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The week in pictures

Don’t know how you’re going to pull off your nuptials this year? Fear not.

Oastbrook Estate in Sussex is inviting engaged couples to tie the knot at America Brewer’s vineyards in the Rother Valley.

Owner and winemaker Brewer hosted a socially distanced, but very glamorous, launch event to show wedding planners and couples how to celebrate a ‘new normal’ wedding in an English vineyard on 6 September.

In more vineyard news, 2020 has been a year marked by early development in the Vins de Provence vineyard. The harvest kicked off on 15th August in the areas of Pierrefeu and La Londe in Côtes de Provence, somewhere between a week to 10 days earlier than in 2019.

In the US, Washington Wine has confirmed a new AVA: Royal Slope.

The new appellation covers a total 156,389 acres within the Columbia Valley AVA. It is located just to the south of the Ancient Lakes AVA, and to the north of the Wahluke Slope AVA.

It encompasses Frenchman Hills, a 30-mile long east-west trending ridge with a gentle to medium-steep south-facing slope.

There are more than 1,900 acres of wine grapes currently planted within the AVA, with 20 different varieties being cultivated.

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Meanwhile, wine critic Tim Atkin has released his 2020 South Africa report, after a year of, to say the least, confusion across the wine industry there.

The Atkin report is normally based on the author’s visits to South Africa, but this year he could not travel to the Winelands because of Covid-19. Instead, he tasted 1,328 wines in London. Against formidable odds, South Africa is making some of the greatest wines in its history, he says.

On the other side of the world, a man stranded and struggling in the waters of Lake George found his prayers unexpectedly answered by a floating tiki bar full of Catholic priests.

Earlier this month, Jimmy Macdonald was kayaking on Lake George in New York state when he capsized, alone and far from the nearest shore.

In what can only be described as Deus Ex Machina, a floating tiki bar full of Catholic priests and seminarians from St Jospeh’s Seminary in Washington DC passed by.

In other weird news, the Disgusting Food Museum in Sweden (which is a thing) has opened a new three-month ‘disgusting alcohol’ exhibition, featuring a beer sold in a taxidermied squirrel bottle and another made with smoked Icelandic sheep dung and whale testicle.

This week also saw the launch of The School of Taste, a global online wine education platform offering a 50% sponsorship to all BAME students.

The school, set up by Nick Jackson MW, will hold its first courses on 14 September.

In the beer world, Scottish craft brewer BrewDog is releasing a limited edition run of ‘8 Trills Pils’ beer in partnership with LA based beer brand, Crowns & Hops.

The plan is to drive awareness around racial equity, as the name of the beer ‘8 Trill Pils’, denotes the staggering $8 trillion gain in GDP by closing the racial equity gap by 2050.

The beer will be launching across the UK, US and Germany from the 8th of September 2020.

Industry body Wines of Germany has announced the winners of this year’s 31 days of German Riesling competition held in July.

Wines of Germany said the social media influencer campaign reached a total of four million, and those involved sold as much as six times the volume of German Riesling in July compared to the previous month. On average, four new listings were added to shop shelves and restaurant wine lists.

In hospitality news, members club Trade has reopened post-lockdown as a wine bar.

Called the Black Book, it specialises in “rare and interesting wines”, including super Tuscan Tassinaia at £12 and and a scarcely found Sancerre by master producer, Francois Cotat at £14.

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