Category Archives: Uncategorised

Consumers and sustainable wine, the Sommelier’s view

Consumers and sustainable wine, the Sommelier’s view
Raymonds Thomsons, manager at Vincents, Riga's most famous restaurant, is also European Sommelier of the year 2017. In this interview we discuss his views on sustainable wine, consumer trends, demands and a few other issues. Listen and enjoy. Here's some the things we talked about: What being a Sommelier means in Europe today. The wine…
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El Grifo, great photos of a Lanzarote vineyard

El Grifo, great photos of a Lanzarote vineyard
"Against the odds" is one of the first few words you see on the El Grifo website. And they are not kidding. It's fair to say their vineyard faces some challenging conditions. A friend of mine visited Lanzarote recently and sent this pictures. Water is a big sustainability challenge for the vineyard, looking at their…
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How to make a simple business case for biodynamic farming practices

How to make a simple business case for biodynamic farming practices
I spend a lot of time talking to people about sustainability, as that's my job. Aside from this blog I work with my colleagues at Innovation Forum on how bigger companies can approach sustainable business practices and make them part of how they work every day. I was chatting with someone today about how we…
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Vineyard land prices in France, 2015

Vineyard land prices in France, 2015
Here's an interesting chart from AAWE, the American Association of Wine Economics, on vineyard land prices in France from a few years back. It perhaps has more to do with economic than environmental sustainability but I still thought it was worth posting. Thanks to Elizabeth Gabay, for posting this on her blog, here.      …
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Andrea Felluga on the wines of Friuli, changing weather and sustainability

Andrea Felluga on the wines of Friuli, changing weather and sustainability
Here's an interview with Andrea Felluga, a leading winemaker in north east Italy for his family business Livio Felluga. We talked about the wines they make at Livio Felluga, the weather, the 2017 harvest, what sustainable wine actually means, climate change and adaptation (old vines adapt much better to volatile weather, he says) and his views…
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‘Forgotten grapes’ and sustainable winemaking at Gravner in Friuli

‘Forgotten grapes’ and sustainable winemaking at Gravner in Friuli
Lots has been written about the wines of Gravner, and I won't try to repeat that here. For good short histories of this cult vineyard on the Italian / Slovenian border, where Josko Gravner makes innovative and intriguing wines focused now entirely on local varieties, you can't do much better than taking a look at…
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Wine buying and drinking tips for non wine geeks

Wine buying and drinking tips for non wine geeks
A friend of mine asked me for some wine buying tips. He is someone who likes wine, but doesn't spend the kind of time on it that I do. So I wrote the below. It's entirely subjective and based on my tastes and experiences. I hope some readers find it useful. All very subjective, but…
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