The specter of US tariffs of 100% on French wine was removed Sunday after French President Emmanuel Macron reached out to President Donald Trump for a truce. Under the terms of the truce, France will delay introduction of its tax on large tech companies until the end of 2020 and the US will table retaliatory tariffs this year.

Participants at a Thursday meeting of Sonoma County's grape grower and vintner groups learned about two outreach efforts targeted at millennials and others worried about climate change, Jeff Quakenbush writes. Sonoma County Winegrowers is piloting a certification program for climate adaptation, and the group is also developing more millennial ambassadors in major US cities.

Spain's Compania Vinicola del Norte de Espana has been making classical Rioja for 140 years, run by the same family and with just five chief winemakers throughout its history, Tom Mullen writes. Now helmed by brother and sister team Victor and Maria Urrutia Ybarra, the winery maintains its strong heritage with a devotion to quality, allegiance to Rioja's cultural identity and a deep trust in its team that makes micromanaging unnecessary, Mullen observes.

Pernod Ricard announced it will transition to 100% renewable electricity by 2025, including all its wine and spirits brands. The company's Australian wine brands, such as Jacob's Creek and Wyndham Estate, already rely solely on renewable energy powered by solar panels, making it the first wine firm in the country to achieve this, according to Pernod Ricard officials.

New spirits forecasts from Vinexpo and IWSR predict total global spirits volumes by 2023 will hit 2.8 billion cases, with each containing 9 liters of product. While local spirits are largely behind the growth, the share contributed by big and imported brands will grow 9% by 2023, the research finds.

As head sommelier at London's Ormer Mayfair restaurant, Svetoslav Manolev manages wine operations at the restaurant, at Manetta's Bar and at the Flemings hotel in which the latter two are located. "London is hands down the best place in the world for learning about wine and ease of access to wines from so many different countries and producers - it's just incredible," says Manolev, who is also a master sommelier.

At Bar Purlieu in Eugene, Ore., bartender Joe Kiefer-Lucas relies on a fundamental balance of dry, bitter, acid and sweet as a reliable template when mixing drinks. When creating a riff on a classic drink, "I alter it in one or two or three ways to make something completely different from the original, but I know it's going to work, because the bones are there," Kiefer-Lucas adds.

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