Wine

Pio Boffa, leader of the Pio Cesare winery in Italy’s Piedmont, died this weekend after a two-week battle with COVID-19. He was 66. A fourth-generation winemaker, Boffa spent four decades converting Pio Cesare from an acclaimed négociant to a high-end estate winery with more than 173 vineyard acres in Barolo and Barbaresco. He was perhaps

Updated: April 14, 2021 Restaurants are inherently risky businesses, and this year the coronavirus pandemic has had a terrible impact on the industry. Despite their enormous efforts, some of our award-winning restaurants—from long-honored classics to exciting newcomers—have been forced to close their doors for good. As of April 14, 2021, 120 Restaurant Award winners have

Unlike fine wines, eyesight doesn’t improve with age. Over the course of years, age-related visual impairment can be worsened by cataracts, which occur when the eye’s lens becomes cloudy. It can make things look blurry, hazy or less colorful, and surgery is often necessary. But a new study has found a link between low to

Less than a week ago, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers escorted Rudy Kurniawan onto a commercial flight at Dallas-Ft. Worth Airport to begin the final chapter of deportation proceedings. Just over 24 hours later, and after one layover, the convicted wine counterfeiter arrived in Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, just outside Jakarta, Indonesia, according to

When the COVID-19 pandemic took hold of the country a year ago, traditional wine auctions had to move their gavels fully online. For the past decade, houses such as Zachys and Christie’s had already been conducting partially online sales with most bids coming from absentee buyers. The pandemic forced them to develop more creative online

When the massive container ship Ever Given managed to wedge itself sideways in the Suez Canal on March 23, blocking traffic for nearly a week, it provided a fitting symbol for the state of global shipping in the past year. And while dredging, tug boats and the high tide of a full moon freed the

Ponzi Vineyards, a pioneer of Oregon wine, has been acquired by the Bollinger family, owners of Champagne Bollinger. It’s Bollinger’s first winery purchase outside France. The sale price was not disclosed but the deal includes the 40,000-case winery and hospitality facilities in Willamette Valley and 35 acres of vineyards. The Ponzi family retains 100 acres

Wine Spectator Best of Award of Excellence winner Press Restaurant in St. Helena, Calif., has a new wine director. After stints at renowned destinations including Grand Award winners Gary Danko and the French Laundry, Vincent Morrow will now oversee the list at the Napa restaurant, which claims the largest selection of Napa Valley wines in

It was a sale that had all of St.-Emilion paying attention. After weeks of regulatory holdups, Josephine Duffau-Lagarrosse and Prisca Courtin-Clarins, representing her family, have acquired Château Beauséjour Héritiers Duffau-Lagarrosse, a Premier Grand Cru Classé, after the deal was approved by SAFER, the French land management agency, for €75 million (about $89 million). Duffau-Lagarrosse, a

Updated April 11 With a star-studded live auction featuring chef Guy Fieri, Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy and others, Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits and Wine Spectator’s Conscious Collection Auction raised more than $1.6 million for restaurant and bar workers who have been impacted by the pandemic. After days of online bidding, Zachy’s gaveled open

One of Napa’s Valley’s most prominent vintners, Bill Harlan, is stepping away from Harlan Estate after 40 years. “I have often said that, when I reach the age of 80, the time will have come to turn over the leadership of our family winegrowing domain to the next generation,” Harlan wrote in a letter to

Freezing temperatures during the early morning hours of April 6, 7 and 8 brought severe frosts to Burgundy vineyards, damaging Chardonnay and Pinot Noir buds from the Mâconnais to Chablis and setting up 2021 as a challenging vintage for the region. Growers scrambled to light candles in the vineyards in the hopes of raising the

“I’ve been urging wineries to up their online game since 2000,” says industry analyst Rob McMillan, executive vice president of Silicon Valley Bank’s wine division. “It took a pandemic to make it happen.” By now, you have undoubtedly heard how the shutdowns that COVID-19 triggered across the nation last year upended the wine market. Restaurants

Updated March 30, 2021. Schedule subject to change. Straight Talk with Wine Spectator is an Instagram Live series featuring conversations with wine-and-food newsmakers. The live chats kicked off in early April 2020 amid widespread shutdowns from the COVID-19 crisis, in order to shed light on the changes and challenges these industries are facing, and have since

Endometriosis is a condition where the tissue that normally lines a woman’s uterus also grows on areas such as the ovaries, fallopian tubes or intestines. It’s a progressive disease that can cause chronic pain, irregular bleeding and infertility. It’s also one of the most common gynecological disorders, believed to affect more than 10 percent of

Restaurant Mosaic, a Wine Spectator Grand Award winner at the Orient Hotel outside of Pretoria, South Africa, will have its last day of service on March 26. Chef Chantel Dartnall has been planning the closure since before the COVID-19 pandemic, hoping to give other chefs a chance in the spotlight she’s enjoyed for so long.

“We didn’t make any red wines in 2020,” is a refrain echoed by many California winemakers these days. Perhaps no year has seen so many wine regions impacted by so many wildfires. Months after the fires ended, the impact is only just now coming into focus. What made 2020 so difficult was that it brought

Updated: March 18, 3 p.m. Napa Valley’s Duckhorn Vineyards became a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange today when it began offering 20 million shares of common stock at an initial asking price of $15 a share. It opened at $18.60 this morning. Its trading symbol is NAPA. Duckhorn’s IPO makes it the

In the latest news round up in the April 30 issue of Wine Spectator two Pinot Noir powerhouses join forces with the sale of minority stake of Williams Selyem in Sonoma to Burgundy’s Domaine Faiveley. The Wine Spectator Scholarship Foundation donates $100,000 in support of wine education and a Spanish winery narrowly escapes destruction after

How do you plan when you don’t know? That’s what the nation’s top wine charity auctions are grappling with in an uncertain 2021. But experts are optimistic about the months ahead following a tough year of cancellations and postponements and new virtual strategies. Nationwide vaccinations are part of what’s driving that outlook. But while we

One year after the COVID-19 pandemic began, the U.S. government has enacted the first federal aid targeted directly at one of the most heavily damaged American economic sectors: the restaurant industry. And it could help impacted wineries, as well. The American Rescue Plan (ARP), passed by Congress and signed into law by President Joe Biden

Chef Michael Mina and entrepreneur Brent Bolthouse opened Bungalow Kitchen on March 4 on the Belmont Shore in Long Beach, Calif. The full-service restaurant is an expanded take on Bolthouse’s Bungalow concept, a cocktail-focused lounge with small bites that has locations in Huntington Beach and Santa Monica. Bungalow Kitchen joins Mina’s nationwide group that includes

The restaurant industry and its workers continue to be one of the most impacted by COVID-19, as the pandemic keeps many dining establishments either closed or at limited capacity. Leading members of the wine and food community announced this morning that they have teamed up to organize a one-of-a-kind charity auction to help hospitality workers

Italian wine giant Antinori has purchased a majority stake in the historic Jermann winery, located in northeastern Italy’s Friuli-Venezia-Giulia region. The sales price was not disclosed. “Our family has always been involved, being based in Tuscany, in the production of mostly red wines—with the exception only of Umbria’s Castello della Sala,” Antinori president Piero Antinori

Steven Spurrier, the British wine expert, writer, educator, merchant and even vintner who was famous for having staged the 1976 Judgment of Paris, died at his home in Dorset, England, just after midnight this morning. He was 79. Perpetually traveling, speaking and educating about wine, Spurrier was a beloved figure to many in the wine

Sarah Jessica Parker’s professional wine journey started in 2018, shortly after connecting with New Zealand winemaking duo Rob Cameron and Tim Lightbourne of Invivo Wines. Before long, their collaboration edged its way into Wine Spectator‘s Top 100 Wines of 2020. In the latest episode of Straight Talk with Wine Spectator, Parker spoke with senior editor

The U.S. government has paused the tariffs on most French, Spanish and German wines, bringing economic relief to European winemakers, American merchants and wine consumers, at least for four months. The suspension, announced by the Office of the United States Trade Representative today, is intended to ratchet down tensions as the U.S. and European Union

There’s a glimmer of light in the trade war between European countries and the U.S. in which wine has been collateral damage. The Biden administration has agreed to suspend tariffs on U.K. wines and spirits related to the dispute over subsidies to Airbus. The move will come as welcome but overdue for Scotch whisky players

What does 2021 have in store for Sarah Jessica Parker? Tune in to Straight Talk with Wine Spectator on Instagram Live, this Tuesday, March 2, at 7 p.m., to learn about how the Golden Globe-winning actor got into the wine business as a New Zealand vintner with the help of winemakers Rob Cameron and Tim

Last March, Philippe Faure-Brac, one of France’s best-known sommeliers, shuttered his Paris restaurant, Bistrot du Sommelier, as France entered its first national COVID-19 lockdown. Two weeks later, Faure-Brac, who had just turned 60, was diagnosed with COVID. Following a week of fever, gastric problems and fatigue, a new chapter of the illness opened. “When I