Awards and citations:


1997: Le Prix du Champagne Lanson Noble Cuvée Award for investigations into Champagne for the Millennium investment scams

2001: Le Prix Champagne Lanson Ivory Award for investdrinks.org

2011: Vindic d'Or MMXI – 'Meilleur blog anti-1855'

2011: Robert M. Parker, Jnr: ‘This blogger...’:

2012: Born Digital Wine Awards: No Pay No Jay – best investigative wine story

2012: International Wine Challenge – Personality of the Year Award




Wednesday 25 July 2012

Two news items: tightening ban on aerial spraying + Oddbins' 30% off Olympic protest


Non-aerial blitzed vineyards in Touraine


Call for Blanket Ban on Aerial Spraying of Pesticides

French producers in the firing line for the aerial spraying of pesticides.
Posted Tuesday, 24-Jul-2012

A group of French agricultural associations are calling for a “total ban” on spraying pesticides from the air, which would take in the many wine regions currently granted an exemption.

The Grenelle law, passed in 2010, banned farmers from spraying pesticides on crops from helicopters and planes but allowed special exemptions. Two years on, four non-governmental organisations, including the National Union of French Beekeepers, the National Federation of Organic Farmers, and the country’s second largest agricultural union, the Confédération Paysanne, have joined together to lodge a protest. They claim that there are now too many exemptions, making a mockery of the ban.
“The exception is becoming the rule,” said a spokesman for the collective.

Read the rest on wine-searcher magazine here

http://www.wine-searcher.com/m/2012/07/call-for-blanket-ban-on-aerial-spraying-of-pesticides




Oddbins' Olympic protest:


Oddbins takes stand against Olympics marketing rules

Written by Gemma McKenna (harpers)  
Tuesday, 24 July 2012 15:11


Oddbins has called on small businesses to find creative ways to circumvent the “legal straitjacket” surrounding the Olympics, and has developed its own off-the-wall marketing push.

Managing director Ayo Akintola has developed a “marketing counter-strike” to highlight the “absurdity” of the rules, that he maintains are quashing the Olympic spirit.

Read the rest here.

30% discount:

Oddbins' staff have been told that anyone coming into an Oddbins shop with the following collection will be entitled to a 30% discount:

'anyone wearing Nike trainers and has in their pocket a set of Vauxhall car keys, an RBS MasterCard, an iPhone, a bill from British Gas and a receipt for a Pepsi bought at KFC will receive 30% off their purchase.'


The conditions set the bar at a level but surely not impossibly high...

 Oddbins shop window@London Bridge








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