On the heels of the botrytis blighted 2023 vintage in Champagne, 2024 has been particularly challenging. First and ever foremost, the weather. Wet. When I visited the region in January / February, it had been raining every single day since October 2023.
This year’s Sparkling Report is a solid snapshot of bubbles around the world, with 80 wines outside of Champagne tasted from numerous distinct wine regions. Seems the bubble has popped on fizz, at least a bit. The sparkling wine category,
Okanagan Falls lies near the dividing line between the North and South Okanagan, marked by McIntyre Bluff. And it has a foot in both worlds. Across the GI, officially recognized in 2018, late-ripening reds are planted next to cool climate varieties such
This year's Sparkling Report is a solid snapshot of bubbles worldwide, with 140 wines from outside Champagne tasted, from 18 countries and across a few dozen distinct wine regions. Globally, wine consumption is in decline due to the struggling economy
The bubble hasn’t exactly burst for Champagne, but it’s certainly lost some pressure this year. After two years of record growth and barren shelves, Champagne sales and exports have fallen in 2023, pinched by global inflation and grappling
We met with Arianna Carafoli, Bottega's Export Manager, in the middle of the Vancouver International Wine Festival earlier this year for a quick update on the Bottega Prosecco lineup. Bottega is a fascinating story of drive and determination led by owner
2022 has been good to the Champenois. The harvest has been widely touted as a success, with the Comité Champagne describing this year as a “solar” vintage due to the intense summer heat. Unlike recent years, there has been less than
Following the last couple of years' bubbling stream, sparkling wine sales continue to rise. It's not just champagne that the market is hungry for (when they can find it), but all kinds of sparkling, from Prosecco to pét-nat and Crémant through
Following last year's upward stream, sparkling wine sales outside of Champagne continue to rise. Perhaps folks are combatting Covid troubles with bubbles, and Champagne's price point certainly makes it a challenging regular consumption. But, more telling
No, the world won’t run out of champagne. But it might feel like it this year. The global supply chain has many broken links, and the cumulative effects have been domino-tipping disastrous. From glass supply (currently up to one year in arrears)
There are many great stories in wine, such as the Bisol family, who can point to an ancient document that testifies they were already involved in winegrowing in S. Stefano di Valdobbiadene as early as 1542. Today in Valdobbiadene, Bisol specializes in
Well, if there were ever a year to drink bubbles, 2020 would be it. We certainly popped a lot of corks and crown caps at GOW this year. So much so, we've had to divide our sparkling annual into three sections because the list was so long our website
This is one of four in a series of Sparkling Reports for 2020. Click here to read our thoughts on BC wine, and here to see the International Sparkling Report. Finally, you can read our 2020 Champagne Annual here. We think,
The British Columbia Sparkling Wine Report is one in a series of four annual reports on key fizz categories put out by Gismondi on Wine in 2020, spearheaded by our sparkling wine specialist Treve Ring. Click here to read our thoughts on Ontario / Nova