I love Australia, because it shows you what California would look like if the South had won the Civil War. You get so few good counterfactuals in history. And I love...
A Brief Australian Fling
A Natural Solution?
Considering we have the good fortune to deal with one of mankind’s greatest creations, we wine people spend a lot of time worrying. Our industry is inextricably linked to nature...
The Disenfranchised
If you search in Google for “countries without a wine culture,” it returns an entry for “What countries are dry?”: “Pakistan, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Mauritania, Libya, the Maldives, Iran,...
A Hedonist’s Paradise
No one needs an excuse to go to Wellington, New Zealand’s most cosmopolitan, food-loving city, when it’s central heating and thermals time back in Europe. But throw in the chance...
Argentina’s Malbec obsession
Is Argentina too dependent on Malbec? The question might seem absurd – few countries have managed to associate themselves so successfully with a single grape – but it’s beginning to...
Before the rain: 25 wine euphemisms
They’ve barely picked a grape in Bordeaux, but the region’s euphemism generator is already up and running. “A winemaker’s vintage”, as one château owner described the 2012, is another way...
Cherishing the unpredictability of wine
The jazz singer Nina Simone was a notoriously moody performer. Catch her on a good night and she was sublime; hear her play on a bad one and she was...
Armenia: Making Wines Its Own Way
Armenians are a fiercely proud people. They claim many firsts and many more “bests”. When you visit Armenia, as I did just before harvest last year, everyone you meet reminds you...
Age is just a number, unless…you’re...
“Age is a just a number. It’s totally irrelevant unless, of course, you happen to be a bottle of wine,” said the actress Joan Collins, who looks uncannily youthful at...
