Wine news September 12, 2016

SF Gate on Charles Banks charged with defrauding NBA star Tim Duncan. "Federal prosecutors in Texas have accused him of two counts of wire fraud over a $7.5 million investment Duncan made with a sports merchandizing company on Banks’ advice. Also on Friday, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission sued Banks for securities fraud over what appears to be the same deal." Read Grape Collective's interview with Charles Banks.

The Huffington Post calls Aglianico Italy's unknown grape treasure. "Aglianico was the principal grape variety in the Roman world’s most expensive wine, Falernian."

The New York Times on the economics of owning a vineyard. "Sean Maher, managing director and founder of Aspect Consumer Partners, a vineyard brokerage firm, said land in Napa was the most expensive since much of the farmable acreage had been planted. Top sites there can cost $400,000 to $500,000 an acre."

The New York Post on the reason war vets are drinking wine. "In addition to his military expertise, Lubin credits his quick thinking to an intensive sommelier-training course he took at the International Culinary Center (ICC) in 2013."

Andrew Jefford in Decanter on South West France's leading cooperative. "André Dubosc always insisted on giving those growers who had very old parcels a subsidy to keep the ancient vines alive, even though they were usually of mixed and sometimes unknown varieties, and didn’t all produce useful grapes."

Jancis Robinson on the advent of £100 English sparkling wine. "This ambitious new line, that will presumably set a new standard for English wine, is in a regular bottle shape but will apparently look very different from the rest of the Nyetimber range."

The Guardian looks at a new documentary about wine swindler Rudy Kurniawan. "A film crew had followed Kurniawan for a few days early on, for a pilot of a food and wine show that was never made. These scraps let us see Kurniawan as he must have appeared to the world he conned: boyish, charming, evasive."