet retreat from a proposed herbicide ba ...

I first contributed to Decanter back in November 1988; the hundreds of columns and articles I’ve written since constitute a journey of discovery. I squirm, though, if I’m described as a ‘wine expert’. Whatever wine knowledge we acquire quickly cools, congeals and crusts over, like custard or gravy, as the years pass. The wine world expands at a clip. Every vintage rewrites history. It’s the chance to share discoveries – not just about wines, but about people, places and the act of drinking itsel ...