If consumers cannot taste “terroir” should the wine world put so much value on place of origin? Margaret Rand raised the issue, on this very site, in an article titled...
Read More
The Trouble With China
“Don’t trust them,” says Leon Panetta, a rueful former US Defense Secretary interviewed in the BBC’s three-part documentary China: A New World Order, “that’s the bottom line.” It’s advice that...
Read More
Making Sense Of Life
‘What pages are the sex scenes on, so that I don’t waste any time?’ Oz Clarke asked me. I’d sent him my novel, Tasting Notes, and explained, in person first,...
Read More
Decolonising A Wine List
In June last year Rio Tinto destroyed a cave in the Jukaan gorge in Western Australia. With it went 46,000 years of Aboriginal history and one of the most sacred...
Read More
Passion Is Not A Panacea
Sometimes I struggle to keep up. I was only just getting used to the idea of every brand needing to have a “story” and every business a “purpose”. Now, the...
Read More
Anchors
For the last two decades, I have been anchored in Lebanon. I have also been an anchor for people who have left: the friend you could moor your boat to,...
Read More
In Search Of Familiarity
It was a comment by a South African producer a few weeks ago that set me thinking. He said, in effect, that South Africa isn’t making enough Chardonnay. It should,...
Read More
Don’t Over Think It, Just Drink It
My mum is a gardener and sometimes works with a friend and fellow gardener called Don who takes care of hard landscaping, hedges and tree felling. As you’d expect given...
Read More
A Solar System Or A Galaxy?
Noble Rot Magazine recently ran a blind ‘Champagne vs English Sparkling Wine’tasting in which Veuve Clicquot Yellow Label placed higher than a number of fêted smaller producers(the first iteration of...
Read More
Bubblegum In Your Coffee?
When you’re six years old, “less” is never “more”. It’s a glorious time of learning and discovery. But at some point, most of us become aware that it’s cooler (or at...
Read More