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...
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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...
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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....
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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....
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Something Beyond Ourselves
As I write we’re experiencing again what the Belfast-born poet Louis MacNeice recorded in Autumn Journal, composed in 1938: “the heavy panic that cramps the lungs and presses/ The collar...
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None More Black
People who talk about wine rarely mention their conflicts of interest, so let me put mine front and centre: my first dinner date with my now wife included a bottle...
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Until We Meet Again
When I was starting out in wine, I used to worry that I couldn’t point to a single transformative moment at the start of my career. You know, THE ONE...
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Beautiful Things
When a wine costs north of £600 a bottle, what should you expect of it? What is it reasonable to expect of any wine? Is it reasonable to think of...
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The Colours Of Infinity
“In everyday language, when we say that something seems complex what we typically mean is that we have not managed to find any simple description of it… what we are...
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Wrestling With Wine
In the early days of What Wine? magazine, the editor considered it a novel idea to invite actual consumers along to our tastings. If they were celebrities, even Z list...
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