The Winery Quinta das Fontes of Lima of Minho

Gusbourne has launched Fifty One Degrees North English sparkling wine from the 2014 vintage at £195 per bottle, which is thought to make it the most expensive so far released. Some others aren’t too far behind – Nyetimber’s 1086 rosé 2010 is £175 – yet Gusbourne’s move reinforces a sense of ambition within the UK wine world to be a regular fixture at this prestige cuvée level. Fifty One Degrees North, named after the position of Gusbourne’s vineyards in Kent and West Sussex, is a ble ...

The family-owned company made its first foray into Washington State last year when it began buying grapes from select vineyards throughout the Walla Walla Valley. The winemaking team was impressed by the quality coming out of the region, and it has now pounced on the opportunity to acquire land there. It snapped up 61 acres of an existing 117-acre property in Mill Creek. A local firm called Abeja, founded by Ken and Ginger Roberts, bought the land back in 2000 in a bid to grow world-class Cabern ...

The open letter, spearheaded by Wine Traders for Alternative Formats (WTAF), highlights the environmental impact of glass manufacturing and recycling. It notes that switching from glass to alternative formats could save ‘well over a third of the carbon footprint of wine consumed in the UK’ – the equivalent of taking 350,000 cars off the road overnight. Alternative formats such as boxed wine, canned wine, kegs, paper bottles and pouches all have much a smaller carbon footprint than glass. Oliver ...