A bunch of anonymous newsletters targeting the wine Twitter bubble started circulating anonymously during lockdown. The content was meant to be satirical. Some of it was amusing, some statements about...
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The Year that Changed the Wine World
“Never A Dull Moment” is the title of a wonderful book about what its author David Hepworth calls “rock’s golden year”. 1971 was indeed an annus mirabilis for music, witnessing...
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On Wine Influencers
In the beginning there was writing and television. Television was Oz Clarke and Jilly Golden on Food and Drink. Love it or loathe it, and interestingly enough Jilly was the...
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The Joys of Serendipity
Bottles of wine don’t usually carry a sell-by date, though supermarket staples may come with advice to drink in the next six to 12 months (in actual fact they’re likely...
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The View from Abroad
One of the nice things about wine publications is that one gets to read about more than the liquid itself. Wine writing can function as food writing, travelogue, cultural study,...
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The Vanishing Point
I have an age problem. First of all, 38 years of tasting young wines has conditioned me to their charms – their energy, their freshness. Second, there’s little point in...
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The Good Old Days
“It is quite remarkable how Britain has gone from being a still white wine producer of declining relevancy in the world of wine to being a contender for the title...
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Lebanon: memorable wines in memorable times
As a former Evening Standard hack, I’m hardened to bad news stories, but I gasped in shock when the news broke on August 4 of the huge explosion in the...
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Who holds the balance of power in Champagne?
The fierce dispute about the level of yield for the 2020 harvest to be agreed in Champagne has been widely, if not always entirely accurately, reported in the press. National...
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A Virtual Tour of Greece
Let me invite you to a concert for the world’s smallest bouzouki. Rationally, I know full well that whining about not being able to travel in these circumstances is akin...
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Lost in Translation?
Edmund Penning-Rowsell’s vast The Wines of Bordeaux (1969) is more textbook than billet-doux, though you won’t come away from it knowing how to make wine or grow grapes any better than...
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Going off the radar
I am dreading a big COVID cull when my next NYC’s Best Wine Bars and Best Restaurant Wine Lists are published. In some cases, the establishments will be gone for good....
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