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This week's news roundup is a doozy, with everything from legal woes to sail-powered transport.
No money, no appeal – the French legal system can be a harsh playground.
That's one lesson we learn this week as we check out the wide world of wine news. We've also got news of "deviant" wines, ecologocally friendly bottles and a return to the age of sail. Read on...
Outrage from certain quarters in the French wine industry this week as Valérie Murat, a militant anti-pesticide crusader and head of "Alerte aux Toxiques" pressure group was told she could not appeal her sentence of "dénigration" (a form of defamation) without first paying the initial fine of 125,000 ($143,000) handed down from her initial court sentence in February.
Murat, whose winegrower father died in 2012 from a cancer recognised as being linked to his work, is the figurehead of Alerte aux Toxiques, which, in September 2020, published lab analyses showing 22 Bordeaux wines with HVE ("Haute Valeur Environmentale", or High Environmental Value) certification contained pesticide residues.
The Bordeaux wine trade body, the CIVB, moved quickly, taking Murat to court and winning the case earlier this year. Since then, through monthly 800 instalments, Murat has only paid 4200 of the sum.
French wine writer Antonin Iommi-Amunategui (of whom more in a story below) immediately made the comparison with another recent court case in the area, in which Château Angélus...
Iran Parliament's speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf on Friday sharply criticised US President Donald Trump, accusing him of making false claims about the ongoing standoff between Washington and Teh...