Winery Ptora יהונתן מרלו (Jonathan Merlot)

The focus of the symposium, unsurprisingly, was on the challenges posed by climate change. As if to illustrate the immediacy of the threat, the symposium took place during a heatwave, with temperatures of over 40°C  in Bordeaux and extreme weather events recorded across the coountry: parts of southwest France saw violent storms and winds of 112kph on the evening of 20 June, while vineyards across the Médoc and St-Emilion were damaged by hailstones ‘the size of golfballs’. As Olivier Bernard of D ...

Researchers examining remnants of jars dating back to the kingdom of Judah found evidence that royal elites in Jerusalem may have been drinking wine ‘flavoured with vanilla’. It’s already known that wine has a long history in the region, and some studies suggest wines contained added spices or herbs. Yet researchers said they were surprised to find traces of vanillin in some of the ancient storage jars, which were excavated from debris caused by the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BCE ...

Jars recovered from the seabed and dating back to the Roman period have offered more clues about winemaking and storage in this era, according to a study that used a mixture of analysis techniques. A combination of chemical markers, plant tissue residue and pollen analysis helped researchers to build a picture about the possible contents of three amphorae ‘wine jars’ discovered near the coastal town of San Felice Circeo, around 90km south-east of Rome. ‘The evidence suggests the amphorae were us ...