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Slideshow
Top 10 most read stories of 2017
10. Beer honours Millwall fan who fought terrorists
Roy Larner recovering in hospital.
A Swedish brewery released a beer named ‘F*** You, I’m Millwall’ in tribute to a fan of the south London football club who fought off three knife-wielding terrorists during the London Bridge terror attack earlier in June.
Roy Larner was at Borough Market on 3 June when a white van ploughed into pedestrians on London Bridge at 10.08pm. Three men then jumped out and went on a rampage through several bars and restaurants in Borough Market, stabbing people at random who had been enjoying an evening out.
Larner, a Millwall fan, was in the Black & Blue restaurant when the attackers stormed in. Instead of retreating, Larner confronted the terrorists, shouting “F*** you, I’m Millwall” as he took on the three men single handedly.
“I didn’t think of my safety at the time. I’d had four or five pints – nothing major,” he said. “I can handle myself. But I was out with an old person and it was out of order.”
He was stabbed eight times and was hospitalised, with his actions allowing others in the restaurant to get to safety. While recovering in hospital from multiple stab wounds, Larner’s friends made light of the situation by offering him a book called ‘Learn to Run’.
The heroic tale prompted a Swedish brewery to produce a beer called ‘F*** You, I’m Millwall”, a 5% English bitter, in his honour.
“A friend of mine who is a Millwall fan in London sent me a link to an article about Roy and I thought it was an amazing story of his bravery,” said David Mortimer, co-owner of Frequency Beer Works, speaking to Southwark News.
“When I read it I thought ‘that’s amazing, that really is something special’ so I spoke to the other guys at the brewery and we thought we could stick some money into the Just Giving campaign but that it would be more fun to tell the world about it. It just feels like it’s one of those stories you want to tell people about because it’s amazing – and it’s also a great name for a beer.”
9. Ten dead as wildfires ravage northern Californian
Mount Veeder. Photo: Jackson Family Wines
One of the most harrowing stories of 2017 came from northern California, which was gripped by a wave of deadly wildfires in October. The eventual death toll reached 42, with hundreds of wineries damages, hundreds of thousands of acres burnt and countless homes evacuated, however it was Roger Morris’ first report on the initial report that first alerted our readers to the devastation taking place.
Parts of the city of Santa Rosa, including a Hilton hotel, were levelled by the blaze. The fires, which suddenly flared up during the night and were swept by high winds, were most damaging in the Atlas Peak-Stag’s Leap area near Yountville, in Sonoma County between Kenwood and Santa Rosa and in the mountains north and west of Calistoga.
Among the wineries said to be destroyed were Signerello and White Rock in Napa Valley, Chateau St. Jean, Nicolson Ranch, Paradise Ridge and B.R. Cohn in Sonoma and Frey in Mendocino.
Many people were woken in the early hours to fires bearing down on their homes, including those in heavily forested, mountainous areas serviced only by narrow roads. Most were able to escape in the dawn hours to hastily designated evacuation centres, often leaving all their possessions behind.
Power outages were reported in most of the affected areas, making communications difficult.
In a statement, Treasury Wine Estates, whose brands include Beringer, Chateau St. Jean, Stags’ Leap and Sterling Vineyards, said there is “limited damage” to its infrastructures and sites.
It continued: “TWE’s focus is on ensuring all of our employees are safe and we are not sending people in harm’s way. The local fire crews and authorities are doing their best to work on containing the fires”.
Thankfully, most, but not all, of the 2017 vintage had been harvested already.
For our most up-to-date report on the impact of the fires on the region, click here.
8. Accolade makes spirits debut with Echo Falls vodka
Australian wine giant Accolade Wines stepped into the spirits category for the first time in November, with the launch of a flavoured vodka under its Echo Falls brand.
Following the success of its Fruit Fusions wine range, the brand has launched Echo Falls Summer Berries Vodka, tapping into the complementary tastes of its established consumer base, according to its own research.
The 37.5% abv Echo Falls Vodka Summer Berries will carry an RRP of between £13.50 to £16, with listings already confirmed with Spar, B&M, Savers, Palmer & Harvey, Bargain Booze, Nisa, Today’s Group, Landmark and Bestway.
The brand confirmed that the launch would be supported by a £5 million investment package over coming year, that will see the Echo Falls brand advertised in a “unique and large-scale way”.
“This launch pushes Echo Falls beyond the wine aisle and into a new area of growth and profit opportunity for the trade,” said Laurence Hinton, Echo Falls brand manager.
“We have driven the fruit infused wine market from £20,000 a year to more than £72m annually in three years and we are confident that we will succeed in replicating this success in the flavoured vodka market with Echo Falls Vodka Summer Berries.”
7. Whisky found stashed on warship after 35 years
An image posted on Reddit showing the bottle being cut from its 35-year-old hiding place
Everyone loves a good treasure trail tale, including drinks business readers.
In June we reported how a small bottle of Canadian whisky that was hidden on an Australian warship for 35 years had finally been discovered.
The miniature of six-year-old MacNaughton Canadian Whisky, wrapped in insulation tape, was apparently hidden inside the forward starboard leg of the main mast of HMAS Sydney by the team that built her at the Todd Pacific Shipyards in Seattle in 1982. The date, 10 April 1982 was also scribbled on the label.
The little bottle then went undiscovered for 35 years while Sydney sailed the seas, completing two round-the-world voyages in addition to other operations.
The Adelaide-class frigate was decommissioned in 2015 and towed to Henderson near Perth in May of this year to be scrapped.
Earlier that month however, a former employee of Todd who had built Sydney got in touch with Birdon – the company that was charged with breaking up the vessel – to tell them the secret. Cutting away a section of the mast soon revealed the hidden spirit and it was brought out of its metal cocoon.
By 1983, when HMAS Sydney came into service with the Royal Australian Navy, traditions such as the ration of a tot of rum were long a thing of the past. The rum ration was stopped in the British and Canadian navies in the 1970s, although it continued with the Royal New Zealand Navy until 1990. The RAN however had halted the practice as early as 1921, making the little bottle even more of an illicit stowaway than it might have been otherwise.
Over the last three and a half decades, the frigate (and the bottle) had travelled 959,627 nautical miles – over 1.7 million kilometres or 1.1m miles.
6. France suffers ‘ultimate affront’ in tasting competition
In October a team of French professionals suffered the “ultimate affront” of finishing in 11th place in a wine tasting competition, well behind the UK team, while a plucky Zimbabwean team forced Italy into an ignominious last place.
The competition was French publication La Revue du Vin de France’s fifth annual Tasting World Championships which, this year, were held at Burgundy’s Château de Gilly on Saturday 14 October.
With China having won a surprise victory last year, this year’s winners were from Sweden with the British team coming second and the Luxembourg team third.
Also in the top 10 finishers were New Zealand, Finland, Spain, Hungary, Quebec (Canada), China and Poland.
A total of 24 teams from across five continents competed this year, with South Africa, the US, Russia and Andorra among those in attendance and with Brazil, Denmark and the Netherlands competing for the first time as well.
The teams tasted 12 wines in total, six white and six red, and had to identify the country or region of origin, main grape variety, vintage and, if possible, the producer.
The wines included some classic French wines from Bordeaux and Burgundy, German Riesling and Spanish Garnacha, as well as a couple of trickier examples such as a Nebbiolo from Mexico and a Lebanese Cabernet Sauvignon.
Although excellent at identifying the few French wines being poured, Philippe de Cantenac from LRVF told The Times that the French team, which included Château Margaux’s commercial director Aurélien Valance, had flopped when it came to identifying wines from elsewhere in the world.
He told the paper: “Every French person thinks they are a connoisseur but we only know our own wines and not those from other countries.
“It’s the same with Italy and Spain and all wine producing nations. They only drink their own wines. Countries like Sweden and the UK are far more open.”
This marked at least three years where the French team has failed to win the competition but they can console themselves that they didn’t do as badly as Italy whose team came dead last.
In 23rd place was a team from Zimbabwe competing for the first time and it marked the first time that two African countries competed at the event too.
The story of the four young sommeliers; Tongai Joseph Dhafana, Pardon Taguzu, Tinashe Nyamudoka and Marvin Gwese (who all work in South Africa) has attracted a growing amount of international interest.
Their cause has been particularly championed by Jancis Robinson MW who also helped fundraise for the team though her site, jancisrobinson.com.
The four men (who work at La Colombe, Test Kitchen, Aubergine and Cape Grace Hotel) are also to be the focus of a new documentary by Warwick Ross – the director behind 2013’s ‘Red Obsession’.
Still in production, the film is tentatively scheduled for release in early 2019.
5. Duck & Waffle launches single ingredient cocktails
Closed-loop cocktail pioneer Rich Woods launched a menu of single ingredient cocktails at Duck & Waffle in July, made with every part of the ingredient.
The ‘Origins’ menu features ten cocktails and explores the levels of flavour achievable from one key ingredient. Every element of the ingredient is used, from tomato skins, red pepper stalks and spent coffee grinds to lime husks and walnut shells, helping to minimise waste.
“We have amazing ingredients to work with – why bastardise them with other flavours? I want them to shine in all their glory,” Woods told db.
“I wanted to illustrate how much flavour can be extracted from a single ingredient and show the levels of complexity that can be obtained from multiple elements of a single source,”
There are resources out there on our doorstep that are being ignored but could be used to great effect,” he added.
Each of the cocktails has a one-word title based on its key ingredient, meaning the list reads more like a food menu offering the likes of ‘Olive’, ‘Tomato’, ‘Avocado’ and ‘Red Pepper’.
Such a transparent approach to cocktail making is risky, as the margin for error is tiny, but Woods believes there is beauty and purity in the simplicity of a single ingredient cocktail.
“The trickiest thing is ensuring that each batch of the produce we use tastes as good, flavourful and fresh as the last one, if not you’ll be able to taste the difference in the cocktail.
“It has been surprisingly hard to achieve consistency and uniformity of flavour in the cocktails,” he revealed.
To get around the problem, he’s taken to making large batches of each cocktail and has developed a solera-like system where he blends a small percentage of an old batch with a new batch to ensure consistency of flavour.
4. Winemaker crushed to death by wine press
Bernard Rouanet (left). (Photo credit: Facebook – Domaine Rouanet Montcélèbre.)
In August we reported on the tragic death of Bernard Rouanet, a winemaker in the Languedoc, who was killed when his head was crushed in the wine press of his vineyard.
Bernard Rouanet, owner of the Domaine Rouanet Montcélèbre vineyard, located next to the village of Cesseras in the Minervois region of the Languedoc, died on 17 August while attempting to repair his wine press.
Emergency services rushed to his vineyard, but were unable to save the winemaker from his death. Rouanet was buried in the church of Minerva in Cesseras yesterday (22/08/2017) – he was 57 years old.
Bernard Rouanet and his wife bought the 23 ha Domaine Rouanet Montcélèbre in 1987 and had recently introduced organic wine production practices to the vineyard.
The family’s vines are grown on clay and limestone at an altitude of 250 to 300 metres. The vineyard’s wines have won several awards, including a star in the Guide Hachette des Vins for its red wine and a silver medal for its white wine this year, and three stars for its rosé wine last year.
Speaking exclusively to the drinks business, Rouanet’s neighbour, Gerard Chabbert, paid homage to his deceased neighbour.
“It is very sad,” said Chabbert. “Bernard was much loved in the village of Cesseras, he worked very hard on his vineyard,” Chabbert, a retired winemaker said.
French authorities announced they had launched an inquiry into Rouanet’s death.
3. Alcohol ‘will disappear within a generation’, says scientist
Professor Nutt has previosuly stated his belief that alcohol will have disappeared in Western societies by 2050
One of the most controversial, and to many, ludicrous, pieces of news arose only this month, when a neuropsychopharmacologist, who is also the UK’s former chief drugs officer, stated that he believes that traditional alcohol would disappear from Western societies “within a generation” and replaced with healthier alternatives.
Professor Nutt, who was sacked from his position as chairman of the UK government’s Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs in 2009 after he implied that taking ecstasy was less dangerous than riding a horse, hit the headlines in 2016 having developed Alcosynth – a synthetic alcohol that mimics the positive effects of alcohol without the health implications.
Nutt has already patented around 90 compounds used to produce Alcosynth, with his venture now operating under the name Alcarelle, which is hoping to raise £7m to bring the product to market, as reported by IB Times. The project is being co-ordinated by eight scientists, working to find “safer and healthier alternatives to alcohol which preserve the pleasurable aspects of alcohol while avoiding many of the negative side effects”.
Nutt is so confident in the potential application of alcosynth that he believes in another 10 to 20 years “western societies won’t drink alcohol except on rare occasions,” he said, speaking to IBM Times.
“Alcosynth will become the preferred drink, in the same way that I can see – almost within a decade now in the Western world – tobacco and cigarettes will disappear as they’re replaced by electronic cigarettes.”
Alcarelle has already identified a handful of synthetic compounds that can be used to produce alcosynth. Two of these compounds, made from a benzodiazepine derivative, which is in the Valium family, are already being tested for public consumption.
“It could well change culture,” added David Orren, managing director of Alcarelle. “If there’s less intoxication then there will be less violence on the street, less vomiting and less unpleasantness in our city centres. There are some people that want to get intoxicated so they can just fight or be ‘out of it’, but most people want to drink alcohol to enjoy the experience, though inevitably alcohol harms them.”
Nutt and Orren hope to bring Alcarelle first to the UK, EU, US and Canada, but have also high hopes for the Chinese market. Generally, Alcarelle products will be targeted at 18-25-year-olds, who are more health-conscious and drink less than older adults.
“Alcohol kills more than malaria, meningitis, tuberculosis and dengue fever put together,” said Nutt.
“Wouldn’t it be fantastic if we could replace alcohol with something that led to almost no deaths? That would be one of the greatest public health developments in the history of the world.”
Earlier this month, BMI Research brought attention to a growing trend for healthy living and teetotalism, particularly among young adults, that is having a direct impact on the rise of low alcohol wine.
Young adults in particular are more likely to be teetotal than their older counterparts, with more than a quarter of 16 -24 year olds not drinking compared to a fifth of the broader population, according to the Office of National Statistics. BMI Research expects wine consumption to drop by an average of 0.2% per annum from 2017 to 2021, compared to five years ago (2012-2016) when wine consumption grew by an average of 1.6% per annum.
2. Two new AOCs for Burgundy
In November The Institut National des Appellations d’Origine (INAO) formally approved two new AOCs in Burgundy: Vézelay as a Village and Bourgogne Côte d’Or as a new regional appellation.
The INAO initially approved the new AOCs in June this year but they were only formally recognised in the Official Journal published on 9 November.
The promotion to a Village appellation marks Vézelay’s continued return to its former glory.
The region in the very north of Burgundy – it is in the Yonne department, west of Dijon and south of Auxerre – is famous for its 11th century abbey and used to be a thriving wine area as well.
Devastated by phylloxera in the 1870s and ‘80s, the comeback was gradual and it was not until 100 years later, in 1985, that Vézelay was granted the generic ‘Bourgogne’ appellation.
In 1998 it was allowed to label itself as Bourgogne Vézelay Régionale and has now been promoted once more.
Further south, meanwhile the famous Côte d’Or between Dijon and Beaune has likewise been recognised with a regional appellation, joining the likes of Côte Chalonnaise, Passe-tout-grains, Tonnerre, Côteaux Bourguignons, Crémant de Bourgogne and the Hautes Côtes de Beaune and Nuits.
1. Krug CEO: drinking Champagne out of flutes is like ‘going to concert with ear plugs’
If you are drinking Champagne out of a flute, then you are doing it all wrong, according to Maggie Henriquez, CEO and president of Krug, who in September compared it to “going to a concert with ear plugs”.
Speaking to dbHK before the official launch of Krug 2004 in Hong Kong this week, the Champagne house’s CEO, Maggie Henriquez, adamantly protested against the use of Champagne flutes, which she says will only diminish the whole experience.
“You don’t use flutes. You see, using a flute is like going to a concert with ear plugs because it will not let you enjoy what is inside, because a good Champagne before anything is a good wine. This is the first line in the little book of the founder [Joseph Krug],” she stressed, “Flutes are for bad champagne, sorbet or gazpacho, but not to drink Champagne.”
This was a point that the executive and the luxury Champagne house felt pertinent enough to note in the Krug ID, an identification system that Henriquez, an engineer by training, launched in 2011. Since then each bottle of Krug including its Grand Cuvée and vintage Champagne has a unique ID that allows buyers to track the wine’s growing and harvesting seasons, storing and service suggestions as well as food and music pairing.
For the 2004 vintage, which was named “Luminous Freshness,” the house chose to release the prestigious cuvée in Hong Kong and London on the same day, two of what Henriquez calls “vintage markets,” where buyers are more interested in knowing the year and vintage, compared to the house’s Grand Cuvée.
Currently ranked as Krug’s fifth largest export market and the second biggest market for the house after Japan, Hong Kong has been growing each year. However, for mainland China, the top executive remains cautious about expanding its reach into the market, despite its massive potential.
“We are very cautious, consciously, of getting into mainland China. So you know, I would not do it, but someone else might,” she commented. On the other hand, she added that due to Hong Kong and mainland’s close proximity, Hong Kong serves as “a door” to the vast market.