The week in pictures

This week marked the 10th anniversary and the launch of the first limited-edition bottle from Dan Ackroyd’s vodka brand, Crystal Head. Designed by American artist John Alexander, it is inspired by Alexander’s 1988 oil painting Dancing on the Water Lilies of Life which is on display in the Dallas Museum of Art. The 750ml bottle is available for $149.95 – dog not included.

db‘s editor, Lucy Shaw, caught up with Argentine chef Francis Mallmann who held a three-day pop-up at Cut at 45 Park Lane in Mayfair this week. Mallmann, who built his career around cooking meet over an open fire, told Shaw he believes that in 30 years people will no longer eat meat. He also revealed that he has plans to make his own wine from six hectares of vineyards planted at 1,600 metres altitude in the Uco Valley in Mendoza. Read the full interview here.

Texture was crowned the winner of this year’s Copa Jerez competition this week after fighting off strong competition from 2850 Wine Workshop & Kitchen (London), Asador 44 (Cardiff), Le Gavroche (London) and Wernher (Luton).

The judges: left to right: Joe Wadsack, food & wine expert; Beltran Domecq, president CRDO Jerez y Manzanilla; Giovanni Ferlito, head sommelier, The Ritz; Michael Nizzero, executive chef, The Bath Priory

The restaurant, represented by head chef Karl O’Dell and sommelier Alan Bednarski was awarded £500, with the team winning a trip to Jerez next summer.

Sir Gregory Winter, master of Trinity College, Cambridge, was feeling a little delicate one morning this week when he got an unexpected phone call – turns out he’d jointly won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry. Proving that professors can party on, he ordered £2,793 worth of Champagne for a fizz-fuelled celebration at his lab.

Mouton Cadet marked its fourth partnership with the Ryder Cup, providing necessary refreshment throughout three days of golfing drama at Le Golf National near Paris. For those of you who weren’t as glued to it as I was, Europe romped to victory, reclaiming the cup in a decisive 17.5 to 10.5 victory. Having regained the title before the close of play with Phil Mickelson putting his tee shot in the drink in his match against Francesco Molinari, Team Europe extended its lead with Alex Norén holing a monster putt in the final match. In the celebrations that followed, Tommy Fleetwood, who won four points out of five in his first Ryder Cup, let his hair down and tried his hand at crowd surfing, while ‘Postman’ Ian Poulter was pictured wearing a red pillar box costume he’d been handed by a fan.

Philippe Sereys de Rothschild, chairman and CEO of Baron Philippe de Rothschild SA, commented: “Golf brings together all generations, it is a wonderful medium to express the values which we share with the sport: passion, tenacity, discipline, combativeness. Wine, just like golf, also speaks to the emotions. It is for all those reasons that we are delighted to have been chosen for four years as Official Wine of this competition”.

William Grant & Sons unveiled its £13 million Hendrick’s ‘gin palace’ this week, which comes complete with palm house, two hot houses, two still houses, a laboratory, flavour library, lecture theatre and gin bar.

The team from Ellis Wines put their secateurs to good use this week when they spent a day picking and pressing grapes with customers at Bluebell Vineyard in Sussex. Head of marketing, Rupert Lovie, was eager to point out that they did in fact pick more than the two boxes pictured!

A winery in Conegliano, Veneto had a very unwelcome Prosecco shower this week after a pressurised fermentation tank exploded, spilling 30,000 litres of fizz onto the tarmac.

This week in animals behaving badly on thedrinksbusiness.com – patrons of a sports bar north of Paris were startled to find a runaway racehorse coming in to join them.

Clare Smyth

This week marked the release of the Michelin Guide 2019. Among the winners this year was Clare Smyth’s Core which went straight in at two stars as a new entry. Also celebrating were husband and wife duo James Knappett and Sandia Chang after their chef’s table concept, Kitchen Table, housed inside hotdog and grower Champagne venue Bubbledogs in Fitzrovia, was awarded a second star, having won its first back in 2014.

Sandia Chang and James Knappett are all smiles after their Kitchen Table concept won a second star

Evolution 18 brought the best in brand activation and nearly 450 on-trade professionals to SWG3 in Glasgow. Inverarity Morton (IM) choreographed a day full of live demonstrations and hands-on experiences featuring brands from 20 of IM’s suppliers including Moët & Chandon, Hendricks, Glenfiddich, Bacardi, Grey Goose, Auchentoshan, Jim Beam, Peroni, WEST and Savanna Cider. Guests were also served pre-mixed cocktails from Monkey Shoulder’s giant cement mixer, partook in some Champagne bowling and decided whether they preferred AC/DC’s Shoot to Thrill or the Gloria from Mozart’s Mass in C Minor with UgoVezzoli Franciacorta Brut.

The Crus Bourgeois du Médoc 2016 Official Selection tasting took place in London at the British Academy with 270 Crus Bourgeois du Médoc making up the new Official Selection for the 2016 vintage.

(Photo by JB Lacroix/WireImage)

Pop star turned winemaker Pink has revealed that she will be releasing her first commercial wines under the label Two Wolves, having bought an 10-hectare vineyard in Los Olivos, north of Santa Barbara, five years ago.

Aleksandra Jaworska of Bullard & Worth was crowned the winner at the UK finals of Amaro Montenegro’s Vero Bartender Competition.

Cinematographer-turned-winemaker Michael Seresin open the doors of his London home in Little Venice to host a lunch that showcased the latest vintages from his Seresin Estate in Marlborough, and welcome new head winemaker Tamra Kelly-Washington, who started her career at Seresin 20 years ago and was most recently chief winemaker at Yealands Estate. During the lunch Tamra revealed that she’s working on a Seresin skin contact Pinot Gris to be bottled under the Beautiful Chaos label.

Former rugby star Johnny Wilkinson is the latest celebrity to enter the drinks game, and is bang on trend with his No1 Kombucha brand, which has gone in sale in both the UK on- and off-trade. Wilkinson hopes to widen the appeal of kombucha – fermented green tea – in Britain, particularly as there is a growing trend among millennials to abstain from alcohol. His brand comes in three flavours: ginger and tumeric; passionfruit and goji; and raspberry, pomegranate and hibiscus.

Land Rovers old and new gather for the launch of Pol Roger Sir Winston Churchill 2008, which took place at Bonham’s in London this week. Pol fans from a military background also gathered for the event, which saw the prestige cuvée poured throughout the celebration.

Antoine Malassagne of family-owned Champagne house AR Lenoble battled a broken arm during a flying visit to London to celebrate the launch of two ambitious non-vintage wines – Intense ‘mag 14’ and Blanc de Blancs Chouilly ‘mag 14’ – at Mei Ume at The Four Seasons hotel in Tower Hill. Both the of Champagnes include 40% reserve wine that has been aged in 225-litre barrels, 5,000-litre casks and in magnum under natural cork for added complexity and freshness.

The lavish lunch included the chance to try generous glasses of the golden 1988 vintage of AR Lenoble, which fizzed with a riot of flavours, including toffee, coffee, mushrooms and honeycomb.

And finally… db’s Lucy Shaw was delighted to be served dim sum in her favourite shade of pastel pink.