Just when you thought you’d seen it all in the wine business, something new always comes along to shock/surprise you. This time it is something really special….. Wine for cats!!! Now before you reach for the calendar to start checking the date, I can assure you that this is no April Fool’s joke, but indeed is a new product created in Japan by a company called B&H Lifes. The wine itself is called Nyan Nyan Nouveau, and, as you might imagine is completely alcohol free, made from a blend of Cabernet grape juice and catnip. Sounds delicious, but don’t expect my tasting notes on this any time soon!

(Apparently, just in case you don’t speak Japanese, the translation of Nyan, Nyan, is actually Meow, Meow – useful for the next time you want to converse with a Japanese cat!)Just when you thought you’d seen it all in the wine business, something new always comes along to shock/surprise you. This time it is something really special….. Wine for cats!!! Now before you reach for the calendar to start checking the date, I can assure you that this is no April Fool’s joke, but indeed is a new product created in Japan by a company called B&H Lifes. The wine itself is called Nyan Nyan Nouveau, and, as you might imagine is completely alcohol free, made from a blend of Cabernet grape juice and catnip. Sounds delicious, but don’t expect my tasting notes on this any time soon!

(Apparently, just in case you don’t speak Japanese, the translation of Nyan, Nyan, is actually Meow, Meow – useful for the next time you want to converse with a Japanese cat!)

It’s not often that you come across a canine sommelier, and before you ask, no, I’m not taking any substances! This week we have our first tasting note from a Japanese Shiba Inu who lives in New York (with his wine-loving human companions). Shiba was kind enough to rate our A2O albariño as 4 bones out of 5 and commented: “Hehe, I need some food with this Albariño! Nice, gentle nose of pears, lemon, and white stone. Tiniest touch of salinity on the palate with lovely white pear, lemon, and stone notes. Nice acidity. Not the saltiest of Albariños but would pair excellently with some gambas! 

For more extraordinary dog ‘tails’, please visit Shiba’s very own website!

It’s not often that you come across a canine sommelier, and before you ask, no, I’m not taking any substances! This week we have our first tasting note from a Japanese Shiba Inu who lives in New York (with his wine-loving human companions). Shiba was kind enough to rate our A2O albariño as 4 bones out of 5 and commented: “Hehe, I need some food with this Albariño! Nice, gentle nose of pears, lemon, and white stone. Tiniest touch of salinity on the palate with lovely white pear, lemon, and stone notes. Nice acidity. Not the saltiest of Albariños but would pair excellently with some gambas! 

For more extraordinary dog ‘tails’, please visit Shiba’s very own website!

The vineyards of Rias Baixas are very fragmented – there are 23,400 different locations, divided between more than 6,700 registered grape growers. Consequently this means that there are not very many Bodegas that are completely self-sufficient in grapes, and the vast majority buy at least some of their crop from the growers. One of the big problems is that, believe it or not, there are very few contracts in existence, and whilst there is some degree of loyalty between Bodegas and growers, it is still very much an open market. Of course the downside of this arrangement is that, in years of shortage, there can be a lot of pressure on supply, and therefore on prices. Such variations make it difficult to always offer a stable bottle price.

A couple of big harvests in recent years have helped to keep our grape prices down, but even in the most expensive vintages they are nothing when compared to the price recently paid for 800g (28oz) of Ruby Roman grapes in Japan. A single bunch of only 30 of these juicy red grapes was bought at auction for $5,400 dollars, the equivalent of about $180 per grape to you and me! OK, so each grape can be as much as 3cm (1.2in) in diameter, but even so, that’s quite a lot of money for a single grape…..

There is no real explanation as to why these particular grapes are so expensive, except to say that only 16,000 bunches are expected to be sold this season, and only in the prefecture of Ishikawa in central Japan. The Japanese are known to present top-quality fruits such as melons as gifts, and the first batches of carefully grown fruit often fetch extraordinary prices, making headlines in newspapers.

Suffice to say that next week we will be grubbing up all our Albariño grapes and re-planting with Ruby Red!

The vineyards of Rias Baixas are very fragmented – there are 23,400 different locations, divided between more than 6,700 registered grape growers. Consequently this means that there are not very many Bodegas that are completely self-sufficient in grapes, and the vast majority buy at least some of their crop from the growers. One of the big problems is that, believe it or not, there are very few contracts in existence, and whilst there is some degree of loyalty between Bodegas and growers, it is still very much an open market. Of course the downside of this arrangement is that, in years of shortage, there can be a lot of pressure on supply, and therefore on prices. Such variations make it difficult to always offer a stable bottle price.

A couple of big harvests in recent years have helped to keep our grape prices down, but even in the most expensive vintages they are nothing when compared to the price recently paid for 800g (28oz) of Ruby Roman grapes in Japan. A single bunch of only 30 of these juicy red grapes was bought at auction for $5,400 dollars, the equivalent of about $180 per grape to you and me! OK, so each grape can be as much as 3cm (1.2in) in diameter, but even so, that’s quite a lot of money for a single grape…..

There is no real explanation as to why these particular grapes are so expensive, except to say that only 16,000 bunches are expected to be sold this season, and only in the prefecture of Ishikawa in central Japan. The Japanese are known to present top-quality fruits such as melons as gifts, and the first batches of carefully grown fruit often fetch extraordinary prices, making headlines in newspapers.

Suffice to say that next week we will be grubbing up all our Albariño grapes and re-planting with Ruby Red!

I mentioned just the other day that there had been much serious drinking at the Albariño Festival, and questioned whether this was really a positive advertisement for our denomination or not. It is claimed that some 90,000 bottles of our local wine were consumed in four days, and if this figure is correct, then it is perhaps understandable why there were so many “happy” people falling about! This number represents roughly 6 full 40ft containers of wine, which in turn equates to 30 pallets a day, sold by only 44 stands….. not bad going!

On Saturday night/Sunday morning there was a very interesting and somewhat usual occurrence in the Ria of Arousa. Many of the river estuaries (Rias) of Galicia are dotted with large wooden platforms used for farming mussels – beams made from eucalyptus trees fastened on top of several floats and anchored to the sea bed by a concrete block. From each raft hang a number of ropes where the mussels grow. During the spawning season the mussel larvae float downstream until they attach themselves to the ropes of the platforms, or sometimes they are transferred there by hand by the mussel farmers themselves.

Last Sunday morning at 1.30am one of the platforms had a rather unusual visit when it was ‘mounted’ by a motor cruiser travelling at speed down the river! The boat hit with such force that it was left completely high and dry on top of the platform. There were twelve people on board at the time, and two of them were injured (we don’t know how seriously), but suffice to say that the survivors had to be evacuated by an air-sea rescue helicopter.

The occupants of the cruiser had been attending the albariño festival….. probably enough said. 

I mentioned just the other day that there had been much serious drinking at the Albariño Festival, and questioned whether this was really a positive advertisement for our denomination or not. It is claimed that some 90,000 bottles of our local wine were consumed in four days, and if this figure is correct, then it is perhaps understandable why there were so many “happy” people falling about! This number represents roughly 6 full 40ft containers of wine, which in turn equates to 30 pallets a day, sold by only 44 stands….. not bad going!

On Saturday night/Sunday morning there was a very interesting and somewhat usual occurrence in the Ria of Arousa. Many of the river estuaries (Rias) of Galicia are dotted with large wooden platforms used for farming mussels – beams made from eucalyptus trees fastened on top of several floats and anchored to the sea bed by a concrete block. From each raft hang a number of ropes where the mussels grow. During the spawning season the mussel larvae float downstream until they attach themselves to the ropes of the platforms, or sometimes they are transferred there by hand by the mussel farmers themselves.

Last Sunday morning at 1.30am one of the platforms had a rather unusual visit when it was ‘mounted’ by a motor cruiser travelling at speed down the river! The boat hit with such force that it was left completely high and dry on top of the platform. There were twelve people on board at the time, and two of them were injured (we don’t know how seriously), but suffice to say that the survivors had to be evacuated by an air-sea rescue helicopter.

The occupants of the cruiser had been attending the albariño festival….. probably enough said. 

When I read this story my initial reaction was to check the calendar once again, to see if it was April Fool’s day. Either an outrageous story, or perhaps just an excellent piece of marketing? Are you sitting comfortably? Then I shall begin.

OK, so an ex-pat British wine maker (from Norwich) who now lives in Chile, has two passions. His vineyard in the Cachapoal Valley and Astronomy. So, how do you go about combining the two? Easy – first borrow a 10cm meteorite from a wealthy American, dip it in a barrel of your wine for a while, blend this single barrel with a lot more wine, and then sell it as Meteorito – a wine in which you can allegedly taste the origins of the Universe itself! Brilliant! Why didn’t I think of this myself?

Sorry, do I sound a little sceptical? Well, maybe it’s because I am! Suspending a small meteorite in a single oak barrel of Cabernet Sauvignon for a year is one thing, but then taking this single barrel, blending it with another 10,000 litres and claiming that you can still taste the effects of this maceration is quite frankly, beyond belief….

Just a minute, I’ve had an idea – the soil in our vineyards contains both granite and quartz that originate from the magma of the earth’s crust, and you can actually taste this in the mineral character of our wine. In future I’m going to claim that in our albarino you can actually taste the very origins of our planet!

When I read this story my initial reaction was to check the calendar once again, to see if it was April Fool’s day. Either an outrageous story, or perhaps just an excellent piece of marketing? Are you sitting comfortably? Then I shall begin.

OK, so an ex-pat British wine maker (from Norwich) who now lives in Chile, has two passions. His vineyard in the Cachapoal Valley and Astronomy. So, how do you go about combining the two? Easy – first borrow a 10cm meteorite from a wealthy American, dip it in a barrel of your wine for a while, blend this single barrel with a lot more wine, and then sell it as Meteorito – a wine in which you can allegedly taste the origins of the Universe itself! Brilliant! Why didn’t I think of this myself?

Sorry, do I sound a little sceptical? Well, maybe it’s because I am! Suspending a small meteorite in a single oak barrel of Cabernet Sauvignon for a year is one thing, but then taking this single barrel, blending it with another 10,000 litres and claiming that you can still taste the effects of this maceration is quite frankly, beyond belief….

Just a minute, I’ve had an idea – the soil in our vineyards contains both granite and quartz that originate from the magma of the earth’s crust, and you can actually taste this in the mineral character of our wine. In future I’m going to claim that in our albarino you can actually taste the very origins of our planet!