Sur Le Zinc
Gregory Castells Discusses Investing in Fine Wine
At first glance, fine wine presents almost unlimited opportunities for passionate investors. While drinkers might balk at the $3,000 average price tag attached to a bottle of Pétrus, one of Bordeaux’s greatest reds, that sum is trivial beside the cost of a new Bugatti sports car, Patek Philippe watch, or Joan Miró painting. Compared to other… READ MORE
No Compromises
An article by Bruce Sanderson from the June 30, 2015 issue of Wine Spectator. Isolated but undaunted, Lalou Bize-Leroy makes some of Burgundy’s finest wines Disaster loomed in Burgundy’s 1993 vintage. A wet spring led to severe attacks of mildew. To save their grape crops, growers had to spray twice as much fungicide as in… READ MORE
2012 Harvest Report
The Most Dreary Growing Season in Champagne and Burgundy Results in an Outstanding Vintage 2012 After All! Last March, I spent 10 days in Burgundy, enduring summer temperatures over 80F, as I was equipped for cold weather. Incredible and worrisome for producers. April 1st (for my second movie “A Year in Champagne”) we filmed Stéphane… READ MORE
2010 Harvest Report
When I arrived in Burgundy at the end of August, no one was very cheerful. After a very cold winter, some of the vines had died, a frost had formed during flowering which greatly reduced the future crop, and a lot of millerandage occurred. Then, after a scorching heat-wave from the end of June to… READ MORE
2008: Another Miraculous Harvest
Every one talks about the year of the 13 moons greatly affecting the climate: too hot, too wet, too stormy, too cold. In fact, this is a year of uncontrollable weather affecting every region of France. I arrived in Burgundy on September 1st, having calculated the dates of my trip according to the date of… READ MORE
Harvest 2007
There is a saying in Burgundy “Septembre fait le vin,” September makes the wine. It applied in 1978 when the entire summer was overcast with cool temperatures, and by the end of August, the grapes looked like little green English peas. This year, as the growers came back from their short vacation in anticipation of… READ MORE
Memorable 2003 Burgundy Harvest
I arrived in Mâcon on August 25th, anticipating that the harvest would start on September 1st –already at least two to three weeks earlier than customary. The hot weather began in mid-June and was still in the mid-nineties when I arrived. There were no green meadows on the Beaujolais and Mâconnais hillsides, just burnt trees… READ MORE
Harvest 2001 in Burgundy
Following six months of constant rain, cool weather and a wet Spring, the vines started to grow rapidly in May and blossomed in mid-June. July was wet and August stormy with, at times, very warm temperatures reaching 100°F. A terrible hail storm mostly localized in Volnay but also affecting adjacent Monthélie and Meursault, devastated most… READ MORE
