You’re standing in the wine shop, a crisp £50 in your pocket. No agenda, just prospecting for something serious. To the right, the shelf which ought to be labelled ‘good...
Read More
What Is Real Wine?
It is, perhaps, a blessing that nobody has claimed Real Wine as a product category, just yet at least. The intention, however, is certainly there. Natural wine might be the...
Read More
The Myth Of Aristocracy
I have not yet been to the cinema to see the latest despatch from that castellated stately home where half the inhabitants speak in a strange strangulated drawl and wear...
Read More
Transcending Our Binary Bonds
Shawshank Redemption is a pretty shitty action flick. I mean, like, horrendous. On the 100-point “Action Film” scale, it comes very close to being “faulty”. HOWEVER, on the “Epic Drama”...
Read More
Back And Forth
Which is easier, to persuade people to drink a wine young if they think they should age it, or to age a wine they thought they could drink young? You...
Read More
Wine Trade Blues
The most fascinating job title I’ve ever run across is grain merchant. A friend had just moved to London and decided to spend the first few months living big, which...
Read More
The Meaning Of Resilience
It’s a decision most of us will never have to make, thank goodness. You have a few seconds to pack a single bag: what do you take? Throw in a...
Read More
Before, During, After
Is it the thought of a wine yet to be tasted that gets you going? A world of cellars exists in tribute to the unopened bottle’s allure. Billions of dollars...
Read More
Writing Your Own Lines
I’m a writer. What I do every day – and am doing now – is try to put different words together in different ways in order to make people think....
Read More
New Wine In Old Bottles
I should have expected it in a temple of Tuscan kitsch: Chianti in fiasco, the bulbous bottles wrapped in straw that were a symbol of Italian eateries in 1970s Britain....
Read More