Fake wine seizures in Italy, the rise of Bordeaux searches, and the internet arguing about absinthe…
It’s all in this week’s episode.
Don prepares for St Patrick’s Day by limbering up with Guinness while Olly drinks a delicious 2020 Puligny-Montrachet 1er Cru from Etienne Sauzet.
The Most Wanted Chardonnays and the Most Wanted New Zealand wines top the reader statistics while Don’s story on the rise of Bordeaux wine searches in the last 12 months has him asking if the wine industry isn’t seeing some green shoots of recovery.
Check out these articles here:
https://www.wine-searcher.com/m/2026/03/the-most-wanted-rieslings-of-2026
https://www.wine-searcher.com/m/2026/03/us-doubles-down-on-bordeaux
Wine fraud in Italy also makes an appearance, but our Most Wanted Absinthes story draws an angry response from the Académie d’Absomphe, which decries some of our users’ choices and has Don and Olly ask if the image of absinthe can be rehabilitated and if there are perhaps better ways of going about said revival.
Read these articles:
https://www.wine-searcher.com/m/2026/03/huge-fake-wine-seizure-in-italy
https://www.wine-searcher.com/m/2026/03/the-most-wanted-absinthes-of-2026
Olly talks Snoop Dogg and Tupac; the Iran conflict threatens to hit glass bottle prices in France; a Rioja winemaker (who has made wine for the Pope) lashes out at his governments’ position against US intervention in the Middle East; a Spanish news outlet works out which wine bottle Leonardo DiCaprio’s character in One Battle After Another is drinking from in the film’s final scene; the EU approves changes to the Tokaji wine production code; and NTM rapper Joey Starr talks Rum.
Check out the Snoop article: https://www.wine-searcher.com/m/2026/03/snoop-hits-the-wine-trail-with-tupac
Don leaves with exhortations to try (Carlow Brewing Company’s) O’Hara’s Irish Stout and we consider a story on the California grape harvest being the lowest since 1994.
#WinePodcast #WineNews #WineTalk #WineLovers #FineWine #WineCommunity #WineIndustry #BordeauxWine #Chardonnay #Riesling #Absinthe #WineSearcher #TheWeekInWine