☄️ Crater in a French winery

Happy Sunday! We’ve had an interesting week! Several important developments on the global wine scene and a meteorite crater discovered in a French winery. Read all the way to the end to see latest updates in our imaginary tavern - our head chef Gigi almost jumped from the terrace, straight into the sea.

🍾 Welcome to 182 new readers who joined this week!

INTERESTING THIS WEEK

👀 Aldi offers free wine in exchange for honest reviews? READ HERE

👀 Theft couple who stole 1.6 million EUR in wines from a exclusive Spanish hotel front up in court. READ HERE

👀 Savy liquor stores in New Jersey entice GenZ to shop using social media. READ HERE

METEORITE CRATER DISCOVERED IN A FRENCH WINERY

Countless meteorites have struck Earth in the past and shaped the history of our planet. It is assumed, for example, that meteorites brought with them a large part of its water. The extinction of the dinosaurs might also have been triggered by the impact of a very large meteorite. It turns out that the marketing 'gag' of the 'Domaine du Météore' winery is acutally a real impact crater. Meteorite craters which are still visible today are rare because most traces of the celestial bodies have long since disappeared again.

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THE MOST WANTED CHAMPAGNES IN THE WORLD

When it comes to the world's most wanted Champagnes, very little has changed, in fact – bar one or two wines – nothing at all. However, what has changed, unsurprisingly, are the prices. Like everything currently in life, it seems, prices have only gone up. Although some wines have remained moderate, others have escalated with all the restraint of a mad dictator with a nuke button. (The World’s Most Wanted Champagnes on Wine-Searcher:)

1. Dom Perignon Brut

   _{⭐️94 -💰286 USD}

2. Louis Roederer Cristal Millesime Brut

   _{⭐️95 -💰369 USD}

3. Krug Vintage Brut

   _{⭐️96 -💰671 USD}

4. Salon Cuvee ‘S’ Le Mesnil Blanc de Blancs Brut

   _{⭐️96 -💰1,585 USD}

5. Taittinger Comtes de Champagne Brut

   _{⭐️94 -💰222 USD}

6. Bollinger La Grande Anee Bru

   _{⭐️94 -💰172 USD}

7. Dom Perignon Rose

   _{⭐️95 -💰467 USD}

8. Dom Perignon P2 Plenitude Brut

   _{⭐️95 -💰523 USD}

9. Moet & Chandon Grand Vintage Brut

   _{⭐️91 -💰83 USD}

10. Krug Clos du Mesnil Blanc de Blancs Brut

    _{⭐️96 -💰2,206 USD}

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CALIFORNIA’S SMALLEST CROP IN A DECADE

California grape growers last year harvested the smallest crop of any year within the past decade, according to the California Department of Food and Agriculture’s Preliminary Grape Crush Report, an annual benchmark for the grape and bulk wine sector. The overall 2022 winegrape crush of 3.35 million tons was the lightest since 2011, the Feb. 10 report said.

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ARE LIGHTER BOTTLES IN SIGHT?

It’s now an established fact that making and transporting glass bottles are the biggest components in wine’s carbon footprint. An international group of retailers have been researching how to reduce this most effectively and are making real progress. Wine producers have been complaining that bottles have been getting more difficult, and expensive to source. Could lightweighting alleviate this? And how best to achieve it - read the full article by Jancis Robinson to find out.

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DEMAND HIGH FOR BURGUNDY 2021 WINES

Collector thirst for the top Burgundy 2021 en primeur wines has been strong, according to the merchants, but the campaign also played out to a backdrop of pricing concerns and mixed views on the market’s direction. Production of some Côte de Beaune white wines was down by 70% or more. Jason Haynes, director of UK-based Flint Wines, told Decanter that ‘overall demand from collectors (private customers) feels very strong’.

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WINE REGION OF THE WEEK: VIPAVA, SLOVENIA

Vipava Valley (or Vipavska Dolina) is a wine region of Slovenia's western Primorska region, and small town of the same name. In the last couple of decades it has become of the country's most successful viticultural areas. The inland Vipava Valley (Vipavaska Dolina) runs behind the Kras plateau, just north and inland from the Italian city of Trieste.

Above it is the Trnovska plateau, which runs northwest to southeast and continues beyond Vipava's neighbor, Goriska Brda, and almost to the Italian border. The hilly topography here is typical of this region: neither mountainous like the land just to the north nor flat like the foreland basin to the west. At altitudes between roughly 50 and 300 meters (150 - 1000 feet), the valley's vineyard sites vary significantly in terms of their mesoclimatic features, creating a useful diversity of terroir.

The sub-Mediterranean climate varies along with these geographical differences, from continental in the hillier north to mediterranean in the south, closer to the coast. This transition is reflected in the wines made here, with the western vineyards tending towards white Italian-styled wines, while the central valley, with its elevated diurnal temperature variation, produces red wines with balanced acidity and good structure.

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INDIGENOUS GRAPE OF THE WEEK: ZELEN

Zelen is a white-wine grape variety that is both indigenous to and exclusively found in the Primorska wine region of western Slovenia. More precisely, it is mostly associated with its Vipava Valley and sub-region. The variety, named for its green appearance prior to filtration ("zelen" is Slovenian for "green") makes a wine that is light, crisp and herbaceous.

The low-yielding grape variety thrives in the windy Vipava, where the harsh climate means that growers must use indigenous grape varieties that have proved resistant to the winds, rather than more-fashionable international varieties. This has led to a small upsurge in popularity for the Zelen variety, and plantings are increasing steadily in the region.

Wines have been made from Zelen for hundreds of years, although the grape variety nearly disappeared in the 20th Century. In the early 2000s, a group of Slovenian producers banded together to reinvigorate the grape variety, forming the Zelen Consortium. This group hopes to improve the profile of the variety, as well as providing quality control.

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DID YOU KNOW THAT?

🍾 Screw caps on wine bottles were popularized in Australia and New Zealand.

🚫 The Romans once used lead to mix with their wine. It was used as a sweetener which theoretically credited lead poisoning for the fall of the Roman Empire.

🍷 You can get the same number of antioxidants in wine with juice. It would require you to drink 20 glasses of apple juice.

👴🏼 The oldest wine bottle can be found in Germany. It dates to 325AD and can be found displayed in the Speyer historical museum.

🥦 Most wines are not vegeterian or vegan-friendly. Many wines include fining agents such as egg and fish bladder parts to soften tannins and remove other sediments.

This next bit is for entertainment only. Please read at your discretion - or not. Factually correct, or not - we don’t care, or do - find out for yourself.

S01EP01 - THE TEAM

"Welcome to the tavern," says the young host at the entrance jokingly, while the strange white noise comes out of the tavern’s kitchen. "Soon!" yells the old Gigi, the Tavern’s head chef. What is the time for, you might ask? It is somewhat hard to explain, it is time for staff lunch which isn’t lunch, rather something more similar to brunch - with a more serious, full-sized, home-cooked meal.

Walking up to the kitchen, with the entrance doors still open, you could almost taste this amazing smell of cuttlefish ragu coming out of the pot, while the sea-scented breeze gently flowed through the door and intertwined with this herbaceous aroma, creating a smell almost tasteable through the nostrils.

The boy from the entrance, Maria’s son, swiftly runs towards me, tripping and snagging the old wooden cupboard filled with these special one-deciliter wine glasses. "Are you okay?" - asks Maria, "yes, I’m hungry" - answers the funny little guy called Boris.

Thankfully, all the glasses survived, and I continued to bring Gigi some fresh, just-fermented white wine. "Hoghoghogh," laughs Gigi, "it was about time." "Grab this," he says. And I continue stirring the cuttlefish ragu while he pours himself the smallest, bite-sized glass of wine you could ever see in your life. "A little bit for me, a little bit for her," he says laughingly, while pouring from the bottle straight into the pot.

As the ragu was getting done, Maria, the tavern’s waitress and hostess, along with her boy, setup the table on the terrace, under its big tamarisk tree. The sound of the waves hitting the rocks in the background reminded me we have guests coming. Lunch was finally ready and we were joined by our 2 waiters, Marco and Ivan, guys in their mid-life years, without family and kids who loved their job but were always weirdly grumpy.

It was approximately 30 minutes later that the guests started arriving and the work atmosphere started heating up. Gigi was happy with his mise en place, as it was the first time in his life he had someone help in the kitchen, a lovely lady named Ira.

Outside, the terrace was getting filled with five tables full of guests, some of whom we knew and some not so much. One table stuck in my mind: a lovely couple from the village down the road who visit every Thursday. "How are things?" I asked, and in return I got a comprehensive review of the full week’s happenings—things we hadn’t told each other about. To not let their lunch get cold, I left them to eat and came back when I saw they were ready for a digestif.

In my hands, I’m carrying two glasses of the finest bitter liqueur I've made in my life, ready to hear the friendly critiques from our long-time guests. "As if you’ve read my mind," he says. "Wormwood, thyme, bitter oranges.." - I keep explaining, only what we have around us. He was delighted with the taste and continued mumbling with his wife.

On the other side of the terrace, there was a table obviously irritated with the taste of the deliciously sauteed onions in Gigi’s ragu. "It’s too strong; make me another one; get this one back to the kitchen," the guest arrogantly says. It was clear that this can result only in two ways, and I was ready to see the Gigi’s reaction.

Irritated and a little bit red, Gigi politely tries to explain, "onions are a base for everything we do, we wouldn’t do it any other way", he passionately argues. Seemingly, with no luck, guest kept on insiting when it struck "leave my terrace, and never come back!".

TO BE CONTINUED