Ribera del Duero hailed

There's always at least one great hail disaster each summer and this year it seems to have struck a region which already had far too many producers haggling over far too few really good grapes.

A colleague of mine, Harold Heckle, reports:

'A huge hailstorm and almost unprecedented flooding have hit Peñafiel, in Ribera del Duero. The downpour was so extreme that it looked like Mendoza in Argentina, with mothball-sized hail covering the ground to a depth of two feet. Rivers of water a meter deep ran through the streets.

It is estimated that around 200 hectares of D.O. Ribera...