The alcohol and health debate, France’s tiny harvest, Alpha Estate buys Boutari Santorini

Plus a brief summary of 67 Pall Mall Global wine communicator Awards and harvest updates in the US and the Loire Valley of France. Above: Grapes just arrived at 21 Brix Winery in the Lake Erie AVA, courtesy of Brian Barmore.

I just got back from the 67th Pall Mall Awards last weekend and I want to congratulate all the winners! Peter Richards MW and Susie Barrie MW of the podcast Wine Blast won the audio category. Henna Bakshi, editor of Eater Atlanta, won both the short video and long form text categories. André Mack of Bon appetit won the Long Form Video category. Nick Ryan from The Australian and Adelaide’s Sunday Post won the Short Form category for the work in World of fine winesAnd finally, our Amanda Barnes won the award for best all-round communicator for her work in carafe, World of fine wineson YouTube and in podcasts.

I would also like to congratulate everyone who received positive results from the MW level one or two exam today! It was a long three months of waiting for the results and it feels good to have some closure now. Personally, I have to retake the tasting part of the exam next June (I passed the theory part last year) and although it is not the result I was hoping for, part of the process of such a demanding exam is to use failure as motivation to get better.

On to the news!

Alcohol – good or bad?

I will be brief – on Wednesday we have a report from Harvard Health Authority Magazine – free to read. It’s not so much “breaking news” as it is a break from the thought process that has characterized the media for the past six months. It shows that as much as we like black and white and want to say unequivocally “alcohol is not bad for you” or “alcohol is bad for you,” the evidence supports neither one nor the other. The authors point out that one study from the United Kingdom found that women who consumed moderate amounts of alcohol were more likely to develop breast cancer but less likely to develop thyroid cancer. In another study, moderate alcohol consumption increased premature mortality when alcohol was consumed away from meals, but reduced mortality when consumed with meals. Basically, it’s complicated. The key takeaway is that alcohol can be beneficial or harmful, and that without large, long-term, high-quality studies, you can’t trust the simplistic headlines that are being passed around demonizing alcohol. Please take the time to read this report!

One of the smallest harvests in France in a century

If you’ve heard or read this weekly news report, this may not come as a surprise. The bad weather that marked most of France’s 2024 vintage was not normal. And while the frost-plagued 2021 and 1957 vintages still hold the records for lowest yields, hail, mildew, rain and rot in 2024 have arguably made it even more difficult.

On 10 September, the French Ministry of Agriculture published estimated Statistics for 2024. Total national production is expected to fall 18% year-on-year and 11% compared to the five-year average. Champagne and Corsica have fared relatively well and are the only areas expected to have above-average yields (9% and 8% respectively). At the other end of the spectrum, yields are expected to be 56% lower than average in the Jura. Charente (the area between the Loire and Bordeaux) is expected to fall 17%, Bordeaux 16%, the Loire 15%, Provence 14%, South West France and Languedoc Roussillon 9% each, Alsace 6%, and Burgundy, Beaujolais and the Rhône each 5%.

Overall, these are pretty devastating figures. But given the robust 2023 harvest, I hope that producers can weather the sharp fluctuations in production. France is not the only country affected – Austria also expects Yields this year were below average and, as previously reported, the harvest on Santorini was cripplingly low.

Alpha Estate buys Boutari Santorini

Speaking of Greece, Alpha Estate, a highly respected producer in the Amyndeon region of Greece, completed the purchase of the Boutari winery in Santorini just a few hours ago. This deal only concerns the winery, not the vineyards – but it will allow Alpha Estate to expand the production of Santorini Assyrtiko, probably with the release of the 2024 vintage.

Harvest updates from Virginia, New York, Washington, Oregon and the French Loire

It’s been a few weeks, so excuse me for not answering your emails until now!

First, Virginia The sparkling wine harvest began on August 1 and was well underway with the white and red wine harvest by August 25. This schedule was about 10 days earlier than usual.

In The State of New YorkBrian Barmore, who works for 21 Brix Winery in Lake Erie AVA, said via email that their harvest began the week of September 2nd and that they were harvesting Marquis (a hybrid bred by Cornell), Niagara (a Labrusca variety), Bacchus (a hybrid bred by the Geilweilerhof Institute in 1933) and Dornfelder. A neighboring winery had harvested Pinot Noir for sparkling wine.

In State of WashingtonSteve Robertson of Delmas said via email that harvest is underway in Walla Walla and that their first harvest on September 4 was Syrah from the Rocks District of Milton-Freewater AVA.

In OregonKim Abrahams of Lingua Franca wrote that the Willamette Valley sparkling wine harvest has been underway since late August, but Chardonnay only started trickling in last week. It’s a very slow start and there’s a lot of heterogeneity between sites, so the harvest will likely take quite a long time.

On a journey to the Loire ValleyAcademie du Vin’s Director of Education, Allison Burton-Parker, emailed me to say that the harvest in the Loire at La Grange Tiphaine in Touraine began on August 23rd – later than expected!

Please email me if you have any information on when the harvest will start in places I haven’t mentioned yet. (So far I’ve mentioned Germany, Austria, Languedoc, Greece, Sicily, Hungary and California in addition to what I’ve discussed today.)

This is a transcript of our weekly five-minute news broadcastwhich you can watch below. You can also listen to it on The Wine News in 5 Podcast. If you have breaking news from your area, please email us. And if you like this content and want to see more, please Subscribe to our site and our weekly Newsletter.