A pivotal time for wine, as chemicals are once again put under the microscope and the cause of the infamous “red wine headache” is discovered.
© 955169/Pixabay | It was another interesting week in the sometimes obscure world of wine.
This week, the EU’s decision to delay the glyphosate ban for 10 years made headlines, while speculation that red wine headaches could be caused by the compound quercetin also made headlines. is making some waves in the wine community. Aside from the obvious possibility that alcohol may have something to do with the problem, quercitin is also renowned for its anti-aging benefits — a conundrum that can cause its own headaches for older drinkers.
Meanwhile, some people may be wondering how much quercetin is in a bottle of oak-aged wine. Malbec This morning (Argentina celebrated its National Wine Day on Saturday), here are some of the wine headlines you may have missed earlier this week:
Chapoutier will release capsules
One of the biggest names in Rhone, Michel Chapoutier, will abandon the aluminum caps that adorn the top of his bottles in 2024, replacing them with strips of paper. This decision is environmental, said the producer.
“In terms of carbon footprint, aluminum has a catastrophic impact: its extraction, its transport, its weight on the bottles, its recycling,” Chapoutier told wine information site Vitisphere.com.
The aluminum capsules will be replaced by strips of paper covering the cap and around the top of the neck and a €70,000 machine has been acquired by the producer for this purpose. The new packaging will roll off the bottling line next year.
However, it is clear that Chapoutier’s decision is not only environmental, but also a snub to the capsule industry.
“It can be said that capsule manufacturers have not supported the wine industry,” Chapoutier said. The Rhône producer denounced the price increases practiced by capsule manufacturers.
Even if, following the Covid crisis, inflation and the rise in prices of dry products, it is clear that prices will increase, even if Chapoutier clearly believes that these costs have been too easily passed on to producers of wine.
“This is our way of getting back to the same,” he said, saying the new closure system was also “cheaper and more convenient.”
Chapoutier also attempted to convert others to his cause.
“I am willing to give details so that others can access them,” he added. “Everything is available, even the Braille labels (many Chapoutier labels are engraved in Braille writing).”
Russia to control wine imports
A somewhat obscure title found, among others, in the publication El País du Costa Rica of November 23. According to Russian news agency Sputnik, Russian authorities have informed the country’s 21 major wine exporting countries of their intention to carry out “on-site quality checks” through their Federal Phytosanitary Inspection Service.
Although it is unclear what “on-the-spot” (“in situ” in the original) checks entail, countries potentially involved include Argentina, Chile, Spain, France, Georgia, Italy and Portugal. However, one sentence in the report indicates that this decision is more likely to be a saber rattling between neighbors:
“The (Federal Phytosanitary Inspection Service) clarified that the most intense negotiations are currently taking place with Armenia, Moldova and Serbia,” El País Costa Rica said.
“It is necessary to carry out controls on the territory of producing countries to certify that they comply with the technological process of wine production,” the newspaper quoted the Federal Phytosanitary Inspection Service as saying. A statement that surely raises questions about what is sent to Moscow from the Balkans.
It remains to be seen whether lab-coated Russian boffins will start knocking on the doors of vineyards in Italy, Georgia and Spain (the top three wine exporters to Russia this year).
Russian tariffs on wines from Australia, the EU, the USA and other “hostile” countries were increased from 12.5 to 20% last August.
The United Kingdom becomes the first market for Spanish wine
The United Kingdom has overtaken the United States as the largest market for Spanish bottled wine, it was announced this week, with the former accounting for €181 million ($198 million) in sales – a increase of five percent – with a total of 61 million liters in volume. shipped across the Bay of Biscay.
At the same time, according to the Spanish Wine Market Observatory (OeMV), the former main destination for Spanish wine products, the United States, saw its sales fall by just over 10 percent (today today at 180 million euros). Although sales to Germany increased in volume by a tiny 0.5 per cent (to 60 million litres), this was not enough to overtake the UK in volume terms.
Nonetheless, 2023 is shaping up to be a sobering year for Spanish wine, with exports down around 3% (by volume and value) over the first three quarters of the year.
By the way, the Spanish news agency EFE reported this week that Guatemala had experienced an impressive increase in imports of Spanish wines. The Central American country has seen its imports of Spanish wines increase by almost 50% since 2020, worth five million Guatemalan dollars ($640,000).
Spain has now become the country’s second largest wine importer, accounting for 21 percent of imported wines (although the EFE report does not indicate which country takes first place, it is understood that the crown will go to Argentina). According to the Spanish ambassador to Guatemala, José María Laviña, the success of Spanish wine is due to “its quality, which sells itself.”
French Senate debates minimum wine price
To fight against alcohol abuse, the French Senate plans to take Scotlandplayed a leading role in establishing minimum pricing requirements for wine. In a law amendment presented to senators (as part of the “2024 finance bill”), a minimum price of €3.50 ($3.80) would be set on a bottle of wine at the minimum price. bag-in-box scale and so-called “cubitaner” formats, or wine pitchers.
According to the Senate’s own reports, this would increase the price of the cheapest five-liter case of wine from 9.35 euros ($10.25) to 23.30 euros, an increase of almost 150 percent. This measure aims to reduce the 49,000 annual deaths attributed to alcohol.
According to the same report, eight percent of adults in France consume half of the alcohol sold in the country.
“In Scotland, this (the minimum price) was put in place in May 2018,” said Senator Bernard Jomier, affiliated with the Greens. “This has produced results. We are going to bring this debate to the finance bill.”
According to the national daily Le Parisien, “a study published in The Lancet showed that alcohol sales in Scotland fell by 3 percent and deaths directly linked to alcohol fell by 13.4 percent.”
Debate on the bill began Thursday.
The major wine estates of Alsace merge
Two very popular Alsace The Cave de Turckheim and Cave du Roi Dagobert wine cooperatives have announced that they are formally joining forces under a new banner, becoming Alliance Alsace, we learned this week. The two wine estates, located in Turckheim, near Colmar (Cave de Turckheim) and in Traenheim, near Strasboug (Cave du Roi Dagobert), had been partners for thirty years and both had significant portfolios of organic wines.
Christophe Botté, of Cave de Turckheim and now general manager of the new entity Alliance Alsace, told the French business magazine Entreprendre that the merger constitutes a “new strategic step in the long and fruitful partnership developed between the two estates”.
According to Entreprendre, Alliance Alsace has a total annual turnover of 45 million euros ($49 million). The merger represents an annual production of 10 million liters of wine, 350 affiliated winemakers with a total of 1,400 hectares (3,500 acres) of vineyard.
Cairanne unveils the wine trails
The southern Rhône cru of Cairanne unveiled its new wine tourism initiative this week, officially inaugurating two wine walks that tour the vineyards of the appellation. The unimaginatively titled Bouteille and Magnum trails begin in the center of the town of Cairanne, opposite the Maison de Cairanne wine headquarters, and run through the region’s vineyards for 6 and 10.5 km respectively (3.7 and 6.5 miles).
“Through these itineraries, wine lovers, nature lovers and the curious will discover the region’s vineyards through its landscapes and will understand the full importance of terroirthe grape varieties, the know-how and the commitment of its winegrowers in the development of their wines”, specifies the wine news site Mon-Viti.com.
The walks, estimated to last between two and three and a half hours, were funded by several local organizations as well as various players in the local wine industry. As part of a separate environmental initiative, the Cairanne region is also expected to plant an additional 1,000 trees in the town by 2025.
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