The JancisRobinson.com Podcast

Tam is shortlisted for the Fortnum & Mason Food and Drink Awards? Drink Writer of the year. There is a new global database for female winemakers, viticulturists, brewers and distillers. And wineries that use 100% British Columbia grown grapes are struggling to stay afloat. Read the transcript of this episode at https://www.jancisrobinson.com/articles/women-wine-bc-challenges-fortnum-mason-shortlist. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A new study suggests that local fungi perform better than fungicides when combatting grapevine trunk diseases; Chinon floods, Spain dries up, and Majestic acquires Vagabond. Read the transcript of this episode at https://www.jancisrobinson.com/articles/spains-heat-and-frances-rain-majestics-wine-bar-acquisition-natural-fungal-controls. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Canned wine's reduction issue, Patz & Hall and Truett-Hurst are, once again, privately held, and Beijing finally lifts tariffs on Australian wine. Read the transcript of this episode at https://www.jancisrobinson.com/articles/canned-wine-concerns-sonoma-winery-buybacks-china-tariffs-lifted. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Neo-prohibitionist organizations are behind recent anti-alcohol policy at the WHO and California's largest wine companies are importing foreign bulk wine and selling it under American labels. Read the transcript of this episode at https://www.jancisrobinson.com/articles/neo-prohibitionists-and-who-and-californias-imported-bulk-wine-problem. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Mosel VDP approves Abtsberg vineyard as a Grosse Lage for Spätburgunder, China recommends lifting tariffs on Australian wine, Argentina lifts its proposed 8% export tax on wine, and more! Read the transcript of this episode at https://www.jancisrobinson.com/articles/blue-nun-goes-french-mosel-pinot-noir-promotion-australia-tariff-relief. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Germany's government submits an application in Brussels for the dealcoholization of organic wine to be approved under EU law, the Australian government forms a task force to propose solutions to Australia's wine glut, and Lidl sells bottles of Bordeaux at ?1.89. Read the transcript of this episode at https://www.jancisrobinson.com/articles/can-de-alcoholized-wine-be-organic-how-cheap-can-wine-get-and-australias-wine-glut. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Canada's Minister of Agriculture, Lawrence MacAulay, announces a $177 million extension to the Wine Sector Support Program, winegrowers in Castillon Côtes de Bordeaux vote to leave the Union des Côtes de Bordeaux group, Spain gets a new DO, growers protest the négociant Castel Frères, and Portugal?s export market looks surprisingly decent. Read the transcript of this episode at https://www.jancisrobinson.com/articles/new-spanish-do-grape-price-wars-canadian-winegrower-grants. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Bordeaux Commercial Court orders négociants to pay a grower more than ?350,000 for violating the EGAlim law and paying him less than the cost to produce his wine, Australia offers grants for sustainable packaging innovations, unfastidious publications run clickbait headlines on wine and health, and Premiere Napa Valley raises $3 million. Read the transcript of this episode at https://www.jancisrobinson.com/articles/fair-prices-farmers-sustainable-packaging-health-scares-napa-auction. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

British Columbia is hit by a devastating freeze that wiped out 97-99% of the potential 2024 wine grape crop, California boasts its largest crush in 4 years, and France sees exports decline. Read the transcript of this episode at https://www.jancisrobinson.com/articles/canadian-cold-snap-california-2023-harvest-french-wine-exports-decline. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chile?s Valparaíso region is hit by devastating fires, Alberta threatens to block any wine imports from British Columbia, the EU Commission scraps their most recent pesticide proposal, and Jancis is awarded the IMW Lifetime Achievement Award while the Old Vine Registry receives the Heritage Initiative Award. Read the transcript of this episode at https://www.jancisrobinson.com/articles/chilean-wildfires-canadian-cold-snap-and-eu-pesticide-proposals-scrapped. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Farmer protests in France wind down, protests in Riverland Australia pick up, Accolade Wines? debt is acquired by Australian Wine Holdco, the Oregon wine industry fumes over Oregon Health Authority?s anti-alcohol campaign, and 67 Pall Mall launches the Global Wine Communicator Awards. Read the transcript of this episode at https://www.jancisrobinson.com/articles/farmer-led-protests-accolade-buyout-oregons-alcohol-tax-uproar-and-more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Uneasy times in the south of France and at Vintage Wine Estates on the US West Coast, while Saudi Arabia opens a wine store and California attempts to define regenerative agriculture. Read the transcript of this episode at https://www.jancisrobinson.com/articles/french-farmers-protest-saudis-sell-wine-and-other-wine-news. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Regenerative organics picks up speed; Drizly shuts down; and wine is losing the battle to spirits for market share. Read the transcript of this episode and find the full list of Regenerative Organic Certified Vineyards at https://www.jancisrobinson.com/articles/regenerative-organics-wine-delivery-and-svb-report. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

William Fèvre sells to Domaines Barons de Rothschild, sparkling and fine wine sales falter, Argentina's new president imposes an 8% export tax on wine, and we launch a new series called 'Wine Boot Camp'. Read the transcript of this episode at https://www.jancisrobinson.com/articles/sparkling-wine-sales-and-fine-wine-trends. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Naked Wines cuts prices, the Netherlands increases alcohol taxes, the Thai government decreases alcohol taxes, and Oregon wineries sue PacifiCorp. Senior US Editor for JancisRobinson.com, Samantha Cole-Johnson, walks us through the wine news for the week. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What should you know about no and low alcohol beverages? How are anthocyanin levels affected by mechanical leaf removal and deficit irrigation? Senior US Editor for JancisRobinson.com, Samantha Cole-Johnson, walks us through the wine news in 5 minutes a week (ok... 6 with intro and outro). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Those who follow the musical career of Maynard James Keenan, lead singer of bands such as Tool, Puscifer and A Perfect Circle, may not know that he is an accomplished winemaker in the Grand Canyon state. He planted his first vines in Arizona in 2002 and from 2009 has been making such good wine at his Caduceus winery that he has become a bit of a poster boy for Arizona wine. He tells wine writer and ex Arizona resident Elaine Chukan Brown how the late South Australian winemaker Taras Ochota inspired him to become America?s pioneer of unusual blends ? a red wine grape with a white one, for instance.  Other Australian influences include using his lab equipment to analyze two of the country?s most famous classic wines which showed him that grapes don?t need to be super-ripe to make great wine. He reveals himself as a real wine geek and committed farm-to-table restauranteur ? in fact there?s hardly any mention of music in this intriguing conversation with the man who has arguably done most to put Arizona on the world wine map. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Christian Seely is not a winemaker, but he runs a crack team of fine winemakers all over the world as the man in charge of the wine division of insurance company AXA. But he?s no boring executive; he really, really cares about wine and consistently produces some of the highest-rated wines in the world. Under his aegis, second growth Ch Pichon Baron in Pauillac, for instance, is making wine of Bordeaux first growth quality ? partly by cutting production by about a half. His Sauternes property Ch Suduiraut is consistently a top scorer too. Seely?s first love was port and AXA?s Quinta do Noval is another stunning property whose wines now match their setting. He also has experience of wine production in fashionable Burgundy, Tokay in Hungary and, most recently, the Napa Valley. In this episode Jancis grills him about price of fine wine, what constitutes classic wine, and the notorious en primeur system of selling bordeaux before it?s even bottled. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Two women who care passionately about our changing climate, wine writer Elaine Chukan Brown and sustainability scientist Professor Kimberly Nicholas, who has a special interest in biodiversity, farming, wine and food, discuss what we as individuals can do in the face of our rapidly warming planet. They look at the bigger picture but also how climate change affects wine production and how wine lovers might play their part in reducing carbon emissions. ?Wine is a fingerprint or a taste of climate change,? says Nicholas, whose PhD topic was the effect of climate change on the wine industry in her native California. She identifies the three areas in which we can have greatest personal effect by modifying our behaviour and actually quantifies a wine-bottle carbon emission equivalent of a round-trip flight between London and New York. (It?s many more than you might think!) They discuss how apparently small decisions such as how wine is packaged can have a considerable effect. And Nicholas is a realist. Her book Under the Sky We Make; How to be Human in a Warming World has a cheat sheet at the end for those who?d rather use that than read the whole book. Very considerate?. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the remarkable story of four Zimbabwean economic refugees who arrived in South Africa with nothing but the clothes on their back (and having never tasted wine) who ultimately became the first ever team from Zimbabwe to compete in the World Wine Championships. Towards the end of the first decade of this century, there was an exodus of economic migrants from Zimbabwe where in August 2008, inflation reached a staggering 11.2 million per cent. Under President Robert Mugabe, many Zimbabweans were well educated yet often unable to feed themselves and their families. Many young people smuggled themselves over the border to reach South Africa seeking work. Four of these men, independent of one another, worked their way up to become respected sommeliers at Cape Town?s top four restaurants, despite never having known wine or fine dining in Zimbabwe ? or indeed each other. Journalist Erica Platter wrote an article on JancisRobinson.com about them which led to a crowdfunding initiative on the site to get them, as Team Zimbabwe, to Burgundy to compete in the World Wine Tasting Championships. An Australian film crew documented the entire journey and produced an award winning film Blind Ambition (100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes) about this bold initiative. In this episode, Tinashe Nyamudoka, one of the four Zim somms and now the producer of Kumusha Wines, shares his extraordinary story with Jancis. Story of Blind Ambition: https://www.jancisrobinson.com/articles/story-blind-ambition Blind Ambition official film website: http://www.samuelgoldwynfilms.com/blind-ambition/ Kumusha Wines: https://www.kumushabrands.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Is matching wine to a dish, or vice versa, a vital, unnecessary or automatic activity? Jancis Robinson is a libertarian who argues that no thunderbolt from on high will come to strike you down if you get it wrong. However, JancisRobinson.com's own Tamlyn Currin is passionate about finding the perfect pairing. Needless to say, she has researched the subject in far more detail than our editor in chief and in this particularly lively podcast explains some of the most intriguing recent discoveries, highlights some basic rules and tips, and debunks some common myths. Tam manages to convince Jancis that food and wine matching can be fun, and Jancis explains when she thinks you?re justified in expecting a perfect pairing in a restaurant. But she?s still worried that preciousness on this topic may be making wine more off-putting than it need be. Hosted By: Jancis Robinson Guest: Tamlyn Currin Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Join host Jancis Robinson and the editors of JancisRobinson.com as we explore the people, places, and pours that are redefining the landscape of wine. We share untold stories about wine through insider perspectives on the trends and personalities behind what you drink. Starting December 5, you can catch each new bi-weekly episode on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices