June 19

June 19, 1967: Frédéric Rouzaud was born. Frederic Rouzaud is Managing Director at the Louis Roederer champagne house, which produces the well known cuvée Cristal.

June 19, 1987: The Canary Islands enacted Law 12/1987 of 19 June, declaring La Geria on Lanzarote a protected natural area.

June 19, 2006: Rene Renou, president of France’s Institut National des Appellations d’Origine (INAO) and a leading reformer of the appellation controlee system, died at age 54.

June 19, 2017: Miguel Torres, president of Bodega Torres, received The Lifetime Achievement Award from Drinks Business and the Institute of Masters of Wine, in recognition of his work and career in the wine industry. Familia Torres has wineries in Spain at the national level; however its production concentrated in the Catalan town of Pacs del Penedès is one of the most popular, where they produce wine following the standards of the Penedès wine denomination.

June 19, 2018: On this date, accusations regarding Norman Hardie’s sexual misconduct came to light. Hardie worked as a Canadian winemaker and was a superstar in the world of wine in his nearly three decades in the profession – first as a sommelier at Toronto’s Four Seasons and more recently as the owner of his namesake winery in Ontario’s Prince Edward County. However, an investigation by The Globe and Mail, which included interviews with more than 50 people (the majority of whom worked in the wine and food business), painted a worrisome picture of Mr. Hardie’s conduct. Many of the individuals interviewed claimed that he engaged in serious misbehavior both inside and outside of his company.

For more dates in wine history, click here.

 

 

Header image: Robert Taylor from Stirling, ON, Canada — via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0).