Welcome again to the Weekly News Blast! Stuffed to the gills with all of the most interesting wine news from around the world!

The head of a wine investment firm that conned people out of at least £382,000 has been disqualified as a director for 11 years by the UK's Insolvency Service. Jonothan Piper, director of fake wine investment firm Embassy Wine UK Ltd, was banned for ‘causing or failing to prevent the company from selling wine to customers which it failed to provide, purchasing wine from customers which it failed to pay them for, and charging fees to customers for which no service was provided’.

Piper, 29, was disqualified with effect from Tuesday (17 November), meaning he cannot promote, manage or be a director of a limited UK company until 2026. According to an Insolvency Service investigation, Embassy – set up in 2011 – operated a scheme designed to deprive investors of their savings by persuading them to invest in wine, or to sell their fine wine through the company. The firm, which was wound up in the public interest by the High Court in December 2014, ended up owing customers at least £382,167 – and quite possibly more.

‘The amount owed to customers may in fact be higher than that revealed by our investigations, as the company failed to keep adequate records, and there may therefore be additional customers I am presently unaware of,’ said Paul Titherington, official receiver in the Public Interest Unit of the Insolvency Service.

Curious Drinks, the brewery owned by Chapel Down wines, has reached its initial crowdfunding campaign target of £1m just 27 days after launching.

This is Chapel Down’s second crowdfunding drive to expand its craft beer and cider business, which was initially funded by a £4m campaign. Curious Drinks has now increased its target to £3.65m to be reached by 29 February 2016.

Of the £1m raised so far, £655,300 has been raised through crowdfunding with 529 people pledging between £100 and £25,000. Another £345,000 has been raised through share placing, including £275,000 from the directors of Curious Drinks and Chapel Down. Investors will receive a number of benefits, from free tours of the brewery and discounts on beers to their names etched on brewery fermentation tanks.

Chapel Down and Curious Drinks’ home county of Kent has been a source of around a third of investments to date. Chapel Down and Curious Drinks founder, Frazer Thompson, said: ‘We are delighted with how the Curious Drinks fundraising has gone in its first four weeks and are humbled by the phenomenal response we have received.’

Vandals have destroyed a plot of rare Bordeaux vines intended for a €3,000 wine by cutting 500 vine plants down to the root. 

Vineyard vandals attacked the vines last week. The vines were part of a 2.5 hectare plot near Landiras around 30km south of Bordeaux in the Graves area. They were to be used for Liber Pater wine. They were of an unusual grape variety known as Castets, planted directly into the ground without rootstocks as in pre-phylloxera days. They have a density of 20,000 vines per hectare, far higher than the usual 6,000 to 8,000 typical of AOC Graves.

‘These vines were an historical treasure of Bordeaux,’ said owner Loic Pasquet ‘Five years ago I planted several varietals that existed in Bordeaux 200 years ago including castets, mancin and pardotte. ‘The vines are certified organic, and I work with only horses and mules in the vineyard, in an attempt to recapture the tastes of 19th century Bordeaux, at the time of the 1855 classification. I don’t know if this is why I have been targeted, but it is a devastating loss.’

As these old varieties are not in the winemaking charter of the Graves, Pasquet sells the wines as Vin de France. But the rarity, around 1,500 bottles per year, and unusual story means the wines can fetch up to €3,000 per bottle, sold almost entirely in Asia and Russia.

A police enquiry was underway to discover who may have carried out the vandalism, but so far there have been no arrests. 

Majestic Wine, which bought Naked Wines for £70m in April and installed its founder, Rowan Gormley, as its new CEO, said it will now aim to increase its store base to 230 from its current total of 211 – some 100 stores shy of its previous 330-outlet target.

Pre-tax profits at the wine retailer fell by 50% in the first half of its financial year, versus the same period of last year, to £4.3m. Net profits were £1.8m for the six months to 28 September, versus £6.4m a year earlier. Profits largely fell due to charges related to the Naked Wines acquisition and a £2.6m impairment charge associated with its under-performing Lay & Wheeler subsidiary. Property sale proceeds of £4.8m helped to offset some costs.

Few were expecting a good set of numbers after Majestic previously warned it faced tough trading conditions in a UK wine market now dealing with the rise of discounters Aldi and Lidl. Majestic’s share price initially dropped on the results news, but was up by 2.7% for the day by mid-afternoon.