The Winery Opince Pazmandhegy of Pannonhalma of Észak-Dunántúl

The latest survey from trade body WineGB shows that sales of English and Welsh wines have now increased by 69% between 2019 and 2021. The star performer is the direct-to-consumer sector, which is up by 265% over two years. It now represents 57% of all sales, up from just 36% in 2019. That means English and Welsh wine producers are increasingly cutting out the middlemen – supermarkets, specialist merchants, bars and restaurants – and selling directly to their devotees, either via their ecommerce ...

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 ...

In 2007, Frenchman Frédéric Albert founded the Compagnie de Transport Maritime à la Voile (CTMV) with the goal of decarbonising the wine industry. The firm managed to sail its 50m-vessel four times from France to Ireland, England and Canada, before going into liquidation as a consequence of the 2008 economic crisis. Despite the failure, Albert’s pioneering project was a sign for things to come. In 2013, Le Havre-based TransOceanic Wind Transport (TOWT) followed in CTMV’s footsteps sailing some 3 ...