The 3-billion battle over Spirit Group is still raging, but when Enterprise Inns says it is not interested in the pubs chain, you have to take notice. Effectively, Enterprise has said it is
no longer interested in expanding its 8,500-house empire, and that growth will now come from improving the returns from its present estate (give or take a bit of churning at the bottom end).
Somewhere in the backstreets of Glasgow wild beasts are stirring in the undergrowth. A timid pair of lions that were all but invisible on an old Scotch whisky label have suddenly grown dramatically in stature. Picked out in metallic red against a black background, they have risen up on their hind legs and are roaring with all their might. Above, in large capital letters, is the word special', and above that the brand name itself: Whyte & Mackay.
It has been - though the incorrigible natives of that sublime country will be unaware of it - a farcical summer for Italy. I speak narrowly of course, vinously, but as a long-standing season-ticket holder to the Comedy of Life, I realise 'twas ever thus and nothing written here will change anything. First, there was my highly literate friend Fiona - WSET graduate, wife of a wealthy vigneron in the Midi - who wanted to spread her wings, and so I suggested she help out at my website, superplonk.com, and become a taster and writer on wines from European regions with which she was familiar.
Read more...When we look back at the history of Australian wine, how will we remember 2005? As the year of the screwcap? The ros renaissance? Shiraz/Viognier blends? The year when Australia started to claw back its reputation as a producer of fine, terroir-driven wines? The year it consolidated its global image as a provider of popular premium' gimmick brands? Or all of the above?
So, finally, France looks set to compete in the world
of global wine brands. Almost everybody involved in the business of making and selling vin de pays has agreed that there needs to be a new category: Vin de Pays Vignobles de France. And the authorities are moving fast, with plans to sell the first wines under this category in early 2006.
Fed up with stray tartan and bagpipes hanging off the walls of themed Scottish places, City boy Neil Barnes has created a modern Scottish bar in Trafalgar Square. Some might wonder why this entrepreneur with no experience of catering should do such a thing when the country can't even put together a decent football team, but Albannach is a fair attempt.
LONDON
LUCIANO
77 St James's Street, SW1A 1PH
Marco Pierre White is back in town. The restaurant king and original celebrity chef has launched a new Italian restaurant - named after his eldest son - in the West End. The menu is part English and part Italian, which must keep the waiters as busy with translations as they are with serving. Highlights include carpaccio of Aberdeen Angus (9.50) to start, moving on to grilled Dover sole with burro al Barolo (25) or roast rump of lamb with thyme, pomodori ripieni and cicoria (15.50). As you might imagine, the wine list is heavy on Italy.
Desired by Diageo and then spurned, Montana has at last seen a positive denouement to the drama surrounding its destiny in securing a satisfied suitor in Pernod Ricard. But what does such high-profile rejection of one of New Zealand's flagship wineries
say about Montana and, by inference, the New Zealand wine industry in general?
Despite the flurry of mergers and acquisitions over the past few years, the world's big brewers are under pressure
from the growing trend for consumers to switch to wines and spirits. Undoubtedly, new markets are opening to them, notably China and India, but in the more developed world, where profit margins are higher, consumers are spurning beer, especially in the biggest market of all, North America. And if you want evidence of that trend, look at the actions of Anheuser-Busch, which until recently was the world's number-one brewer, a title it still holds in the United States. It has announced a third successive quarter of lower profits and issued a warning that its full-year earnings will fall by about 10%.
In Phil's not particularly humble opinion, Vini Portugal's latest run of print ads is a great improvement on its previous attempts to drum up interest in Touriga, Baga and the rest.
Read more...Like Britain, Italy is a long, relatively thin country, running roughly north-south. But unlike Britain, Italy is a country of mountains. Two great mountain systems dominate: the Alps to the north, and the Appenines, which run from nearly the top (Piemonte) to the toe (Calabria), and on into Sicily. All but one (Puglia) of Italy's 20 regions have mountains, and this fact has profoundly influenced Italian viticulture through the ages.
There's a dirty little secret in California's glamorous wine country. At a time when dozens of California wines are selling for more than $100 a bottle, when producers are building multimillion-dollar monuments to their own egos and to impress wine nerds who run up thousand-dollar wine bills at a dinner for four, California farm unions are in danger of losing the battle that would give vineyard workers a decent living wage. (Vineyard workers and grunt labour in California wineries are virtually all Hispanic.)
It's a clich to say that it's tough on the high street; just look at the household names that have issued profits warnings over the past few weeks. They range from WH Smith to Philip Green, despite his paying himself a 1bn-plus dividend. Yet, despite reports of house-price inflation taking off again, the Bank of England cut interest rates in August because of fragile consumer spending, and there are even predictions that the general state of the economy is so bad that hopes of staving off a dismal Christmas have been all but abandoned. Note how the London market slipped by 10% in October (but has since rebounded) because of the fears that high energy prices will provoke greater reluctance to open wallets and purses.
I blame the Beaucastel.
Or it could have been the Bordeaux. These were the wines I cut my vinous teeth on: I loved - still love - a good bottle of claret and the wines of the Rhne, north and south.
Now I'm told that many of the wines I was blithely enjoying were - and in some cases, still are - riddled' with Brett. This is why, I think, I appear to have a bit of a blind spot where Brettanomyces is concerned: those smells and tastes that set off the Brett alarm bells in other tasters are smells and tastes that I associate with wines I actually quite like.
French producers are not happy about the preliminary agreement just reached between the EU and the Americans concerning wine labelling.
The fact that the Wine Institute in California likes it should certainly suggest that the EU has reached an unequal compromise on the subject of the use of appellation names
by the Americans.
Investors are becoming increasingly attracted to London's Alternative Investment Market, the exchange that many fledgling companies use to make their initial offering of shares to the public. The costs of doing so are fairly cheap compared to the main market, and the hurdles companies have to jump to achieve approval from the stock exchange are less onerous. In some senses, that should serve as a health warning to investors because AIM-listed companies can and do collapse, but so can their bigger brethren - Railtrack and Marconi, for example.
Read more...Is Malcolm Gluck totally off his proverbial rocker? Once I had stopped shaking with hysterical laughter after reading his article in Harpers (21 October), I just had to comment on what he had written about Rick Stein and his French Odyssey TV series.
LONDON
CAPITAL GAINS
MEATY TREAT
Roast, Floral Hall, Stoney St, Borough Market, SE1 1TL
Get ready for Roast, a brand-new 100+ seat restaurant in London's Borough Market. The market is already a haven for food lovers, and Roast looks set to take full advantage of this, opening for breakfast, lunch and dinner Monday to Saturday, as well as for Sunday lunch. The food will be in the capable hands of head chef Lawrence Keogh, formerly of The Avenue and Bluebird. As the name suggests, meat is central to the menu, and suckling pigs, birds and ribs of beef will be cooked on a spit. The restaurant is keen to reflect the breadth and depth of British cooking and will also offer seafood, lighter grills and salads. The strong British theme has been carried over to the wine list, which has been compiled under the supervision of Peter McCombie MW and promises to recognise the advances made in recent years by English vineyards.
You will hear the cheer from Paris in London.'
So said Pernod Ricard's joint MD Richard Burrows only a month ago on the possibility of Diageo not taking up an option to buy most of Montana, New Zealand's biggest wine producer, from the French group. At the time, Diageo was duly diligent, and Pernod Ricard expected the world's biggest drinks group to pay about 320m, excluding the Corban's, Stoneleigh and Church Road brands.
This year, as in every other since I retired from the wine trade, I summered in the Mcon, surely the most delightful of all of France's myriad wine regions. At the beginning of July,
I began what has become my customary walking tour of the patchwork of vineyards that make up this charming area, and I enjoyed many a fine lunch on the way!
