Before I knew anything about Roger Scruton, who died last year, I knew him from his wine column in the New Statesman, which ran from 2001 to 2009. In what...
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On Wine Education
If you think A-Levels are hard, it’s because you’ve never attempted the Panhellenic exams. A gruelling, ruthless ordeal, it holds a special place in the Greek national psyche. Perhaps its...
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Voor-Paardeberg: The Birth of the Revolution
South Africa has been experiencing renewed international interest for its wines of genuine quality, thanks in part to The Swartland Revolution; a winemaking movement that took root in the hot...
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Powerful Elegance
There was a broadcast on BBC Radio 3, the other week, of an old recording of Maria Callas in Lucia di Lammermoor. I forget who the other singers were, but...
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Wine’s Invisible Cities
Nested in the discussion of “Big” versus “Small” Champagne is an interesting question I saw posed by Oregon winemaker Jason Lett of Eyrie vineyards: “Is the Traditional Method antithetical to...
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Vintionary
What’s the word for the stretch of wet sand on a beach, revealed as the wave ebbs, just before the sun dries it? That piece of unmarked land, that drenched...
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The Wisdom Of Age
Call it serendipity, call it fate, but there are times when events and conversations seem to align. You go for months without thinking about something and then it’s everywhere, filling...
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Survivor Vines
Navigating St. Helena Road on my way to a vineyard tour, I suddenly feel a quivering sense of fear. It’s not because the narrow, winding route has me gazing over...
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On Reviews And Scores
In the last few days I was asked for my opinion on the walking shoes I had bought the week before, and on the book I’d just finished reading. Sainsbury’s...
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Reds From The Iron Mountain
Monferrato is a land on the margins of history. Among the ruins of industrial archaeology and a landscape that could be in the Balkans, lies a land that is of...
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How to enjoy the ephemeral pleasures of wine
Among all the bottles in what I somewhat pretentiously call my “cellar”, this one had followed me most faithfully. It must have rested briefly in the flat I shared with...
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Wine Hands
“Take my hand, tenez, trust me, leap, I won’t let go.” A favourite memory in rain-soaked Chablis, flood waters rising, taking a supplier’s outstretched hand as his courtyard began to...
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