“All our hands are dirty, but some are dirtier than others” – Frédéric Neyrat Climate, for so long a remote ledger of mankind’s bid to unshackle itself from the brutishness...
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The Taste of Smoke
I write in a time of ashes. Not only have certain political dreams and projects recently gone up in smoke; the destructive fires have been raging more literally, all across...
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Not Bending It Like Beckham
I have often been told I am a dream restaurant customer. I love thinking and discussing everything about them: the décor, the ambience, the service, the food and the wine...
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On wine, memory and Christmas
When I was training to be a radio journalist in the 1990s there was a machine in one of the radio studios called the ‘bulk eraser’. As the name suggests...
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Future Forward
What we’ll be drinking in 2029 In my grandmother’s kitchen there’s a cover of The Sunday Times Magazine stuck on one of the cupboards. It’s the final edition from 2009,...
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This Wine Will Save Your Soul
The problem with historical turning points is that the verdict is not out until it’s too late. It is clear now that corporal punishment is a cruel and ineffective tool...
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What makes a wine taste expensive?
It happened at a Berry Bros tasting, down in the cellars where the floors are so uneven that they give you the impression you’ve absorbed a lot more alcohol than...
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How to become a coffee nerd
In the world of Monday Mornings, overly perky baristas are an unnecessary evil. Not least of all the one spouting one-liners about “their amazing carbonic maceration natural Ethiopian Gesha”. Because,...
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Let’s hear it for Sherry
Cardiff is an unlikely place for an epiphany. The Welsh capital has its attractions, especially on rugby match days at the Millennium Stadium, but no one would mistake it for...
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The Great Vinous Jukebox: A Top 10 Playlist of Wine in Song
There’s a truly wonderful mathematics-based essay on the improbability of the cheating couple in The Piña Colada Song (aka Escape by Rupert Holmes) ending up on a blind date with...
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White wine rising
Though the “ABC”, or “Anything But Chardonnay” campaign continues to rail against it, Chardonnay remains the favourite white grape of USA wine drinkers. It is also the planet’s most planted,...
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Beyond the Cellar Door
The pencil was a sharp as a tack. The tasting sheets were beautifully designed, with just the right amount of information: geeky, yet precise, containing useful details about vineyards and...
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