This article is also available on Hudin.com to Personal & Commercial subscribers as well as the in-depth Châteauneuf-du-Pape Report for 2026.

There exist several wine brands which have taken on the names of historic women and in the process, grown to rather mythic status with time. Perhaps the most famous is Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin aka Veuve Clicquot. She definitely deserves a far better and more accurate film of her life someday, but her name (or at least the widowed version of it) graces one of the most iconic Champagnes there is. Then, at the other end of the spectrum there’s Anna de Codorníu from the Cava ‘Jumbotron’, Codorníu and is, a ‘different’ kind of sparkling described generously in a review once as having, a “somewhat flat-feeling finish.”

While both Barbe-Nicole and Anna did exist, I feel that their names (much as perhaps is the case with Dom Perignon) are used more to market wines than actually tell a real story. Despite my personal aversion to this, it continues with other wines brands at varying levels and probably won’t stop any time soon.

This is why, via the first time I fully tasted the Châteauneuf-du-Pape wines from “Isabel Ferrando” about two years ago, I thought that this perhaps was perhaps another such name. Given, the distinctly Spanish aspect to her name, I’d even invented a backstory that she was probably an 18th-century Flamenco dancer from Jerez de la Frontera who, upon killing her philandering husband one night, stole a horse and fled to the wilds of Provence. Once there, she managed to win a wine estate via a game of cards which she’d rigged. And, I continued to imagine that all the marketing materials in the present day would then state, “The wines produced today pay tribute to this legacy.”

Of course I did finally meet the real Isabel Ferrando.

Ferrando, despite the surname, isn’t herself originally from Spain, but is in fact provençale. After a career in banking she decided to return to her native lands in 2003, bought the Domaine Saint Préfert (which was founded in 1920) and proceeded to start up her own winery. It should be noted that she did this with no family history in winemaking and had to learn everything from scratch with the help of Henri Bonneau as well as Lucien Michel of Domaine du Vieux Donjon.

Then, after a century of being known as Domaine Saint Préfert, Ferrando changed the winery name to Famille Isabel Ferrando in 2020 and her daughter, Guillemette joined the winemaking team in 2023, so it it isn’t a ‘famille’ project and that isn’t just marketing either.

Arriving to the estate is pure Châteauneuf as you come to what is quite literally, the end of the road with just vines and the treeline of islands in the Rhône River in front of you. Hopping out of the car you see a classic, creamy-stone estate in that sunbaked, Provence style seen in any Instagram account for rosé. After absorbing the house for minute, when you turn around and look the opposite direction, across their vines sits the ruins of the “new castle”, perched atop its little hill above the village.

Now, there is no shortage of women winemakers/owners in France, but at the same time, for anyone to build up an estate from scratch requires an very certain kind of energy and drive. When you meet Ferrando, she immediately exerts this and it’s clear to understand how she accomplished all that she has. As we tasted through the wines with members of her team and then sat down for a local lunch she prepared (which I appreciated tremendously as it was unstuffy, delicious food) it also became clear that Ferrando doesn’t just have drive, but also a keen ability to manage. There was this holistic sense to how everyone worked together in an organic fashion. I’ve seen this only in the best-run wineries as with others, it’s more a sense that the employees are supplicants to owner. I will say that whether it’s one case or the other, the wines directly reflect the situation of the team.

You can see this in the wines below, as the Saint Préfert Blanc and Rouge show the winery team’s mastery of assemblage. They’re excellent wines, using the core varieties from Châteauneuf in their best form. But for me, what are even more impressive are the varietal wines from Clairette(s), Grenache, and Cinsault.

Châteauneuf is the only appellation in Southern Rhône that allows producers to use any percentage of their 18 permitted red, gris, and white grape varieties as they see fit. There aren’t terribly many wines made with just one grape variety however given that the climate is so aggressively hot and soils so varied that a balance of various pieces is usually needed to create the fine wines of precise power that the region is known for. Ferrando bucks the trend with this series of varietal wines, especially the Clairette Blanche & Clairette Rose blend. They show a wonderful purity and consistency that she’s managed to arrive at in her 20+ years of building up the estate.

And while I greatly admire what’s seen in the varietal wines, the reality is that there’s no going wrong with truly any of the wines. Despite rather rough vintages climatically, they’ve managed to continue to produce excellent wines thanks to this project started by the very real Isabel Ferrando.

Cuvée Spéciale Vieilles Clairettes 2025 - Soft white pear notes with a delicate touch of rose petal and light, delicate chalky notes at the base. Full and ample on the palate, beautifully wild, but still polished and shows the potential for these white varieties in the region and makes the case as to why neighboring Gigondas Blanc requires a minimum of Clairette at its base.

Colombis 2024 - Light wild strawberry with some softer chalky notes at the base and delicate white pepper notes, light thriving plum peel at the base. Grippy and lengthy on the palate, defies the vintage overall giving a great deal of finesse and showing that a varietal Grenache wine definitely has its place in Châteauneuf.

F601 2024 - Pressed wild red strawberry with some softer rosemary, thyme, even a touch of lavender, and steeped black tea leaf. Grippy and fresh, broad but with a delicate, expressive length to it. This is everything wonderful about varietal Cinsault and is proof that there’s a great deal of potential for this variety in a changing, more extreme climate.

Saint Préfert Blanc 2025 - Light citric peel with a touch of softer lemon and green apple notes at the base, lightly chalky and softer gravel notes at the base. Fresh and lively on the palate with clean green apple notes in the finish. A really pleasing blend of 70% Clairette Blanche and 30% Roussanne.

Saint Préfert Rouge 2024 - Plum peel and light wild strawberry, with a delicate dusting of pepper and soft cocoa notes. Fresh and crisp on the palate with fine, jumpy tannins in the finish. The most complex assemblage of the lot being 70% Grenache, 20% Cinsault, and the rest of the balance seen in Mourvèdre, Syrah, and Counoise. Very nicely executed.

Full scores and additional reports available on Hudin.com to Personal & Commercial subscribers.

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All the roses exchanged for Catalunya’s wonderful day of Sant Jordi last week are most likely withered and gone at this point, but that doesn’t mean that spring doesn’t continue at full tilt. In fact, it’s been so warm that other parts of Europe (those still having snow flurries) would probably mistake this April for their hottest parts of summer.

I won’t lie, it makes for wonderful days with what is essentially the perfect temperature for everything minus a dip in the sea, although plenty seem intent on forcing this issue.

At the same time, we’ve arrived to that point in the year where I’m concerned as to what the summer holds. This fear was compounded by reading that nearly 40% of the vines in Champagne were damaged by frost at the beginning of April. This is the second-worst on record, only topped by the frost damage in 2003 which seemed to ironically foreshadow the arrival of one of the worst summers in Europe—may history not repeat itself again.

But the weather is anything if not schizophrenic these days. At beginning of the month I went to spend a few days in the region of DO Costers del Segre, which is the inner-most province in Catalunya and the only one without a coastline.

I was there to visit more wineries, sites, and to write up a new report (*) from a visitor’s point of view. The first day I arrived, I needed my heaviest coat. Five days later, I was sweating in a t-shirt and this despite being way, way up in the Spanish Pyrénées; a blessed place on this planet of ours if there ever was one.

I’ve passed a great many summers in Europe of course. When tasting a flight of Herzegovina’s Žilavka white wines last month (full report is out now) I was reminded about my last trip to the region when it was achingly hot. Despite this, the food was excellent and I had a fine time in this southern part of Bosnia & Herzegovina. Hopefully the wines can reach a broader audience as their style has matured wonderfully over the years.

And why not round out talking about the weather for when I went to lunch while compiling the Southern Rhône report. It was a rather cloudy week, but when the sun finally came out, I was rather dismayed to find in the quaint village restaurant I was dining, that the same wine markups-on-steroids that are rampant in the US and UK have also apparently found their way to Southern France. So, do we really need to ask why people aren’t buying wine in restaurants (*) anymore?

If looking to avoid going out, maybe drink at home and enjoy watching something about wine, so here’s a review for Season 2 (*) of “Drops of God”. As a spoiler alert, many things are the same as Season 1, except this time, the dynamic duo are in Georgia.

Drink well, be well.

-Miquel

(*) Free to read

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For those not up on all things Iberian, today is ‘Sant Jordi’ in the Catalan regions of Spain and France. It’s a lot like Valentine’s Day except with books and roses as well as no chocolate and probably less drunken sex. This lack of action likely has nothing to do with the suggested wine pairings that local sommeliers shit out curate for the day, focusing on either red wines to match the roses given, or rosé wines to meet halfway and sell pink juice from the harvest before last as we all know that themed wine pairings, suck.

Also on the theme of pairings is the rise of the AI Sommelier. People are already fighting back by saying that, “A.I. will never be able to understand the mood at a table, the vibe.” which is true, but, won't the dining experience also be missing that ‘thing’ when there isn't a disgraced Master Sommelier offering to masturbate in front of you even after you’ve repeated that you don’t want to go back to his hotel room? Some things you can put a price on, for everything else, there are lapel pins.

And for those who didn’t hear, famed wine critic, Robert Parker, enologist Michel Rolland has joined that micro-oxygenated tank in the sky after living a life that most any mortal on this planet would have killed for.

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The very last line from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off popped into my head when finishing to write this newsletter, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

The reason being that here in these fine, early days of spring, I’m usually all set to release the latest Croatia Report which this year, is accompanied by an extensive, Dalmacija Report. More than just my having familial links to these regions, I find them very exciting with a constant drive to innovate given that they had to completely rebuild after the collapse of Yugoslavia. There were many key people in this work and sadly, one of those heavily involved in this work and who I knew very well, Alen Bibić, died last week. (*)

But this year of tastings and visits proved no different in terms of uncovering innovation. In addition to the stalwart reds of the coast from Dalmacija and Istra being exciting, I’ve really taken to the whites of these regions, as well as the sparkling wines. It’s the latter that seems to have seen a great deal of development in the past year as they’re literally trying to make sparkling wines from any grape variety there is. Some of it doesn’t work and some of it does very well. A rosé sparkling wine from: Trnjak, Vranec, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Syrah? Why not?!!

Regardless, I’m sure it will continue to evolve and all of it will sell if priced well as there is a very thirsty audience during the blustery summer months.

That isn’t however the reason to choose the nuclear option and invoke a Ferris Bueller quote as the same day I was preparing to send this out, an event came to pass which has upended the sparkling wine scene in Spain, yet again. Juvé & Camps, one of the most esteemed producers in DO Cava, has announced that they are leaving Cava to join the Corpinnat. (*)

Is this news at the level of the original five leaving DO Cava back in 2019? In many regards, yes, as the production of Juvé & Camps will nearly double that of Corpinnat and it will lend even further strength to the association in terms of being the quality sparkling wine name to remember in Spain. At the same time it pulls a huge segment of quality sparkling wine away from DO Cava. It is, Big News.

I had actually scheduled to do a new tasting for this year’s Corpinnat report towards the end of March, but quite suddenly the directors of the association asked to postpone it a month and now I can see why. While that delays the report slightly, it also is a tremendous step in terms of the evolution of sparkling wine for the territory and it’s clear to see why these wines are such an economic driver for Catalan wine. (*)

Thus, April is already moving “pretty fast”. I swear I’ll look around any moment now.

Drink well, be well.

-Miquel

(*) Free to read

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For anyone in the wine trade, spring is a sack of madness tossed into a swirling river of insanity.

Most everything important happens in the spring and seemingly all at once as this is the season of fairs, tastings, and various judging competitions. Thankfully, the immense body comprising European Wine Fairs Inc. have realized that they can’t all take place at the same moment and so, Barcelona Wine Week, Wine Paris, Prowein, and Vinitaly are kind enough to follow each other over three, hardcore months.

Most colleagues I know don’t go to all of them and in the past, the only one that truly mattered was Prowein. That is, until people got tired of staying in ‘popup’ Airbnbs that were little more than closets at exorbitant prices because all the hotels were exceptionally full as the fair is in the hot, hot prime European destination of… Düsseldorf.

Well, there’s clearly a new dominant player on the fair scene and officially, that’s Wine Paris. It only started in 2019 via the merger of Vinisud (formerly of Montpellier) and Wine Vision but looks as if the 2026 edition will be the most visited wine fair in all of Europe.

As an interesting aside, apparently Wine Paris was nearly Wine Barcelona at one point as the organizers were looking to move and in talks with the Catalan government to relocate. Unfortunately, just before everything was signed, there were elections, politicians changed and the interest was lost. It was unfortunately very shortsighted as while Barcelona Wine Week is a fine event for Spanish wine and probably the best there is currently, it’s just that, only for Spanish wine and an event with Vinisud as the underpinnings could have been so much more.

Wine Paris really took off once WineExpo joined in 2020 and they squeaked in the fair just before the world went off the rails. But, coming back in a post-pandemic world, the fair has gotten ever-more popular because… dunno… it’s in Paris, oui? But in addition to ample hotels, restaurants, and not needing to sleep on a boat ‘hotel’ (unless that’s your thing) the French also know how to do the ‘off’ like no one else and so the side events are tremendous as well with more each year.

They were also smart enough not to crash Wine Paris into other key events such as Grands Jours de Bourgogne which is happening right now. If you don’t it, this is an event only for Burgundy wines that’s intense, amazing, and if in the wine trade, it's one of those things you need to do at least once… if they let you in. The last time I was there, I was focusing on the sparkling wines of Crémant de Bourgogne as well as digging a great deal more into Aligoté, a variety which, like Wine Paris, has seen its star get ever-brighter in recent years.

Outside of the parallel existence of the wine fair world, reality continues for most people and in the case of the Ukrainians, this means a war that isn’t looking to reach a conclusion any time soon. This is why on the anniversary of the Russian invasion this year, I looked back at a mishmash of events (*) that have crossed paths in these last four years. Additionally, there’s a report on the Russians fully destroying a 19-century winery (*) that they’d previously looted in 2022, but apparently decided that just wasn’t enough war crime.

Drink well, be well.

-Miquel

(*) Free to read

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The wine press trip.

I feel there are few people that don’t salivate when hearing these three words together. It’s a completely justified reaction as all who are invited to attend do their damnedest to paint the trip in as glowing a light as possible. I think anyone can understand why as getting a free trip to very pretty places in the world with excellent food, and of course, le vin, is incredibly appealing.

There however exists a general omertà amongst those in the wine media circles when a trip goes sideways, which, given the amount of moving parts to one of these events, can and does happen. Why the code of silence, or at least being light on sordid details? It’s simply that no one wants to upset this particular economy given that it’s now an exceedingly crucial component in the slim profit margins comprising writing about wine these days. Also, many assume there is some point in the no-so-distant future where these trips may very well go the way of the dodo.

Despite appearances and no matter how many times my fellow colleagues mention it, such trips are an insane amount of work. No one amongst us would dare to ask for even a milligram of sympathy in the matter (again, excellent food and, the wine) and no one wants to be on a trip with others treating it as a free vacation. I can speak readily to that as there’s at least one individual I’ve encountered recently that clearly can’t smell and evaluate wine anymore (probably due to a past Covid infection) but whose hubris sees them more than happy to hop on a free trip and fake it, which is simply insidious.

I know in the past that they’ve been painted as drunk fests and it seems they were in another era long before my time. But now, they’re serious affairs with a group of focused people absorbed by the twelve-hour days which see many of those hours spent bouncing around in very uncomfortable vans. Only Sir Robert Parker was ‘limo-ed’ around when doing Bordeaux reports and that’s because he shelled out for it. Likewise, it’s only when I’m on my own, non-press trip, trips to wine regions that I have a chauffeur, who also happens to arrange my travel plans and meals—amazing fellow if I do say so myself.

So, why keep doing it, if it’s so ‘awful’?

No matter the size (and I’ve experienced trips of 50 attendees down to just myself and two others), you need to cover a huge amount of ground in a limited time in order to present anything of value to your readers. Minus one or two individuals, in doing this for 15+ years, no one is getting shitfaced as there’s simply too much to do, see, taste, and write up. Many people are abstaining from alcohol completely which should further crumple any image of these being free drinky trips. To be the least bit effective, you need a clear head as it’s something of an overload for all the senses.

I make mention of the wine press trip as late last fall I found myself in Campania, Italy, bouncing around small roads, in one of those ubiquitous nine-seater Euro vans. It wasn’t an easy trip, but I came away with the feeling, after three days visiting for this new report on the region that Campania is perhaps not the easiest place to visit. The producers seemed to admit as much as they’re very aware that everyone heads to either Naples or the Amalfi Coast and little of that tourism gold dust seems to blow their way.

This is a pity as the region, despite not really being developed for tourism, is very pretty and the people, very friendly and welcoming like most everywhere in the interior of Italy. In terms of the wines, there’s something for everyone as while the red wines from Aglianico grape can be very hearty, they also produce excellent white wines from Greco di Tufo, Fiano, and Falanghina.

I say this as I definitely want to go back someday and soon.

There was however a much easier trip recently as it only meant that my chauffeur had to drive me an hour from home to see and taste the Brandy of Torres. I feel like people might only know the Torres wines, but this side of the business produces some excellent Brandy and at wonderful prices for the level of quality. I rated and reviewed their entire line for the article.

Also of note from Torres is their new Casals Vermouth which they produce in both a regular version as well as a non-alcoholic 0.0% version. Torres has been working on non-alcoholic wines looooong before they became a trend (since 2008!) and I have to say that while the 0.0% version didn’t have the fuller body of the regular version, it was still quite pleasant. As for the regular, it’s more bitter leaning than most Catalan Vermouths and nearly Italian in style, thus for me, it’s a winner.

Lastly, a couple of weeks ago, Janina Doyle of the Eat, Sleep, Wine, Repeat Podcast reached out for me to come on as a guest and have a chat about Croatian wines. The full episode just came out and you can give it a listen, (*) which I highly recommend unless for some reason you don’t want to know ‘everything’ about Croatian wines ;)

Drink well, be well.

-Miquel

(*) Free to read

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February (much like January) may be that month when movie studios release their straight-to-streaming movies that may or may not star Steven Seagal. But, more important than obscuring horrid films (Downhill, Jan-Gel 2: The Beast Returns, Daredevil 2003), this is the amazing month of ‘love’ that’s no better adored cashed-in on than with Valentine’s Day. So, we at the CdC HQ, along with our phalanx of unpaid interns, would like to remind you that, whether showing love in a self, couple, or poly kind of way, here’s an indispensable guide to wine for Valentine’s Day.

Our Department of TMI would like to let you know that while we’re talking about love, have you heard about ‘Penisgate’? If not, prepare yourself for a male genitalia modification deep dive at an Olympic level. Competitive injections were never, ever so serious and/or not-wanted to be known about.

Maybe this V-Day, you’re feeling a little splashy and wanna drink something old that’s not an Official Kurniawan Copy? Well, unfortunately you, the big spenders of wine, missed out when this 127 year-old Romanée-Conti (current vintages are usually only in the mid-20s [000]) was cracked for a select few whose sparse words spoke to the sparse flavors, albeit in a very special manner reserved for drinking old-ass wine that you have to pretend to love when you just want a nice, ripe Syrah.

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In the wine writing world, it seemed that January has always been the month to write about/bemoan natural wine.

It’s a rather reasonable choice when you think about it given that headlines post-holidays and pre-Burgundy tastings have always been slow or at best, bland listicles, and the ensuing natural rage bait has always fueled much-needed traffic. The beginning of September was also a keen moment for similar post-vacation reasons, but I digress.

Given that natural wine, much like Dry January and the Kardashians, doesn’t appear to be leaving any time soon, a new rage bait has been sorely needed. I state the obvious as it’s the only reason I can come up with as to why there’s been a group of articles bemoaning… tasting notes.

Are they stupid? Yup. Will we keep doing them? Yup.

As is the case with Bordeaux en Primeurs, there is an established order to the wine world that I assume will just continue on until something comes along to disrupt its meaningless existence. And by ‘something’, I mean an Extinction Level Event such as every beleaguered spouse collectively washing all red trousers in an ‘accidental’ bleach cycle.

Suffice to say, all the back and forth is why I’m readily fascinated by wines such as this one called, ‘Pica’ that I recently reviewed. It is for all purposes, an absolute aberration. Who in their right mind would take higher-alcohol grapes from Grenache in the Priorat region and infuse their juice with very, very spicy chili peppers?

I will firmly state that it most definitely works and it is part of a growing number of wines that I call, “Post Points”.

There will be claims otherwise, but for me, there’s just no way to score a wine like this. It falls outside all of the boxes as to what a wine is ‘supposed’ to be with our “medium plus everything”, and high boredom. It also blows up the extremely-outdated wine pairing concepts which state that with something spicy, you need sweet… unless of of course you’re a soul that does enjoy the spice which is the majority of the world.

But the thing is, these Post Points wines are iconoclastic and reinventing themselves and I doubt there will be ever be larger categories for them other than, “drinkable”. Often they’re interesting because they’re novell or it’s like in last year’s Priorat Report where there are wines which don’t necessarily blow up the points, but are exceedingly pleasing to drink all the time, like we’re seeing in the “chilled red” category that a lot of wine drinkers are enjoying as it’s sans la bullshite.

But let’s state that while tasting notes are numb and dumb, I would never say this applies to the giving of points. These do indeed serve purpose to act as a shorthand to the wine consumer for everyday wines while the tasting note (should) be doing the same for the wine professional—albeit usually coming up very, very short.

Points have also served as a manner in which to value wines for collectors. There are however two flaws in this. The first is that the collector class is aging and/or has bought all the wine that they need for the rest of their lives. And second, scoring of top wines is completely unneeded at at this point. Will there ever be a vintage of Screaming Eagle or Romanée Conti or the five First Growths of Bordeaux that won’t sell out at their insane prices? As long as people are drinking wine, I seriously doubt it.

So there are these, for lack of a better word, ‘subversive’ wines** coming out now that blend wine and non-wine, different fruits, take wines from disparate regions, use untraditional blends, or are just different from the classic norms and will escape all the reason and system of points-based scoring. Points will be with us for some time yet, but I’ll only give their longevity a score of ‘85’ as a class of younger wine drinkers (who are indeed drinking wine) comes of an age to appreciate this fine beverage, albeit in a form that deviates from what we’ve previously established.

I have seen the wines of the future and I don’t know how to rate them, but I like ‘em.

Drink well, be well.

-Miquel

(*) Free to read

** Note that I’m not globally lumping natural wines into this lot as there are scads of Trash Natural in there that’s just bad wine, no scores needed, only a sink with a good drain.

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For the fine makers of sparkling wines in Spain’s Catalunya region, the year started off on a ‘brown’ note as TV3, the main regional broadcaster, saw the New Year toasted in with… beer. (CAT) We at the CdC HQ are (very) alcohol agnostic and Estrella Damm is a fine lager, but, come on, the only thing less glamorous than watching NYE hosts chug a bottle of brewski like they’re pledging a frat is watching the current Transatlantic Shitshow about a “very big” island. The plus side is that the various sparkling wine bodies as well as ‘everyone’, all joined forces to declare in unison, “Ass, ass, ass.”

For those who might not be drinking and are (somehow) still doing Dry January™, you should know that it is in fact, a freakin’ conspiracy! “No way, CdC, conspiracies are fun and this is one DJ that ain’t fun.” Oh yeah, name one “fun” conspiracy, just one. Can’t do it, can you? That’s what we thought. Now go back to your regularly-scheduled not drinking.

Hot off the Oh Behave Desk comes Alfonso Cevola’s response to the responses that writes about, writing about wine: “...instead of simply writing better, they wrote thousands of words explaining why everyone else is writing worse...” This is one debate in the wine community that’s spreading faster than 2020 Covid. Why? Because it’s catty AF, meow!

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Nearly 20 years ago, with my tourist setting dialed up to the maximum, I was driving out to Cadaqués, the most northeastern corner of Spain and the Iberian Peninsula.

As fate would have it, I stopped in at a winery at the top of the very curvy road leading to this lovely coastal town as it seemed like a fine view. More critically, there were other cars parked out front, so in Spain, that means an establishment is clearly open—Google Maps be damned. Unbeknownst to me, I was to end up crashing the launch of the new DO Empordà winery, Martín Faixó.

I would be lying if I didn’t say that it was a mighty fine party. After apologizing for my faux pas, the family (once done with media interviews) was very gracious to let me attend despite my timing. It proved to be a crucial inflection point as from this moment on, I would begin writing about the wines of Catalunya, publishing three books on the most prominent regions and, nearly 15 years ago, moving from California to live permanently.

Following on from the creation of the books, I’ve been publishing yearly reports on all the DOs and wine bodies of Catalunya for the last decade on Hudin.com. Given the turmoil of the wine industry throughout 2025 as well as the extremely variable recent vintages, it seemed that now was the moment release my first, full Catalunya Report for 2026 which is available for annual subscribers, right now.

Within the 8,000 words and over 900 wines tasted, I take a look at the connective tissue that binds together all these regions while at the same time showing how each individual part is unique. There’s a review of the most-recent vintages on the market as well as how the 2025 vintage appears to be shaping up post-harvest and what everything means, at this moment, as we step on the gas and accelerate into the vast unknown of 2026.

Additionally, there’s a good deal of new, insider information which, as an unsurprising spoiler, is mostly about the Catalan world of sparkling wines, but not only.

Anyone who know me knows that I’m quite passionate about Spanish wine in general and especially Catalunya, but at the same time, I’m also willing to give a critical eye to what needs improving upon. That said, Catalunya probably has one of the better positions in Southern Europe for the choppy seas that we find ourselves adrift upon these days. I’m very happy with the final format and to be sharing this very lengthy report about the region with my readers.

Drink well, be well.

-Miquel

(*) Free to read

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We at CdC HQ would love to say that we’re blasting out this special “Holiday Edition”, but in reality, it’s more like the “Procrastinator’s Edition” so let’s get into it… right after this delicious cup of South Korean tea which is, well, “special tea” that a certain richest moron in the world might really enjoy.

Could it be that there just might be Yankee Tea in our near futures? Given the writhing snake’s nest that is importation to the US at the moment, it very well could happen! The “Super Maté” may kindly stay the fuck away from the stars n’stripes however.

English Champagne is the gift that keeps on giving if you give it to a French person who will then have yet one [more] reason to hate you, forever.

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Once all the olives are pressed and the oil runs free, winter has officially arrived to Spain.

Sometimes this arrival is in kind, gentle ways, such as the graceful fog seen above when visiting Raventós i Blanc recently. Or then, it’s the 213mm (8.5in) of rain that arrived to Priorat, unleashing nearly half the annual rainfall in less than half a day. Unlike what happened in València last year, we all seem to have survived this thankfully, but these events are constantly getting more extreme with the last one in 2019 at ‘just’ 160mm in half a day.

It seems that we can’t change the weather however, so why not pair it with with a fine sparkling wine, like those of Raventós or another savory bottle of bubbles like the Gran Torelló.

Such fine wines helps us through these dark days, although, as of today, it’s only getting lighter from here on out and in case you need additional suggestions, do have a glance at the Top 100 for 2025. (*)

Please note that we’ve updated the formats (*) for subscriptions to make them much, much clearer. There’s also the introduction of a new Commercial option that has a special offer right now for those interested in either a new subscription or upgrading their current one.

I also want to mention that this will be the last newsletter for the year as we take our winter pause. There are a wealth of exciting new items coming early in January, so as always, please stay tuned. Do note that the videos shall keep coming while the articles take a breather. Continue following the new and very fun to produce, “Drink it or Sink it” series which you can find on YouTube and/or Instagram Reels depending upon your preferred media poison.

Thus, we hope your celebrations see you in fine spirits as we head into whatever might be waiting for us in 2026.

Drink well, be well.

-Miquel

(*) Free to read

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‘Tis the season for the Hudin Top 100!

Culled from the thousands of wines tasted this year, everyone can read the entire list ordered by winery name. Subscribers have access to the the full scores, tasting notes, price/quality ratings, and the entire 41 reports released this year from Spain, France, Portugal, Croatia, Slovenia, Serbia, and even as far as California.

It’s never easy to choose from so many good wines in the world but the #1 wine on the list this year in terms of scores was the Ferrer Bobet - Selecció Especial Vinyes Velles 2021. This winery in DOQ Priorat has consistently produced excellent wines, but this specific wine goes above and beyond to be what is probably their finest bottle to date.

For this selection, the colors of wine are: 58% red, 41% white, and 1% orange with 7% of the wines sparkling. The lowest-priced wine on the list ended up being 8.50€ which goes to show that it’s much more about assembling an interesting, inviting list rather than slapping together the top-scoring wines. After all, subscribers have access to see those whenever they want as well as sorting for price/quality.

We hope you enjoy this edition and find something new or have it reconfirmed that yes, you are indeed drinking some of the best wines there are ;)

Drink well, be well.

-Miquel

(*) Free to read

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Spain is only a little larger than California geographically, albeit in a form that’s more of a block than a rectangle with an elbow. More important than respective shapes is that Spain has a much larger population than California at just about 50 million, compared to the ‘Golden’ State’s 40 million.

To me however, both places seem rather crowded, at least from a certain vantage and that’s because the majority of the populations live on the coast. For California, various sources stolen compiled by AI state that 68% of the state lives along the coast.

For Spain, the figures get a bit wonky and run from 30-60%, but the lower number appears to be based upon older statistics. Any total however is skewed a great deal by about seven million of those people living “not on the coast” being based in or around Madrid. Thus, the coast is person heavy and 80% of the 97 million tourists that visit Spain each year (a record…!), go to the coast.

However you slice up this chunk of Iberia, the truth is, there’s a lot of space in between population centers and it’s in these spaces where you often find the wine regions.

Take for instance where I’m based in Priorat. The county officially has about 9,000 residents in total, but its location is part of this Mediterranean Magic wherein while the immediate strip of the coast holds oodles of people, you step back 25-40km and there’s no one. No one except the vines that is and the excellence of losing the coastal humidity paired with a rise in altitude, making for excellent viticulture.

These wine regions are however pockets that are, in a very Iberian fashion, quite removed from one another. Catalunya’s bookend to Priorat in terms of quality for me, is Empordà, way up by the French border. I’ve long-been keen on this region which is why I was happy to release a new report (along with Pla de Bages & Alella) as there are some excellent, yet often overlooked wines up there.

In the middle of the vast 225km space in between these Priorat & Empordà is Penedès and I fully admit that for some time I covered the region more or less out of obligation. The reason being that in Catalan wine, the reputation for many years was that of large and often uninteresting production, the exact kind of wine people are buying far less of now.

This has changed so, so much in the last few years with the upheaval in the sparkling wine sector and the movement of craft producers away from the dump trucks of bottles produced by DO Cava. But when it comes to the still wines produced not in the massive DO Catalunya (check out my YouTube videos) but in DO Penedès, things have evolved even more.

My latest report for DO Penedès has been in the making for all of 2025 and includes tasting notes for nearly 200 wines—the largest to date. Why so much attention? Simply put, there have been so many changes that have come to the region. Additionally, it’s now more uniform, cohesive and the level of quality has risen tremendously in the previous decade+ that I’ve been covering the wines. I highly recommend checking it out, or if in Barcelona at some point, pop out as they’re only a half hour away from the metropolis.

Suffice to say, Penedès is no longer simply a space in between, whether geographically or conceptually, but one more constellation in the galaxy of Catalan wine.

Drink well, be well.

-Miquel

(*) Free to read

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If you’re as eagle-eyed as we at the CdC HQ think you are, then you’ll be noting the branding change for this fine publication. The reason? Well, much like Bari Weiss who managed to sell off her political vibe blog, The ‘Free’ Press for a slathering $150 million, we too have cashed the ass out to something with a different name. How much? Well, it certainly wasn’t $150 million! Let your imagine run as wild and free as a buffalo on a Las Vegas cocaine bender.

In case you don’t read the news and find yourself ‘happy’ these days, how about celebrating with a bottle of bubbly? Just make sure it’s not the Kirkland Prosecco from Costco in the US as the bottles, are known to shatter, much like how their wine production tanks are known to explode-er. You can never say it’s a dull moment in Prosecco land, unless of course it’s the ‘Happy’ Hour Prosecco offer at a local pub in the UK which is of course, the most soulless hour on the planet.

From the Desk of Animal Antics, we bring word that sea otters are stealing surf boards, again, black cats were banned from being adopted leading up to Halloween, chimps are eating fermented fruit for all the right reasons, and when it isn’t about boar swimming up on the beaches of Spain, it’s about coyotes from Angel Island going for a pleasure dip in the frigid San Francisco Bay waters. Those crazy non-humans, what will they think of next?!!

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I once paid a visit to a winery in the hinterlands of Roussillon, France and, as I arrived, their picking team was coming in, wrapping up for the day. They started a cooking fire right in the front of winery with some retreating to the tents they’d pitched by the entrance. While the winery was more functional in look and didn’t have the grounds of some multi-million dollar estate in Napa, it still seemed like a scene of occupation by protestors. And then they started grilling meat on the fire.

“Well, that’s a curious assortment you have there?”

“Yeah, they claim to be from Spain, but only one seems to actually speak Spanish and good god they’re slow.”

“Too much weed or… not enough?”

“Not enough of something, that’s for sure.”

I was reminded of this as we come to that time of year when the, “irregulars” who have descended upon wine regions for the grape harvest, all take off for either another kind of harvest or, perhaps back to the carnival circuit, I guess.

People will often ask me where these workers come from as anyone can see that’s a very mixed bag. Where I am in Priorat, the force is largely local given that the mix of grape varieties allows for a long (albeit tiring) picking season and so you don’t need a massive force all at once. This year it was spread over 6-8 weeks.

There are a few migrants from sub-Saharan Africa that are usually employed year round. Same goes for the Romanians. And then you have this irregular group of oddballs making up the difference of which I was one when I worked my first full harvest back in 2014.

A winery needs people who know what they’re doing though and the more irregular a group you get, the more sorting you have once all the grapes come in. This was the case when visiting the winery where I did my first harvest the other week and while chatting with the owner we looked at the boxes of their small amount of Cabernet Sauvignon that had just come in. Many were raisined and some even had fungal damage—par for the course with a variety poorly adapted to the Iberian Peninsula. The owner wasn’t amused.

“Why did they pick some of this shit? The sorting group isn’t going to be happy…”

But, as of the week before last, it’s all wrapped up for everyone, just as the weather has started to become fall-ish and difficult for those random irregulars to crash in a tent at the front of a winery, grilling various dead animals over an open flame.

If however one is to wander about the Catalan countryside this time of year, one will find wonderful things, including grilled animals if so inclined. This change of season is why I use it as the time to visit the wineries of Costers del Segre & Conca de Barberà. This latest report took me out to the countryside in Central Catalunya which is always wonderful, especially for eating.

And while some may drink their sparkling wines with grand pleasure during the summer, as the fall rolls into gear, I too roll into sparkling wine. This has been no better shown than the release of the Corpinnat Harvest Report. They’ve had a great deal of movement lately, including many new cellars joining in 2025 as well as new wines such as l’Infinit from Recaredo.

Drink well, be well.

-Miquel

(*) Free to read

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There’s nothing headline grabbing anymore in stating that wine has a few problems these days. But, when it comes to Substack and those writing about this fine alcoholic beverage, there’s a specific problem that their ´Stacks are categorized under Food & Drink. This is ridiculous as one can very much have drink without food, or vice versa if need be as we’re not savages.

This doesn’t seem set to change which means that the wine bits of Substack are cast adrift on the vast sea that is food writing on the plaform. Thus, those wine types in the Drinks department are a lot like Icelandic folk techno metal being grouped under ‘music’ when K-pop exists. In other words, good luck finding the ‘WineStack’, which does indeed exist in its very special way.

I say this as when taking a new look at the state of wine media (*), I reached out to find as many Substacks about wine as I could. It’s grown massively as a medium overall in recent years and I think we’re finally to a solid round up of all the wine Substacks that have a paid subscription. This grand group is, after several revisions, now totaling 44 in number. So yes, most definitely the Icelandic folk techno metal of Substack’s Food & Drink category.

All of these Substacks (along with those in ‘legacy’ media) are included in an updated version of The List (*) which is free for anyone to peruse and hopefully find new reads, concepts, wines, and dare I say, ‘hope’ for this bizarre age in which we live.

In addition to finding new WineStack folks, something else that was new to me recently was the concept of the ‘North’ Adriatic.

For anyone who follows my writings, you’ll know that in addition to Spain and Southern France, I cover the wines of Croatia, Slovenia, and a ‘spritz’ of Italy, as much as is possible. Given this, I was asked to join a trip that sliced off a chunk of these three to create a rather fine way to comprehend what is overall a spaghetti of smaller regions, names, and grape varieties that are often the same, but with different names.

You can read this in the North Adriatic Regional Report as well as the combined Tasting Reports which see 260 wines rated and reviewed.

And of course, it wouldn’t be fall without some kind of recap on the 2025 harvest, but let’s make it bit different and take a look at what’s happening on the island of Santorini, Greece. (*)

Drink well, be well.

-Miquel

(*) Free to read

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This is also available on Hudin.com to Personal & Commercial subscribers.

It’s time for a new look at the current state of wine media, taking into account the large upswing in people creating their own, independent newsletters, which has resulted in very new version of, The List.

If you’ll recall, back in 2022, I wrote about the rise of independent wine media platforms which just that short time ago, was something rather novel. I know it very well as like several others before me, I’d taken the plunge back in September, 2019 thus making this the 6th anniversary for Hudin.com!

The reasons for various individuals launching their own sites were due to the crumbling state of wine media and the need for independence in a changing landscape. Spoiler alert, that specific sack of cookies continues to crumble and the landscape is more landslide than having reached any degree of stability.

There are some seemingly safe publications at the moment such as Decanter and Club Oenologique which always have the backing of lucrative awards behind them.

Others, aren’t faring as well and since the last update in 2024, we’ve said goodbye to three: The New Wine Review, Wine & Spirits, as well as JeremyOliver.com, although it seems like that will be relaunched under a different name. Chris Kissack was close to folding his long-lived Wine Doctor into The Wine Independent when he took over editorial duties, but then backed out shortly after. As for The Wine Independent we’ll see how that continues to fare as we only need so many publications covering Burgundy, Bordeaux, and Napa…

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