Wine news October 6, 2016

Bloomberg spends a day with Aaron Pott Napa's "wine whisperer." "Well-known consultants such as Pott are hired guns in hot demand in the Napa Valley. Their rise parallels the boom of tiny boutique producers whose owners have millions to invest but no expertise."

The Huffington Post says global warming is a good thing for German wine. "Global warming has been good to German viticulture, with average temperatures up 1.4 degrees centigrade over the past 40 years, creating the perfect climate for the notoriously finicky pinot noir vines."

Tasting Table on secrets your sommelier won't tell you. “There’s so much cocaine use. I think people would be shocked to know how much that’s fueling the wine world.”

Amanda Barnes in The Drinks Business ranks the ten most powerful winemakers in Chile.

In Decanter Jane Anson asks is Petit Manseng the next cult wine? "It’s running the risk of having its Viognier moment, a grape that was almost extinct in the mid 1980s and is now successfully thriving across much of the Rhone and southern France, Australia, California, South Africa, and further afield."

In Punch Zachary Sussman asks what is authenticity in wine? "It might come as a surprise, then, to discover that Styria’s wine industry has centered itself around a grape that appears to be anything but local: sauvignon blanc."