Hurricane Helene
Last Thursday, 26 September, Hurricane Helene landed in Florida before ripping through North and South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and Kentucky. The storm has killed over 200 people, left millions without power, destroyed homes and left people with no running water. According to USA Today, it is the fourth most damaging hurricane in the US since 1950.
In relation to wine, the North Carolina wine industry has been hard hit, though the extent of the damage is not yet known. WBTV reports that Grandfather Vineyard & Winery in Banner Elk is closed for the foreseeable future, Biltmore Estate and Winery are closed due to flooding, and we know from Instagram that Plēb winery, the subject of Taylor Greene’s entry in this year’s writing competition, was destroyed – Plēb has a GoFundMe page here.
Harvest updates
So far, in previous editions of this newscast, I’ve mentioned the start of harvest in Germany, Austria, the Languedoc, Loire, Greece, Sicily, Hungary, all of the US and the Veneto.
On 20 September JaneAnson.com put out a report on Bordeaux – where, at the time of her writing, the region was still early in red-wine harvest. The harvest was late this year and yields are projected to be down 16% compared with average, with AOC Bordeaux red production hitting a historic low.
Harvest in Burgundy is well under way. In an article released 29 September, RobbReport cites a 9 September start for Chardonnay at Prosper Maufoux.
Tom Hewson reported for Decanter on 3 October on Champagne’s very challenging vintage. I subsequently went trawling through Instagram and found that Paul Dethune started harvest 16 September, Francis Orban 18 September and Christophe Mignon 20 September. So I think it’s fair to say harvest started mid September.
The Drinks Business put out a report yesterday detailing the start of harvest in Rioja with Bodegas Sonsierra beginning on 17 September. Meininger’s reported that many producers were rushing to harvest ahead of the massive rains that occurred 21–22 September and that harvest is still ongoing in the region.
Chianti harvest is in progress with producer Rocca di Montegrossi starting on 15 September. Piedmont is under way with whites and earlier reds like Dolcetto, but I haven’t seen or heard anything about Nebbiolo yet.
Moët Hennessy's investment in non-alcoholic sparkling
This week, luxury goods giant LVMH bought a minority stake in the non-alcoholic sparkling-wine company French Bloom. Philippe Schaus, CEO of LVMH’s wine and spirits division, was quoted in the press release as saying, ‘This investment aligns with Moët Hennessy’s key strategic initiatives, demonstrating our commitment to offering high-quality alcohol-free choices to consumers who moderate their alcohol intake.’ This is the first investment LVMH has made in the non-alcoholic drinks category – which indicates to me that they are betting on the continued rise of the category.
Launch of the VITÆVINO declaration in Europe
With the World Health Organization’s ‘no safe level’ claims against alcohol in January 2023 alongside already decreasing wine consumption and increasing climate pressures, there have been many winery closures, sales, layoffs and bankruptcies that have occurred in the last two years. European countries, which produced 61% of the world’s wine in 2023 according to the OIV, have been particularly hard hit.
In an effort to counter negative claims and promote wine culture and heritage, wine’s role in rural economies, moderate wine consumption as part of a healthy and balanced lifestyle, and the right to enjoy wine in moderation, a counter campaign is being promoted by Comité Européen des Entreprises Vins (CEEV), Confédération Européenne des Vignerons Indépendants (CEVI), Copa-Cogeca and European Federation of Origin Wines (EFOW). The campaign launched in Rome on 1 October and is called the VITÆVINO declaration. It was immediately signed by all agricultural-sector representatives as well as the Italian Minister of Agriculture, Francesco Lollobrigida. National events are planned to launch the campaign in Austria, France, Germany, Portugal, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Spain. In addition to political representatives, the campaign invites wine enthusiasts, industry professionals and political representatives to sign. The hope is that this declaration will help to defend wine’s place in society and its important socioeconomic role and prevent against unfair legal frameworks, advertising bans, restrictive fiscal policies and additional health warning labels.
I, to my utter amazement, have managed to be the first person in Oregon to sign!
Updates to US dietary guidelines
I covered a bit of this back in May but, seeing as that was a while ago and things have progressed, I’m going to start from the beginning.
The US government is due to update dietary guidelines in 2025. The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) are tasked with writing these guidelines. The guidelines are subject to federal oversight by way of the Consolidated Appropriations Act and the National Nutrition Monitoring Act – which in essence require that they be based on scientific evidence. BUT when the Consolidated Appropriations Act 2023 was published, it was found that the last time the dietary guidelines were written – in 2020 – the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC) hadn’t undertaken an alcohol review and had only answered a single research question in relation to the relationship between alcohol and all-cause mortality. This was deemed an oversight and Congress allocated $1.3 million to the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) to study the relationship between alcohol consumption and cancer, obesity, heart disease and all-cause mortality. They did this so that the USDA and HHS would have third-party research to use in structuring the 2025 guidelines.
Meanwhile, the HHS’s Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) delegated research on alcohol and health to the Interagency Coordinating Committee on the Prevention of Underage Drinking (ICCPUD) – which they, in collaboration with the USDA, planned to use instead of the concurrently conducted NASEM research. The US House Committee on Oversight and Accountability requested documents and a briefing related to ICCPUD’s parallel study on 4 April. There has been an ensuing back and forth for the last six months in which the USDA and HHS have failed to provide adequate documentation. So on 30 September, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, James Comer, issued subpoenas for the documentation.
I don’t know where this will go but I’m really hoping that the research being conducted by the ICCPUD is not used. As Laura Catena has outlined, two members of the ICCPUD subcommittee belonged to the 2023 Canadian research team that proposed changing Canada’s Low-Risk Drinking Guidelines but ultimately failed to do so because medical researchers and scientists found they had used faulty methodology and utilised their own research to make recommendations. Further, the research being undertaken by the ICCPUD does not specifically include the cardiovascular effects of alcohol.
If you feel like getting hot under the collar I encourage you to go read Comer’s letter to the USDA.
That’s all for this episode of the wine news. If you enjoy this newscast and would like to see it continue, please subscribe to JancisRobinson.com. And if you have breaking news in your area, please email news@jancisrobinson.com.
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