This week’s wine news highlights an industry navigating change with creativity, resilience, and education. In Portugal, producers are launching new educational initiatives to help consumers and sommeliers make sense of their 250 native grape varieties, moving beyond the traditional Port narrative. Across the Atlantic, American wineries are focusing on subtle, consumer driven hospitality shifts rather than sweeping reinventions to revitalize sales. Meanwhile, extreme weather in Europe forced Dom Pérignon to release its smallest blend ever for the 2017 vintage, and prompted a French winegrower to prune his flooded vines from a kayak. Finally, discover hidden gems in Texas and beyond.
The Buyer – Beyond “250 Grapes.” How Wines Of Portugal Is Making Diversity Work
In The Buyer, Leona de Pasquale examines how Portugal is trying to distill its enormous diversity of indigenous grapes into a clearer, more commercially useful message for buyers and sommeliers. The article argues that having more than 250 native grape varieties is impressive, but diversity alone does not sell wine unless the trade can explain it in a way consumers understand. Wines of Portugal is
leaning harder into education, including opening its Portuguese Wine Academy to the wider UK trade, while also tying the country’s grape story to broader themes such as biodiversity, authenticity, and sustainability. From the Article:
Award-winning sommelier Vincenzo Arnese, encounters this challenge regularly.
“If you mention Sancerre or Chianti,” Arnese continues, “the guest immediately has a mental picture. With Portuguese appellations or grapes, you’re more likely to get a confused look. Names like Periquita or Óbidos simply aren’t familiar yet.”
“Historically, the UK has seen Portugal almost entirely through the lens of Port, and shifting that narrative takes time. It’s difficult to sell a wine when a guest cannot pronounce the grape or place the region on a map. As sommeliers we have to act as ambassadors. Once the wine is in the glass, the quality is undeniable, but getting it there requires a much more active, narrative-driven approach.”
WineBusiness News – With Subtle Changes, Best In American Wine Yet To Come
In WineBusiness, Katherine Martine reports from the WiVi conference that the outlook for American wine is not being framed around a single dramatic fix but rather a series of smaller, more intentional shifts. The piece argues that the strongest future for U.S. wine will come through subtle changes rather than wholesale reinvention, with a tone that points toward adaptation, modernization, and closer 
alignment with what today’s consumers actually want. From the Article:
Shilah Salmon from The Duckhorn Portfolio… Touching on the theme of her talk, ‘what’s old is new again,’ she encouraged people to:
The Drinks Business – Champagne Dom Pérignon Launches ‘Smallest Blend Ever’
In The Drinks Business, Patrick Schmitt reports that Dom Pérignon has released its 2017 vintage as what cellar master Vincent Chaperon calls the house’s “smallest blend ever” in modern brand history, at roughly 15% of a standard harvest. The reason was extreme weather: a hot, dry summer followed by mid-August rain that brought disease pressure, including botrytis and sour rot, sharply reducing the volume of usable fruit. Chaperon says the house still chose to release the wine because the surviving fruit, after strict selection, delivered enough 
quality and balance to justify a vintage Champagne. From the Article:
Dom Pérignon has released a Champagne from the 2017 harvest, which yielded the prestige cuvée’s “smallest blend ever” due to the “extreme” weather conditions, according to cellar master Vincent Chaperon.
“It is the smallest blend we ever did,” he said, referring to his time with former cellar master Richard Geoffroy – who retired in January 2019 – adding, “It is 15% of a standard harvest, so only 2-3 months’ worth of sales, so it is very small.”
As a result, there will be two vintages of Dom Pérignon released this year, with the 2018 expression due to hit the market later in 2026.
Vitisphere – How One French Winegrower Pruned His Vines from a Kayak to Overcome Torrential Rainfall
In Vitisphere, the story focuses on Lionel Tisseyre, a grape grower and oyster farmer in the Corbières region of southern France, who resorted to using a kayak to finish pruning a flooded vineyard parcel after torrential rainfall left over 30 inches of water standing in the 
vines. The bigger takeaway for the wine world is that vineyard resilience is no longer just about long-term strategy — in some regions, it is becoming a matter of immediate survival and creativity in the face of increasingly erratic rainfall. From the Article:
Heavy rainfall over the winter across France has once again illustrated the wine industry’s ability to adapt, whatever the conditions. “I had to find a solution because I couldn’t wait any longer”, recounts Lionel Tisseyre, a grape grower and oyster farmer in Southern France. “During the night, the idea came to me”. He realised that the kayak lying in his garage could do the trick, allowing him to finish pruning the 600 vines located in a low-lying parcel of Caladoc steeped in 80 cm of water.
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Afterwords Wines “Anecdote” Cabernet Sauvignon 2023
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