Before I dive into global news, I have some site news. Every year JancisRobinson.com hosts a wine writing competition which anyone can enter (you don’t have to be a member). The best submissions will be published on the site and prizes will be awarded based on both a readers’ poll and our own judges’ views. This year we’ve chosen a theme that I think leaves more room for creativity than any past competition. The theme is ‘A great pairing’ and encompasses all non-food pairings – wine and music, architecture, a painting, a colour, a film, television, a book or even a physical setting. We’re expecting quite a few entries and have capped the word count at 1,000 words. The submission deadline is 22 June. We’ll shortly be announcing the prizes as well as a spectacular guest judge, who I cannot wait to ask you to raise your glass to! If you’re interested in entering the competition, please go to JancisRobinson.com for full submission instructions.
And on the subject of competitions – the 67 Pall Mall Global Wine Communicator Awards announced their long lists this week! We’re extremely proud to have many of our writers listed and we urge you to check out everyone who made the cut – there are so many talented communicators to follow.
2024 vintage port declarations begin
While plenty of ruby, white, tawny and Late Bottled Vintage ports are produced every year, true vintage port is produced only in the best years. And it generally takes producers around 14–16 months following a vintage to be certain that the quality of wine they produced is good enough to declare a vintage port. Then they submit their wine to the IVDP (Instituto dos Vinhos do Douro e do Porto) to see if it meets the Institute’s standard. Finally, once the IVDP has given its approval, the wines are announced to the public. Although a handful of port houses have declared vintages in the past few years, there was no clear consensus between houses. The last vintage to have been widely declared was 2017. Thus, there is quite a bit of excitement over what looks to be a superb and widely declared 2024 vintage!
Thus far, Symington Family Estates have declared a number of vintage bottlings including Cockburn’s, Dow’s, Warre’s and Graham’s; the Fladgate Partnership have declared Croft, Fonseca, Taylor’s and Taylor’s Sentinels; Kopke have declared Burmester and Kopke; Sogrape have declared Ferreira and Sandeman; Ramos Pinto declared both their standard vintage and their Quinta de Ervamoira; Real Companhia Velha declared their standard vintage and Delaforce; and Churchill, Maynard, Niepoort, Poças, Quevedo and Quinta de la Rosa have all declared. If you’d like to keep up with declarations, The Port Forum does an excellent job of tracking the announcements.
Technically speaking, announcements won’t finish until September. The Port Wine Brotherhood and the IVDP will wait until then to announce whether enough producers declared for the vintage to be considered a ‘classic vintage year’.
Chanel adds Rudd Estate to portfolio
St Supéry, an estate in Napa Valley which is owned by the French fashion house Chanel, announced on 13 April that it had acquired Rudd Estate in Oakville, Napa Valley. The sale includes the 65-acre (26-ha) estate property, all stock and both the Rudd brand and the Crossroads by Rudd entry-level brand. Chanel now owns six wineries: Bordeaux châteaux Berliquet, Canon and Rauzan-Ségla; Provence estate Domaine de l’Ile; St Supéry and now Rudd.
Caterpillar acquires Monarch tractor
In this newscast on 14 February, I reported the closing of the autonomous electric tractor company Monarch. On 14 April Bloomberg reported that Monarch has been sold to Caterpillar, who have acquired it for the software and electrical-systems intellectual property. Monarch was co-founded by Raen winery owner and operator Carlo Mondavi and sold a large number of tractors to wineries before shuttering. It’s hoped that Caterpillar can finish what Monarch started while providing support to producers who already own their tractors.
Frost hits US East Coast vineyards
On 20 April the East Coast of the US was hit by a damaging frost. Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia took the brunt of the impact with one wine producer in Pennsylvania reporting about 70% losses of primary buds.
Champagne frost update
The Comité Champagne have updated their estimate of losses from frost to 40% of total buds – the highest losses since the devastating frosts in 2003.
Systembolaget adds carbon footprint assessments
At the end of March, Sweden’s alcohol monopoly became the first major retailer to implement individualised carbon-footprint assessments for all products in their stores. The assessment takes into account packaging, production, cultivation and transportation. While market demand will remain the primary determining factor in the monopoly’s buying, they intend to reward producers who reduce their carbon footprint and to create tools enabling comparisons between producers’ carbon footprints so that customers can use this information to make buying decisions.
New US tariff refund resource
This week the Liberty Justice Center – a nonprofit, nonpartisan US law firm – launched TERRA, the Tariff Equity Refund Resource for America, to assist small businesses in learning how to reclaim tariffs that were unlawfully collected by the Trump administration. If you are a US winery who has been putting off doing the paperwork for reclamation, I highly recommend checking out this resource.
That’s all for this episode of the wine news. I’ll see you on 8 May. If you enjoy this newscast and would like to see it continue, please become a member of JancisRobinson.com. And if you have breaking news in your area, please email [email protected].
Image at top of Rudd vineyard courtesy Rudd Estate.
This is a transcript of our regular five-minute news broadcast, which you can watch below. You can also listen to it on The Wine News in 5 Podcast. If you enjoy this content and would like to see more like it, please become a member of our site and subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
