“Taste must not be confused with gastronomy. Whereas taste in the natural gift of recognizing and loving perfection, gastronomy is the set of rules which govern the cultivation and education...
Read MoreCOP28 And Its Implications For The Wine Industry.
The United Arab Emirates was a contentious host for the 28th United Nations Climate Change Conference, and Sultan Al Jaber oversaw two weeks of tense negotiations and fractious debates under...
Read MoreOn Paragons And Icons
My late friend Michael Cox, who ran Wines of Chile’s UK office for more than a decade, had a great line about so-called “icon wines”. “Is that one word or...
Read MoreA Greek (Wine) Christmas
I knew Greece had lost the struggle against its perennial bugbears of Westernisation and capitalism, when I saw on TV that the big Christmas tree in Syntagma Square went up...
Read MoreA Good Marriage
Most wines are diminished by food. Discuss, writing on both sides of the paper at once, preferably in green ink. How could it not be so? Wines today are intended...
Read MoreLove Wine
Have you met your vinous soulmate? No, not your drinking partner, though we all need one of those, but the wine or wines with which you have connected to such...
Read MoreWho Pays The Wine Critic?
Few subjects are as thorny for wine writers as their dependence on the industry – for samples, travel and more. We hear whispers of conflicts of interest at wine publications:...
Read MoreSame, Same But Different
There is no such thing as Jane Eyre, or the Mona Lisa, or Citizen Kane. Or a bottle of Château Lafite or Pinot Grigio. At least, there is no precise...
Read MorePouring Politics
A recent article in Punch argued that we must re-inject politics into wine: “Without politics, terroir is just soil.” The article’s pretext was that some sort of ideological power play...
Read MoreDrink Promiscuously
It bothers me that wine drinkers frequently choose wine based on colour, or indeed dismiss those of the “wrong” colour. I have encountered this discrimination most overtly in the rosé...
Read MorePostmodern Wine
If you are wondering why Threads has not caught up with Twitter yet, the answer is Direct Messages. A lot is made of the performative nature of social media posts,...
Read MoreRioja On The Rocks
It should have been a moment of celebration, a chance to hymn the qualities of a special place. José Luiz Pérez-Linares’ documentary, Rioja: La Tierra de Mil Vinos, will be...
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