• Best winery in the world? That would be Israeli, in case anyone was wondering. Golan Heights Winery, founded in 1983 in Katzrin in northern Israel, bested the field to take the top spot as the best wine producer in the world at the International Wine Competition in Verona, Italy. The award goes to the producer who achieves the best score, calculated as the sum of the highest scores for two wines which take medals in different categories. A panel of 105 wine experts and journalists participated in the judging. The 3720 wines submitted came from 30 countries including Australia, Austria, Canada, Chile, France, Italy, Spain, Turkey and Venezuela. Golan Heights sells wine under the Yarden, Gamla and Golan labels.
• The end of Australian wine? That's the subject of this lengthy and sometimes overwritten piece in the Wine Spectator, but the main point is well taken: "Where only just a few years ago seemingly everyone was oohing-and-aahing over the new Australian wine baby, today there's a collective shrug. It's just another baby — and maybe it really wasn't all that cute anyway. Australia's fall from grace had a velocity I've never before seen. I can't think of another wine country that, Icarus-like, flew so high and fell so far in so short a time." The other well-made point? That other wine regions had better pay attention to what happened Down Under, lest it happen to them.
• Just a taste, please: Of asparagus wine. Really. The Detroit Free Press reports that a Michigan asparagus producer came up with the wine on a dare, and that it tastes like, well, asparagus. Fruit wines aren't uncommon, and there are some vegetable wines. But this? Says the head of the state's asparagus trade group: "I'd like to get a bottle -- at least to keep on my counter. I love asparagus, but I don't know if I'd drink -- well, I might try it."
Comments