Plus a suspect arrested in the MDMA-spiked champagne case, and good news on Australian exports since China lifted its tariffs in March.
Drug-spiked champagne case cracked
Back in February 2022, eight people in the German state of Bavaria went to dinner, ordered a 3-litre bottle of Moet & Chandon Ice Impérial (which is packaged in an opaque white plastic covering), presumably cheers-ed, took a sip, and within minutes were foaming at the mouth and convulsing with what was later discovered to be MDMA poisoning. One diner died in the restaurant, the other seven were rushed to the hospital and recovered.
A few days later, four people in the Netherlands opened a 3-litre bottle of Ice Impérial at home and were hospitalised with the same symptoms.
Now, liquid MDMA is not sparkling. It’s reddish-brown in colour, it smells like aniseed, and it would absolutely have been visible when poured into wine glasses – all reports confirm that the liquid in these bottles looked nothing like champagne – but nonetheless, it was consumed, one person died and 11 people were hospitalised. The dose in the bottles was around 1,000 times greater than a drug user would generally take.
Investigation into the incidents found that both bottles were ordered from the same website. Then, last November, a Polish man was arrested for storing the bottles and became a suspect in the case.
Last week, investigators arrested a Dutch man, charging him with possession and distribution of the MDMA that went into the bottles. Dutch news site AD.nl reports that he is also accused of gang-related drug-trafficking as well as murder and injury through negligence.
Before you write off Ice Impérial – this was two years ago, there have been no further reports of these bottles being in circulation, Moet issued a recall on the lots that had been tampered with, the man responsible was just arrested, and there seems to be no further danger. But…if you ever pour champagne that doesn’t look right, send it back.
Rhône Valley floods
Just after our reporter James Lawther MW left the Rhône, where he was preparing a report on the 2023 vintage for us (check our site in the coming weeks for extensive coverage!), St-Joseph and the Ardèche experienced heavy rainfall and flooding. Although harvest was over by the time the skies opened the week of 14 October, the rain damaged vineyards and flooded cellars. Winemaker Bryan Deleu of Vignoble Deleu in Condrieu told Vitisphere that he had lost 1,000 square meters of vines and that repairs will be laborious.
France’s largest wine company gets bigger
The Castel Group is France’s largest wine company – producing somewhere between 600 and 650 million bottles each year. The company captures around 16% of the country’s market share. It acquired its first champagne brand, négociant Maison Malard, on 12 October. Malard has long been distributed by the Castel Group’s wine retail chain, Nicolas, and supplies champagne for the chain’s own brand.
Now, if you haven’t heard about Maison Malard, you’re not alone – 98% of their €20-million-a-year revenues are generated from the French market. But this is big news for France.
Australia’s wine exports on the up
Wine Australia released their 2024 fiscal year export report on 22 October. The report shows that, in the last 12 months, Australian wine exports have increased by 34% in value to AUS$2.39 billion and 7% in volume to 643 million litres. This is the highest, by value and volume, that exports have achieved since 2021. The surge is due to China lifting its tariffs on Australian wine in March of this year. Excluding China, exports to other countries have remained steady in value at AUS$1.78 billion with a 3% decline in volume.
A replacement for SO2?
The reason this is exciting is because right now sulphur dioxide is the only compound we have that is both an antimicrobial (keeps bacteria and yeast from spoiling your wine) and an antioxidant (keeps oxygen from turning your wine brown and lifeless). There are other products that can do one or the other but there’s really nothing as efficient, effective and can still added even if your wine is organic (as long as it’s below 100 ppm and anywhere but the US). But many consumers and some winemakers are anti-SO2. There may now be an alternative.
On 21 October Vitisphere published a story on a new product called Chestwine. The product was created by researchers at the Polytechnic Institute of Bragança in Portugal, who filed a patent in 2017 to use tannins from male chestnut flowers as a wine preservative (Julia wrote about the producer who pioneered this practice, Quinta da Palmirinha, here). Chestnut polyphenols are antimicrobial and the high levels of tannins scour both free and dissolved oxygen. In 2019 Phillippe Ortega, a wine consultant who had successfully trialled the product for the university, took over the patent and launched a company called Tree Flowers Solutions. That company finalised their formulation in June, changing it from a tea formula to a powder. They then verified that the product met the requirements of the International Organisation of Vine and Wine (OIV) and organic certifiers.
I think this is awesome. Not because I’m anti-SO2, but because more organic options made from natural sources are always welcome. And, while SO2 doesn’t bother me as a drinker, working with it in its pure state in a winery is admittedly pretty unpleasant. So I look forward to trying a chestnut-tannin-stabilised wine!
Carbon capture in the winery
As most of you probably know, when wine ferments, it releases loads of CO2. What perhaps fewer of you know is that almost every winery buys CO2 to flush tanks and hoses, and to protect the cap of fresh unfermented grape must and/or finished wine.
This purchased CO2 is, generally speaking, manufactured as a by-product of oil refineries and fertiliser plants. It is refined to food grade, highly compressed, and is used as ‘snow’ sprayed out of a gas cannister, or it comes in the form of dry ice. Unfortunately, the CO2 produced during alcoholic fermentation can’t be used for most winery needs because it’s too dilute.
Still, it’s always seemed a shame that a process that uses CO2 as an input and releases it as an output isn’t able to be made cyclical.
Which is why I yelled at my computer like a football fanatic when I read on Vitisphere that a wine co-operative in France, Vignerons de Tutiac, have just finished trialling a machine produced by W Platform that is capable of capturing the CO2 from fermentations, filtering it to 99%-pure, food-grade CO2, and compressing it 100 bars.
The co-operative buys about 50 tons worth of CO2 a year at a cost of around €30,000. With a production of 50,000 hl they would be able to produce 240 tons of CO2 as snow – less as dry ice but still plenty to be autonomous. W Platform proposed to charge the co-op €130,000 for the CO2 Box, the compressor, the dry-ice pellet machine and storage tanks or €100,000 with rented tanks. The co-op has yet to decide if it’s worth the up-front investment.
W Platform, I know some people in the US who would love your number.
That’s all for this episode of the wine news. If you enjoy this newscast and would like to see it continue, please subscribe to JancisRobinson.com. And if you have breaking news in your area, please email news@jancisrobinson.com.
Photo at top by Daniel von Appen via Unsplash.
This is a transcript of our weekly five-minute news broadcast, which you can watch below. You can also listen to it on The Wine News in 5 Podcast. If you enjoy this content and would like to see more like it, please subscribe to our site and our weekly newsletter.