In Club Oenologique, Jim Clarke reports on the more restrained rendering of Chardonnay emerging from California. “Over the past three decades, wine drinkers have come to expect Napa – and California more broadly – to offer up rich, opulent Chardonnays…But this cloying, buttery rendering is not the only Chardonnay choice; indeed, it wasn’t even the first choice.”

Jacopo Mazzeo explores Romanian wine in SevenFifty Daily. “Romanian wine’s image is still battling the legacy of its communist past, but the industry is evolving…About half of Romania’s vineyards are still home to hybrid grapes, which have been planted since the late 19th century to replace phylloxera-affected plots and are still cultivated and vinified for home consumption. However, both international and a diverse range of indigenous vitis viniferas are increasingly replacing non-vinifera plantings.”

Tuck Beckstoffer, son of famous grape grower Andy Beckstoffer, will have to disassociate from the winery he once owned, now called Amulet Estate, reports Esther Mobley in the San Francisco Chronicle. Beckstoffer was ordered to repay $5.1 million after stealing company funds for private jets, luxury cards, semiautomatic rifles and home renovations.

Jancis Robinson reflects on former Ridge Vineyards winemaker Paul Draper’s impact, and offers notes from a recent tasting of the winery’s Monte Bello wines.

For BBC, Melanie Haiken tells the story of Japanese immigrant Kanaye Nagasawa. “Born into a samurai family and smuggled out of Shogunate Japan, only to become a founding member of a utopian cult and eventually known as the “Wine King of California”, Nagasawa led a life that was stranger than fiction. At the peak of his influence at the turn of the 20th Century, Nagasawa was operating one of the largest wineries in California, producing more than 200,000 gallons of wine a year from the vineyards of the 2,000-acre Fountaingrove estate in Santa Rosa.”

Winemakers in Argentina can breathe a sigh of relief as the country succeeds in holding its rocketing inflation steady for two consecutive months, amidst mandatory price freezes, reports Sarah Neish in the Drinks Business.