In brief

■ English wine accounted for 1,500 of the 3,052 bottles bought for the UK government’s hospitality cellar in the 2016/2017 tax year, Foreign Office figures show. At ‘high-profile receptions’, 52% of wine consumed was English, whereas 10 years ago, just 20% of wines served at such events were produced in England.

■ Coravin has added a resealable screwcap version to its argon gasbased wine preservation system collection. According to inventor and company founder Greg Lambrecht, the new caps will keep wine fresh for up to three months, when used in conjunction with the original Coravin system.

■ An Xpeditr ‘emergency response team’ removed 20,000 bottles worth up to $5 million from the collections of anxious residents in Florida and other nearby US states, as September’s hurricane Irma was approaching, the specialist logistics company reported to Reuters. Some bottles pre-dated World War I.

■ Aymeric de Gironde, MD of Cos d’Estournel in St-Estèphe, is to cross to Bordeaux’s Right Bank to work with the new owner of Château Troplong Mondot in St-Emilion, recently acquired by insurance group Scor. De Gironde replaced Jean- Guillaume Prats at Cos d’Estournel in February 2013, and told Decanter he would be leaving ‘by mid- October at the latest’.

■ New Zealand is gaining popularity as a wine tourism destination. Trade body NZ Winegrowers reports one in four visitors to the country now include a visit to a vineyard or winery, compared to just over one in 10 four years ago.

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