You may have noticed that our home page has been redesigned to showcase more of what we offer – The Oxford Companion to Wine and World Atlas maps tended to get lost on our old home page – and to improve accessibility and readability, especially for those of you who access our site from your phones. While the new home page isn’t perfect, it is better, and we will continue to make improvements with the help of our development team.
Meanwhile, yesterday we continued our re-release of Vintners’ Tales. This week’s episode highlights D Byrne & Co, an award-winning independent wine merchant established in 1879 in Lancashire, famous for its low prices. Jancis interviews the fourth generation to run the shop, Philip and Andrew Byrne. I’ve never met any of the Byrnes but after watching this episode I will be adding an extra few days to my next trip to the UK to go visit D Byrne & Co and meet the fifth generation.
On to the news!
Trump – more job cuts and tariffs
Last week I told you about the Trump administration’s mass firings which impacted the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). According to AP News, this week the administration hired back many of the roughly 700 FDA employees who were fired. The FDA did not disclose exact numbers of firings and reinstatements. As far as the USDA is concerned all six scientists I mentioned last week – plus two more I hadn’t heard were fired – were rehired. These eight scientists have resumed their work on smoke-impact, grape-breeding, grapevine viral diseases, mealybugs, spotted lanternflies and precision viticulture.
However just yesterday Trump fired nearly 900 employees who work for NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the federal organisation responsible for weather and climate forecasts, among many other tasks crucial to farmers (a category that includes winegrowers), and he threatens to lay off another 1,000.
Additionally, Trump’s plans for tariffs may be moving forward. On 27 February AP News reported that he stated on his social media platform Truth Social that he’d double China’s current 10% tariff and bring tariffs of 25% on goods from Mexico and Canada into effect on 4 March. However, in a meeting with reporters the day before, he had said the tariffs would go into effect on 2 April. Additionally, he said that 25% tariffs on EU imports will be announced ‘very soon’.
Honestly, I don’t really know what to say about this; the only surety seems to be that tariffs will continue to be a moving target.
De-alcoholised wine now eligible for organic labels
On 26 February the Official Journal of the European Union published an amendment to regulations to allow for de-alcoholised organic wine. Previously a wine could not qualify for organic certification if it had been de-alcoholised. The new amendment allows vacuum evaporation and distillation as long as temperatures do not exceed 75 °C and pore size on any filtration device does not exceed 0.2 micron. The final product cannot exceed 0.5% abv – which means that partially de-alcoholised wine remains ineligible for organic certification.
A few points on this. Firstly, if you buy organic products because you believe they are environmentally beneficial – you should know that dealcoholisation technology has a large carbon footprint. Second, it is bizarre to me that regulations are excluding partially dealcoholised wines from certification. It has been stated that this decision comes down to simplifying the massive amount of work required to make all de-alcoholised wines – not just organic ones – more able to be regulated under PGI and AOC specifications…
But why bring in PGI and AOC in the first place? Dealcoholisation, in the context of this amendment (and with most technologies that are commercially available), requires splitting a wine into component parts of volatile esters, alcohol and water containing tannins and acids and then piecing it back together – usually adding some sort of sugar or filler to bring back the texture previously provided by alcohol. In this process you destroy the acid-tannin-alcohol balance that would be characteristic of a region – so, in my view, AOC or PGI specifications – which were partially established to protect the regional signature of a wine – shouldn’t be involved. Which is actually something that comes into play in my next piece of news.
Redefining sherry
Meininger’s reported on 22 February that the European Commission has lowered the 15% minimum alcohol content for sherry to 14%. However, the Sherry Regulatory Council has delayed its implementation, citing the need to complete a study underway examining the potential consequences of a reduction in alcohol on sensory qualities. It remains to be seen if the change will be allowed to be implemented.
Wine consumption in Germany declines
In 2024 the German Wine Institute (DWI) commissioned an analysis of the German wine market by NielsenIQ. Results were announced on 26 February by Wines of Germany and showed a 4% decline in wine sales with a 5% decline for local wines. DWI managing director Monika Reule suggested that the steeper decline in local wine sales was due to increasing price sensitivity and the higher price of local wines compared with imports from elsewhere in the EU.
2024: Bordeaux’s smallest harvest in 30 years
On 14 February France 24 reported that Bordeaux’s 2024 harvest was the smallest since 1991. This is due to a variety of factors including government-subsidised vine-pull schemes and inclement weather. From 2023 to 2024 Bordeaux’s production dropped by more than 13%, from 3.8 million litres to 3.3 million litres. We will have a detailed report on the vintage on Monday.
Peter M F Sichel, 1922–2025
On Monday 24 February the wine world lost the legendary Peter M F Sichel. This remarkable man was born in Germany, his family fled the Nazis, he ended up in Bordeaux, eventually had to escape to the US, joined the US Army in the Office of Strategic Services (a precursor to the CIA), and eventually became the head of the CIA in Berlin. After he left the CIA he took over his family’s wine business and began working with the drinks giant Schieffelin – with whom he developed a marketing strategy for one of his family’s brands, Blue Nun. I’ll stop there but you should go read Jancis’s profile of him, available free on our site.
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 [email protected].
This is a transcript of our weekly 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 subscribe to our site and our weekly newsletter.
