The Savoy's Beaufort Bar Becomes a Wine Bar
The Savoy is turning its Beaufort Bar into a wine bar in October, with 250 wines and half of them by the glass. Good news if you can't afford the bottles.
Read moreThe Sommly Blog
Wine news, tasting tips, and stories.
Dispatches from the UK wine scene.
France's 2026 Harvest Looks Like the Worst in a Generation
The number doing the rounds this week is fifty percent. That is roughly how much of Champagne's normal output will not exist this year, according to reporting from Xinhua and NovaNews on September 7. Not a bad year. Not a tricky vintage. Half gone.
Read more
Valpolicella Starts Harvest Two Weeks Early in 2026
The grapes at Tommasi's estate outside Verona were already coming off the vine last week. That's mid-August. For a region that has historically picked in late September, that kind of shift doesn't happen quietly.
Read more
Champagne's 2026 Harvest Is Its Healthiest in 50 Years
Wait, that's a continuous-present construction in the title. Let me fix that before we begin.
Read more
Argentine Bulk Wine Exports to the UK Jump 46.5%
Forty-six and a half percent. That's not a rounding error or a bumper quarter. That's Argentine bulk wine shipments to the UK growing by nearly half, in a single year, according to Vinetur's figures from August 2026.
Read more
The 2026 Harvest Starts Early Across the Northern Hemisphere
Grapes are coming off the vine in August. Not late August in a warm year, the kind you'd shrug at. August, full stop, in regions that historically picked in October.
Read more
Amanda Barnes MW Brings Uruguay's Top 10 Wines to London
Tannat is not a grape most London wine drinkers have strong feelings about. That's sort of the point.
Read more
Burgundy Starts Its Earliest Harvest in Nearly 500 Years
The pickers went into the vineyards on August 13th. In Burgundy. That date has not happened in recorded history, or at least not since the 1500s, when a French monk named Salomon Rose began keeping harvest records that wine historians still cite today.
Read more
Champagne Starts Its Earliest Harvest on Record
The grapes going into your next bottle of Champagne were picked in August.
Read more
Franciacorta Starts Its Earliest Harvest on Record
The grapes in Franciacorta were already being picked in late July 2026. For a region that built its reputation on slow, cool ripening, that's a strange sentence to write.
Read more
Sicily's 2026 Harvest Looks Good While the Rest of Europe Burns
The Sicilian harvest started early this year. Specifically, around July 28, according to Wine Business, with growers describing conditions as "decidedly positive." That's a phrase you don't hear much from European wine producers in the summer of 2026.
Read more
UK Grape Harvest 2026 Starts Earliest in Two Decades
The Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board confirmed it on July 31st: growers across England and Wales are picking right now, weeks ahead of any harvest this century.
Read moreWrite for Sommly
Want to write a guest blog post?
Got a story, a tasting you loved, or a corner of the wine world you want to share? We're always open to pitches from writers, sommeliers, and independents.