"The more I visited vineyards on my travels and got to know the wine growers and the regions, the more disillusioned I became with French wine, " he says.
But wine growers like Santos are challenging that assumption.
However, other wine growers around the world produce their own variants -- often available at cheaper prices -- which have placed the Champagne region's wine houses under increasing pressure in recent years.
He grows his own grapes for wine and makes wine for other growers.
In fact, the wine came from growers Mr. Pott had met in France during his Beringer years and from whom Mr. Pott purchased the fruit.
WSJ: Aaron Pott, the Man (and Mouth) Behind Some of Napa's Best Wines | On Wine by Lettie Teague
Blame (or, if you're a wine drinker, credit) not only the industrial policy of Canberra but the thousands of wine-happy growers and marketers around the world.
The epiphany Sharp had led to the creation of The Urban Wine Company, a London-based collective of growers committed to making wine with their own grapes.
Southern wine-makers and fruit-growers, for instance, complain that they cannot get enough workers, despite jobless rates of over 9% of the workforce, while United Nations statisticians say that France would need 1.7m immigrants a year to maintain its demographic status quo.
It adorns the 20 cases of wine they are buying at a 33% growers' discount from Clos LaChance.
Wine carrying the Petite Sirah label is thus, unknown to growers and drinkers alike, often a blend rather than a pure varietal.
Apparently, Pinotage growers aren't too keen on them either, as "Wine Grapes" says that research is under way at Stellenbosch University to determine their cause.
WSJ: Does Much-Unloved Pinotage Deserve Another Look? | On Wine by Lettie Teague
Wine is only as good as the grapes that go into it, or so growers tell me, and the grape-supply situation in China is difficult.
French cigar traders draw a parallel with what happened to French wine making in the 1970s: despite scandals, defeats in tasting tests and competition from new wines on three continents, French growers complacently rested on their vines, convinced that they had the best soils, the best wine-making weather and the best grapes.
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