Believe or not, the picture on the right is of a grape harvest. On Saturday I told the amazing tale of how Nayan Gowda battled the pandemic, a dislocated shoulder, the most rudimentary equipment, and closed borders to make wine from these 200-year-old vines climbing up trees in Bolivia. The story really seems to have struck a chord with wine lovers all over the world. Although the wines are yet to leave Bolivia, we fielded an order for them (and for the wine of Himalayan Bhutan, with which Nayan is also involved) from Tiburon on San Francisco Bay. 

While things are looking up in Bolivian vineyards, the street-level view from London prompted rather gloomy thoughts about the future of hospitality in the British capital from Trevor Gulliver, of St John restaurants, reported by Nick also on Saturday.

On Monday Michael sent a truly horrifying eye-witness report on the terrible recent floods in Germany. Michael lives in Ahrweiler in the Ahr Valley, the epicentre of the disaster, and is surrounded by dirty water and friends who have lost relatives, homes, vehicles, and their entire livelihoods. Many of the wineries are close to the river so have suffered appallingly. As Michael points out, Ahr wine producers will have to make their 2021s elsewhere, but it sounds as though their fellow vintners in other regions are being extremely helpful. See his article for a video of debris-strewn streets and details of how you can donate to those worst affected.

Also on Monday, we published Michael’s notes on Mosel 2020s, part 3, wines from producers who belong to the Bernkasteler Ring. And the third (third!) article published on Monday was Jonathan Reeve’s long-delayed, thanks to the pandemic restrictions, tips for wine tourists. Any pleasure derived from it may be vicarious for many of us, but at least we can dream – or engage in some long-term planning.

We also published three articles on Tuesday. There was a tour of Bouchard Père et Fils’s Meursaults and also details of our WWC21plans for publishing so many brilliant entries in this year’s wine writing competition: two a day, from Monday until the end of August! 

The third article on Tuesday was the first of our last three profiles of entrants in the recent Taylor’s Port Golden Vines Diversity Scholarships, in this case Alec Merkt-Caprile of British Columbia. On Wednesday came Japanese restaurateur Aki Sudo and yesterday the celebrated Chinese taster and educator who now styles himself Alexandre Ma. 

On Thursday we republished Buying direct post Brexit with a cautionary tale from a Purple Pager who had tried to do just that.

I seem to have been particularly prolific this week, reporting not just on those Meursaults but also on a vertical tasting of Querciabella’s extraordinary Batàr white wine, a report on 48 offerings from The Wine Society, including some useful observations from their buyers, and a review of the 2021 Penfolds Collection launched yesterday. Richard added reviews of their four new (mainly) California wines – wines they could presumably, unlike their Australian offerings, sell to the Chinese free of punitive tariffs.

Today’s wines of the week are some of our favourite Alsace Rieslings, chosen by Julia. So, with the exception of Penfolds’ concentrated Australian reds, it has been a white-wine week – inspired by this week’s heatwave in the UK.

Stay cool.