"Casual" in the certain uncertainty
Year 15, No. 03
Highlights: Serbian wines 2025
This week I was talking with a winemaker who participated in my Priorat Vi de Vila tasting (*) in Zagreb.
Once we finished chatting about how well the Vinart group presented the wines, we of course drifted into other topics such as the various issues of selling wines now as well as enotourism, which appears to be very much down this year in Spain (and perhaps other regions?) That’s when he said in Catalan that we’re in this state of certa incertesa or, essentially, certain uncertainty.
Wine has long-been the canary in the coal mine when it comes to issues of Climate Change, but it seems it is readily shoved back up on the canary perch when it comes to economic issues. This makes sense as while it’s a wonderful beverage, it’s obviously not crucial to our existence and when things get wobbly, wine suffers. Likewise, it seems that wines will be hit hard (again) with the instigation of pointless trade wars that serve no purpose in our highly-integrated global economy other than to further a certain individual seeing his name in the press even more.
There are of course much larger issues at play here, but it’s also why, given these most certain times of uncertainty, there’s been a new kind of subscription introduced for Hudin.com. This is called the ‘Casual’ level (*) and is just $30 USD annually for people who enjoy reading about wines, travel, and food from around the world, but don’t necessarily need access to the database of thousands of wines on the site.
Please read more about the differences (*) between the subscriptions and write in if you have any questions as this come about due to a reader suggestion so I want it work for you, the reader.
It’s my hope that it’s a useful for those who like to check in now and again as there’s a lot of ground covered on this site, such as the recent, full report on the wines of Serbia or the vertical tasting of esteemed DO Penedès producer, Parés Baltà.
And of course there’s always more to come as the wines don’t stop and I’ll be in Southern Rhône next week for tastings at Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Gigondas, and Cairanne. So if you’re a reader keep and eye for these and if you’re a winemaker, I hope we can be in touch during what look to be several very intense tasting days.
Drink well, be well.
-Miquel
(*) Free to read
The Featured Reports
Serbian wines 2025
People may not immediately associate the Republic of Serbia with making fine wines, but for some time now, they’ve quietly been making great wines from Bordeaux varieties as well as some of their native ones which are very much worthy of a look.
And now this
What’s a ‘paraje’? Well, it’s a place where grapes grow and César Marquéz is doing some fine work with them in DO Bierzo.
How does one define their ‘middle wine’? It doesn’t happen overnight, in fact for Vall Llach with their Idus wine, it took three years to release!
And lastly, have a look at this vertical tasting of the Microcuvée wines from Parés Baltà which are made from varieties that are most likely, the future.