Sampling is in full swing on the Southern Hemisphere’s 2025 vintage and quality has been rated very positively. The great majority of sampling activity is being carried out by longstanding customers with established programmes and tenders; new buyers, and new programmes, are few. Only Chile and New Zealand experienced non-average crop sizes but in contrasting ways – Chile’s was as much as 25% short, New Zealand’s is expected to have been “very large” despite fruit going unpicked in response to generous carryover stocks.  The shortness of Chile’s crop triggered brisk early sampling by international buyers and the securing of batches by domestic buyers. Even in this context, however, the lack of new international business has been noticeable. In the Northern Hemisphere, meanwhile, bulk wine markets have been proceeding steadily, with activity largely consisting of incremental demand for small volumes on a just-in-time basis.  The persi

Sampling is in full swing on the Southern Hemisphere’s 2025 vintage and quality has been rated very positively. The great majority of sampling activity is being carried out by longstanding customers with established programmes and tenders; new buyers, and new programmes, are few. Only Chile and New Zealand experienced non-average crop sizes but in contrasting ways – Chile’s was as much as 25% short, New Zealand’s is expected to have been “very large” despite fruit going unpicked in response to generous carryover stocks.  The shortness of Chile’s crop triggered brisk early sampling by international buyers and the securing of batches by domestic buyers. Even in this context, however, the lack of new international business has been noticeable. In the Northern Hemisphere, meanwhile, bulk wine markets have been proceeding steadily, with activity largely consisting of incremental demand for small volumes on a just-in-time basis.  The persi

Afternoon Brief: Asheville Winery Destroyed During Helene Uncertain About Future

More than three weeks after Helene destroyed parts of western North Carolina, an Asheville winery that connected neighbors to the regions history, is left with nothing...

Since its peak in 2007, when some 250 million hectolitres was consumed, global wine consumption has trended downward amid successive headwinds: the 2007-08 financial crisis and its long aftermath, China’s 2018-19 economic slowdown, then the end of a post-pandemic rally. The International Organisation of Vine & Wine (OIV) provisionally estimates 2022 consumption at 232 million hectolitres, in line with 2020 and – before that – 2002. In short, the consumption gains made this century have been lost.  A considerable factor in this shrinkage is China. While the other major winedrinking countries have consumed wine at a roughly steady rate, the OIV estimates Chinese consumption has declined by two million hectolitres every year since 2018, so that China drank in 2022 less than half of what it did four years before. It was hoped the lifting of strict COVID-19 measures in January would unleash pent-up Chinese demand for imports including wine, but while exports have