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WINE

United wines of Benetton

Italian clothing giant Benetton will start producing wine from September. The company has already chosen the names for its range: Red, White and Malvasia, a type of wine that is either white or very dark, and aromatic.

Published: 31 July 2013 10:19 CEST
United wines of Benetton
Luciano Benetton will distribute wine across Italy from September. Photo: AFP/Toru Yamanaka

Founder Luciano Benetton told the Veneto edition of Corriere that the names were chosen for their “simplicity and clarity.”

Apart from being guided by his passion for wine, Benetton said the inspiration to move into the wine market came from the grapes that grew outside the company’s headquarters in Treviso.

“For years I would see these grapes from my office window, and thought they were destined for the wine cellar,” he told the newspaper.

Benetton, which is famous for its controversial advertising campaigns, became a major shareholder in Farnese, a winery in Abruzzo, in February.

The range of wine, called Villa Minelli after the company’s headquarters, will be distributed in hotels, restaurants and wine bars across Italy from September. Production will be limited to 50,000 bottles a year.

“As we don’t have a great tradition in this field, it would be best to keep our feet on the ground,” Benetton said. 

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FARMING

Cold snap ‘could slash French wine harvest by 30 percent’

A rare cold snap that froze vineyards across much of France this month could see harvest yields drop by around a third this year, France's national agriculture observatory said on Thursday.

Published: 22 April 2021 15:09 CEST
Cold snap 'could slash French wine harvest by 30 percent'
A winemaker checks whether there is life in the buds of his vineyard in Le Landreau, near Nantes in western France, on April 12th, following several nights of frost. Photo: Sebastien SALOM-GOMIS / AFP

Winemakers were forced to light fires and candles among their vines as nighttime temperatures plunged after weeks of unseasonably warm weather that had spurred early budding.

Scores of vulnerable fruit and vegetable orchards were also hit in what Agriculture Minister Julien Denormandie called “probably the greatest agricultural catastrophe of the beginning of the 21st century.”

IN PICTURES: French vineyards ablaze in bid to ward off frosts

The government has promised more than €1 billion in aid for destroyed grapes and other crops.

Based on reported losses so far, the damage could result in up to 15 million fewer hectolitres of wine, a drop of 28 to 30 percent from the average yields over the past five years, the FranceAgriMer agency said.

That would represent €1.5 to €2 billion of lost revenue for the sector, Ygor Gibelind, head of the agency’s wine division, said by videoconference.

It would also roughly coincide with the tally from France’s FNSEA agriculture union.

Prime Minister Jean Castex vowed during a visit to damaged fields in southern France last Saturday that the emergency aid would be made available in the coming days to help farmers cope with the “exceptional situation.”

READ ALSO: ‘We’ve lost at least 70,000 bottles’ – French winemakers count the cost of late frosts

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