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Don enjoys an attractively priced and very drinkable Vin de France Gamay while Olly enthuses about a similarly-priced Frusinate IGT (Lazio) biodynamic red called Volumnia.

As it's the start of the month, we look over September's stories and find a big showing from Napa and wider California, from wine industry fears, grumbles, good news and bad – it's all been covered by our US editor W. Blake Grey, with Olly pointing out that Blake is one of the few very regular wine writers covering the California (even US) beat with any great regularity. We also take a moment to look at the way wine writing is going, from influencers and Instagram to wine journalism. Can we get mad at so-called ”influencers” when much of wine writing is pay-for-play by another name?

Last week's big stories included the world's best Bourbons (which hit a number of classic names) as well as a deep-dive on the pricing effects seen by Pomerol's Château Lafleur after it left the appellation to become a Vin de France. There was also a scientific deep-dive into the latest research combatting smoke taint in wines and research from Australia hinting that one of the smoke compounds could be ingested by a particular bacteria.

 This week, though, it was the news that the red wines of Burgundy had finally been pulled into the wake of the global red wine downturn with additional suggestions that the Premier and Grand Cru wines are also feeling the pain.

Still in France and bigwigs in Bordeaux have re-ignited the irrigation debate while news from Sauternes indicates the 2026 harvest is not looking good.

In Spain, there was news that global superstar Shakira drank a 200 year-old wine by pipette at a flamenco restaurant and bullfighter Andrés Roca Rey opened a 2015 Vega Sicilia Valbuena 5 with his folks, all in Spanish capital Madrid. In central Spain, bitter winery rivals García-Carrión and Félix Sólis were in court with the former emerging victorious in a spat over who produced the most-loved Valdepeñas Reserva…

Finally, we looked at a €3 million AI advertising campaign unveiled by a major Champagne producers' group.

ABOUT THE WEEK IN WINE

The Week in Wine goes out every Monday morning so that you can turn up to work with great talking points from the latest news across the world of wine.

Hosted by wine-searcher editor Don Kavanagh with wine writer Olly Styles – who also produces the podcast – nearly all of the stories we discuss can be found on https://www.wine-searcher.com/magazine

You can get in touch with us at [email protected]