Swirls: Royal wedding wine, climate change & vineyard shifts, giving up in Australia

SWIRL: Decanter appears to have broken the news about the sparkling wine to be served at next Friday’s wedding of Britain’s Prince William and Kate Middleton. And the winner is … Pol Roger  Brut NV. No surprise that Champagne is the beverage of choice given the nature of the event, or that Pol Roger was selected given its long association with British aristocracy. Read the full story here. But wouldn’t it have been nice if they had included one of Britain’s sparkling wines, which have been getting a good deal of critical praise? The two could have been served together, which would have been a nice gesture for the home team. What do you think?

SWIRL: The issue of climate change and wine, which I have written about here before, is discussed in a fascinating article on the impact in South Africa. A wine executive describes how some companies are planning to move their vineyards to cooler areas within the Cape region (to another side of a mountain, for example). He notes in Independent Online that the 2011 vintage “marks the third consecutive year characterized by higher temperatures outside the regular parameters, unseasonal rains, dry spells and excessively strong winds.”

SWIRL: The woes of the wine business in South Australia, from catastrophic weather to currency issues, are forcing some producers to give it all up and sell out – if they can – after many years in business. For others, salvation might be found in the  ever-expanding Chinese market. Read more here.

Technorati Tags: Royal wedding,Prince William,Kate Middleton,Pol Roger,British sparkling wine,South Africa,Climate change and wine,South Australia,Decanter,Independent Online,Edward Deitch

Swirls: English bubbly takes top honors; airline wine secrets; keeping opened wine fresh – for weeks!

SWIRL: If wine and England seem oxymoronic, think again. The British have been distinguishing themselves in recent years by making some very good sparkling wines in the south, which,when you look at  the map, is not terribly far away from Champagne.   The latest proof comes from a little known producer in the South Downs of Sussex, Ridgeview Estate, whose 2006 Grosvenor Blanc de Blancs has won a Decanter International trophy as the world’s top sparkling wine, beating out more than 700 entries in the category, including some top Champagnes. Read the full story in the Telegraph.

SWIRL: Most of us can only pretend we’re drinking good wine when we’re flying; those little bottles, most of them plastic now, are usually filled with generic juice, whether from Bordeaux, California or elsewhere. The class system of the airlines applies to wine as well as cabin real estate; the higher you go the better the wines get. Lettie Teague in the Wall Street Journal takes a look at what you get for your first- or business-class ticket on five carriers. Beyond the wines themselves, the well-researched piece offers a number of things I didn’t know about airline wine, including just why both the reds and the whites are so cold when you get them.

SWIRL: I’ve often sung the praises of day-old wine (okay maybe even two- or three-day-old wine). Alder Yarrow in his Vinography blog goes one step further, making the case that many wines stay good for weeks if re-corked and stored in the refrigerator.  With the reds, you’ll have to let them warm up a bit, but I’m curious to see how they hold up for extended periods. One thing I do know: when reds are left on the counter at room temperature, they may open up nicely after a day or so, but then start to decline quickly with oxidation.

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Sips: More bubbly notes

A quick addendum to my last post on Limoux, the sparkling wine from France’s Languedoc, with some other sparklers in the news.

Some of the best examples of Cava, the Spanish sparkling wine, are considered by Eric Asimov in the NYT’s Wines of The Times; two  ubiquitous and inexpensive cavas, Freixenet Cordon Negro and Cristalino, didn’t make the cut.

And something you might not have known: they make sparkling wine – very good sparkling line – in England. And the industry, it appears, is being helped by the unanticipated effects of climate change, according to an interesting piece in today’s Wall Street Journal. Who knew there were 416 vineyards in the U.K.? Or that one  of the best bubbly makers, in southern England, has chalky soils like Champagne’s and is less than a hundred miles to the north?

del.icio.us Tags: Cava,Eric Asimov,Wines of The Times,Edward Deitch,English sparkling wine,Wall Street Journal wine