Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie’s inaugural wine for sale in UK (by wine.drinks-business-review.com)

Angelina and Brad.

American actors Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have made their inaugural wine – Miraval Rose 2012 – available for sale in the UK at wine and spirits merchant, Berry Bros & Rudd.
Miraval Rose is the first vintage from the actors’ project and is made in partnership with the Perrin family of Chateau de Beaucastel at Château Miraval in France, which was purchased by the couple for around €40m.

Earlier in March 2013, 6,000 bottles of the wine were sold within five hours of going on sale online.

The couple have now released 10,000 bottles of Miraval Rose 2012 for sale in the UK. Each bottle bears a black, white and gold circular label featuring the salmon pink color of Provencal rose on show.

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Parents’ horror as new $35 device lets you INHALE alcohol goes on sale in U.S. (by Dailymail)

New device allows the user to directly inhale alcohol – increasing the effects on the body
Experts have warned that the Vaportini – which is available to buy online – could be used by impressionable and inexperienced teenagers
Parents have been warned of the dangers of a simple new device freely available online which heats alcohol and allows it to be inhaled – reportedly giving the user an instant but intense high.

Released in December, the $35 Vaportini acts in a manner similar to a traditional vaporizer, heating and releasing intoxicating vapors which are breathed through a straw after being heated by a candle to 140 Fahreneheit.
Bypassing the digestive system, the Vaportini causes alcohol to be ingested directly to the bloodstream through the lungs, potentially causing dangerous levels of intoxication – especially if abused.
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Chinese Industrialist Buys Top Saint-Emilion Estate (by wine-searcher.com)

The Château Bellefont-Belcier estate.

 

Grand cru classe vineyard fetches up to $2.6 million per hectare of vines.

 

A Chinese industrialist has completed the landmark purchase of Château Bellefont-Belcier, a leading estate in France’s prestigious Saint-Émilion wine-making area, sources involved in the sale say.

The property is the first of its rank – grand cru classé (classified great growth) – to be acquired in what has been a wave of Chinese investment in the Bordeaux region.

Bellefont-Belcier, which had been on the market for a number of years, has 13 hectares of vines on a total estate of 20 hectares. A source said the sale price was between 1.5 million and two million euros ($1.94–$2.59 million) per hectare of vines.

The new Chinese owner is a 45-year-old industrialist with assets in the iron sector who has already diversified into the wine-importing business. He met the château’s employees on Friday and has since returned to China.

Chinese investors have acquired around 30 lower-ranked properties in Bordeaux (the larger region that includes Saint-Émilion) in the past two years. During 2012 China has also become the region’s biggest export market in terms of volume.

So far, Chinese investment has not been controversial in a region with a long tradition of foreign ownership of wine estates.

In contrast, the acquisition by a Chinese buyer of Château de Gevrey-Chambertin in Burgundy this year triggered a major row, with local winemakers and far-right politicians claiming the country’s heritage was being sold.
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