Part Two of the What Wine is That? retrospective
Last year I published the first part of my discussion of this book and the insight we can gain about the start of varietal labelling in the early 1970s.
A few updates on the Vinodiversity website
These are mostly minor edits about of new or renamed wineries, wineries now with additional alternative varieties or other corrections. As usual I am assisted by feedback from readers.
Some of the pages that have been recently edited are
Varietal pages for Zinfandel, Negroamaro
Region pages for Adelaide Hills, Alpine Valleys, Clare, Murray Darling,
Page about sparkling wines made from alternative varieties.
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There is quite a buzz around for Grenache at the moment. More winemakers are taking the variety seriously and are making some excellent wines. My friends at wine selectors have a special at the moment.
You get two bottles each of six different Grenache wines from different producers.
Vintage 2022
Just looked at Wine Australia's 2022 Vintage report. A few surprises for me. Tonnage of Malbec up 51% on 2021. Most valuable grapes: Grenache ($1319 per tonne) Pinot Noir ($1200) Mataro/Mourvedre ($1007) Riesling ($1171) Prosecco (960) Sauvignon Blanc ($756)
I'll write some commentary in a future issue of Darby's Wine Newsletter.
Taste and Talk
We meet via Zoom for a convivial chat at 5pm on occasional Thursday afternoons. I send an email remainder earlier in the day. You bring a glass of wine.
Next Meeting Thursday 16th February.
Coming soon: Our own private network.
We can free ourselves for the billionaires’ algorithms by setting up our own space to discuss alternative wines. We will do this by using the Substack app.