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Australian wine exports fall 7% in year to September 2026 despite Asia, Canada gains

• Australian wine export value fell 7% to $2.25 billion, and volume fell 5% to 590 million litres in the 12 months to September 2026.
• Exports to the US fell 28% in value to $219 million, the biggest drag, as US tariffs and falling domestic demand weighed.
• Southeast Asia grew 16% in value to $291 million, and Canada rose 12% to $185 million as American wines left shelves.

Bordeaux leads fine wine trade at 39.6% share, Lafite 2005 tops it

• Bordeaux took 39.6% of traded fine wine value this week, with Lafite accounting for over a quarter of the region's value.
• Burgundy fell from 24.8% last week to 18.4%, while Tuscany rose from 5.2% to 8.9%.
• Bollinger overtook Dom Perignon and Louis Roeder as the top-traded producer by value, with R.D. 2008 the leading wine.

Booze News Weekly Roundup covers Uncle Nearest, Italian wine heist, and product launches

• VinePair's weekly roundup gathers beverage alcohol headlines and product releases every Friday for the drinks industry.
• The roundup reports updates on Uncle Nearest's potential buyers and Mark Zuckerberg's Guinness flop, per its preview.
• It also cites a $5M wine heist in Italy and a roundup of the week's latest product releases.

French wine harvest set for historic low after summer heatwaves

• France's 2026 wine harvest is estimated at about 35m hectolitres, down 2% on 2025 and 14% below the 2021-2025 average.
• The International Organisation of Vine and Wine said France's 2025 production was its lowest since 1957.
• Champagne's harvest finished in September for the first time, with output halved from last year and the five-year average.

Real Housewives drink mass-market, sweet wines, shaped by Parker-era taste

• Real Housewives on Salt Lake City and other franchises mostly drink mass-market, high-alcohol, sweet Californian cabernet and similar wines.
• Essayist Cake Zine contributor, a certified wine specialist, says the wines' sweetness reflects the 'Parkerization' effect of critic Robert Parker's 100-point system.
• Justin Cabernet, sold at Walgreens for about $22, appeared in Whitney Rose's scene, and the essay speculates it could be product placement.

VinePair's 2026 list of 30 best Zinfandels, with old-vine picks

• VinePair's tasting staff ranked 30 Zinfandels for 2026 on a 100-point scale, sampling non-blind with producers' free submissions.
• The list highlights old-vine bottlings, including Contra Costa Valley wines from vines 100 to 140 years old that the Cline family is working to preserve.
• Zinfandel was originally brought to California by a Boston ship captain and was historically known as Tribidrag in Croatia.

Ten sommeliers name lesser-known Sauvignon Blancs beyond Marlborough and Sancerre

• Ten sommeliers were asked to name the most underrated Sauvignon Blanc currently on the market.
• Picks range from Loire sub-regions like Quincy, Cheverny and Menetou-Salon to Styria, Austria and Elgin, South Africa.
• Nominated producers include Casa Jipi from Baja, Mexico, and Pepper Bridge Winery from the Pacific Northwest.

Kathleen Burk's Global History of Wine Spans Georgia to Modern Day

• Kathleen Burk, emerita history professor at University College London, has published Wine: A Global History, nearly 600 pages, with Basic Books.
• The book starts in Georgia, covers Greece, Rome, Venetian, Genoese and Dutch trade, and includes a chapter on Islam and wine.
• Burk gives France and the United States two chapters each, Italy and Spain one shared chapter, and gives Germany no chapter of its own.

Cloudy and pét nat wines gain shelf space in UK supermarkets

• Marks & Spencer's Trouble, a cloudy organic rosé, is the first cloudy still wine sold in a British supermarket.
• Pét nat is an ancestral sparkling method bottled before fermentation ends, so it is typically undisgorged and cloudy.
• Ottolenghi's three house wines are unfiltered and cloudy, and its wine head says the sediment adds texture and food-friendliness.

Bartenders say American drinkers abroad are curious, though vodka still rules

• Connaught Bar in London, where Americans are the majority, makes about 30,000 Martinis a year, with many requesting vodka over gin.
• Bartenders describe American visitors as curious and open, asking for recommendations and letting bartenders guide choices.
• Over the past decade US international travel rose about 71 percent, with a record 24 million trips to Europe in 2025.

Italian vineyards shift from pergola to vertical canopies, with summer pruning now used for grape quality

• Over the past two decades Italy has shifted from large pergola or arched cane vines to vertically positioned hedgerows, with rising vine density.
• Growers now use summer pruning, such as pre-flowering leaf removal, to improve cluster looseness, crop level and grape and wine composition.
• Researchers say warm climates may favour diffuse light on clusters, and a modulated ripening delay may be desirable.

Surface renewal method estimates vineyard water use on Napa slopes

• Researchers estimated water loss from flat and sloped Napa Valley vineyards using surface renewal, calibrated against eddy covariance measurements.
• Average June-September evapotranspiration was 2.46 mm per day in the flat vineyard, 2.11 in the northeast slope, and 2.54 in the southwest slope.
• Water use was lower on the northeast slope, which the authors attribute to reduced canopy resistance from increased late-season shading.

ABA and heat boost anthocyanins in Cabernet Sauvignon berries after veraison

• Argentine researchers Liliana Deis, María Fernanda Silva and Jorge Cavagnaro tested abscisic acid (ABA) and temperature on Cabernet Sauvignon berries in vitro.
• ABA did not raise anthocyanins or total polyphenols before veraison, but after veraison it increased both compounds.
• At 23 days after veraison, ABA raised anthocyanins by 207% to 307% and total polyphenols by 271% to 428%, depending on dose.

Pre-bloom leaf removal cuts Sangiovese yields and lifts sugar and colour

• University of Bologna researchers tested pre-bloom hand and mechanical basal leaf removal on Sangiovese vines against undefoliated controls.
• Both defoliation methods lowered fruit-set, yield per shoot, cluster weight and berry weight.
• Soluble solids and total anthocyanins improved with both methods, and mechanical removal kept most of hand removal's benefits.

Seven Vermentino selections compared for yield and fruit quality in Sardinia

• Researchers from the University of Sassari and LAORE Sardegna tested seven Vermentino selections over two seasons in a Northern Sardinian vineyard.
• The clones and biotypes varied significantly in cluster weight and yield per plant, with French clone ENTAV 640 and Sardinian biotype RP lowest in cluster weight.
• Sugar levels were statistically similar across selections, while total acidity and total polyphenols differed significantly among clones.

Climate scenarios would shift Brazil's Serra Gaucha viticultural climate class by 2080

• Embrapa researchers applied the Geoviticulture MCC System to Brazil's Serra Gaucha wine region using heliothermal, cool night and dryness indexes.
• Comparing 1961-1990 conditions with four warming and rainfall scenarios, the region changes MCC climatic group in every scenario.
• In the worst scenario, the heliothermal index moves from Warm to Hot and cool nights from Warm to Hot, with dryness unchanged.

Italian researchers compare four vine pruning systems on Latium wines and Cabernet

• Oenology researchers at Italy's CRA compared four vine pruning and training systems on Latium grape varieties and Cabernet Sauvignon.
• Malvasia del Lazio, Cesanese di Affile and Cabernet Sauvignon were grown under the innovative systems and the Clingeleffer minimum pruning control.
• Sensory and economic quality analysis ranked the Vertical Tridimensional Minimal Pruning system with DMRC best, and minimum pruning last.

Vineyard irrigation water chemistry shapes soil nutrients and grapevine health

• Nearly pure, low-mineral irrigation water, such as Sierra Nevada snowmelt, strips soil minerals, making soils more acidic and less fertile.
• Saline well water can build salinity under drip emitters, and high sodium or chloride can damage vine foliage.

Roller-crimped cover crops and under-vine mulch boost vineyard soil and resilience

• A 2026 Environmental Microbiome study in a non-irrigated northern Italian vineyard found cover-crop under-vine mulching raised microbial diversity and cut pathogen pressure.
• A 2026 Field Crops Research study of Mediterranean rainfed vineyards found roller-crimped cover crops improved soil cover, vine water status and mycorrhizal colonization.
• In those rainfed vineyards, roller-crimping raised yield only in wetter conditions and left grape quality unaffected, with climate the main driver of fungal diversity.

Barley cover crops in vine rows cut erosion and runoff nutrients in California trial

• A 2005 University of California Cooperative Extension trial in Salinas compared in-row barley cover crops with herbicide-treated and bare middles.
• Barley cover crops reduced soil and water erosion from winter rains and lowered nutrient content in runoff compared with bare soil.
• Cover crops killed before bud break did not reduce vine growth or yield, while those allowed to grow past bud break cut growth without cutting yields.

Four planting densities tested on steep Beaujolais slopes for five years

• A five-year trial at IFV Beaujolais tested four vine planting densities on Gamay in 30-40% slopes.
• Results were mostly minor or variable, with the traditional goblet system more prone to grey rot.
• Average cluster weight tended to be higher at low densities, but berry anthocyanin content showed no effect.

Nasty Not Nice

• Tim Atkin argues people are drinking less because wine is too pleasant and risk-free, and the trade is too nice.
• He proposes that producers bottle each barrel separately, and that Bordeaux primeur sales resemble a Smithfield-style cash scramble.
• Atkin contends that falling wine sales, despite rising TCA-free quality, show consumers may value effort and risk.

Inside Chinon’s Lieux-Dits Project

• Chinon's lieux-dits project, begun in 2014 by the Chinon Syndicat and its producers, promotes named vineyard sites without a formal official hierarchy.
• Seven lieux-dits have been officially recognized so far, starting with La Croix Boissée in Cravant-les-Côteaux in 2018.
• Each recognized site gets an in-depth monograph and an engraved stone marker, and a lieu-dit requires naming on at least two vignerons' labels.

Profetas e dos Villões: António Maçanita and his remarkable wines from Porto Santo and Madeira

• António Maçanita and Madeira restaurateur Nuno Faria run the Profetas e dos Villões project, which Maçanita calls his 'Covid project'.
• Profetas wines come from Porto Santo, whose arid, flat climate and calcareous sandstone soils differ from Madeira, and a winery there opened in 2022.
• Reviewer scores for the range run from 94 to 97 out of 100, with the Crosta Calcária 2023 from the centre of Porto Santo rated 97.

N is for Noirien

• Noirien is an old French word for Pinot noir, derived from Latin niger meaning black or dark.
• The Noirien ampelographic group includes Pinot noir, Pinot gris, Pinot blanc, Pinot Meunier, Chardonnay, Gamay noir, Auxerrois and Melon.
• Per Wine Grapes, there are 16 eco-geotypes in France alone, and the Noirien zone runs from Champagne to Beaujolais.

Why Michelin Ratings Still Won’t Tell You Who Actually Made Your Burgundy Wine

• Since July, some Burgundy wines have received Michelin ratings of one to three grapes, assessed on five criteria: agronomy, technical mastery, identity, balance and consistency.
• Julien Cruchandeau's Bouzeron Aligoté uses old-vine massale selections descended from Aubert de Villaine's vines and is farmed under lutte raisonnée.

Wine News: What I’m Reading the Week of 10/18/26

Hello and welcome to my weekly roundup of the wine stories that I find of interest on the web. I

Telling a mountain to move

• DO Montsant has revised its bylaws to add certification for 'vi brisat' (orange-style) wines, following a similar move by DO Terra Alta in 2022.
• Montsant's revised rules also create a classification for 'minimal intervention' wines, requiring hand-harvesting, organic certification, spontaneous fermentation and a low sulfur dioxide cap.

“Unquestionably Among the Greatest Wines in the World” (Tasting the 2024 Port Vintage)

• 1WineDude tastes the 2024 Port vintage, as the title indicates.

400 Montepulciano Bottles for Thomas Jefferson circa 1805

• A 1350 trade contract between the Del Pecora family and merchant Jacopo di Vanni of Santa Fiora is the oldest known document for Vino Nobile di Montepulciano.
• A 2024 document unveiled by the Consorzio del Vino Nobile di Montepulciano dates the first known use of the term Vino Nobile to 1766, by the Jesuits.
• In April 1806, Thomas Jefferson asked Thomas Appleton for 400 bottles of Montepulciano annually, after receiving 473 bottles in November 1805.

The Encyclopedia of Wine - Fresh Take or Same Same?

• Dorling Kindersley's The Encyclopedia of Wine publishes October 8 in the UK and November 10 in the US.
• The book was written by 28 contributors, including Jane Anson on Bordeaux and Wink Lorch on the Jura.
• The 400-page book is positioned as an accessible reference, competing with Jancis Robinson's Oxford Companion to Wine and World Atlas of Wine.