I saw Christmas decorations in the supermarket today. Admittedly, they were tucked behind ranks of lurid Halloween costumes – but still. Between these and the inexplicable (and surely eternally unused)...
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Do winemakers improve with age?
Peter Sisseck poured a sample of his 2016 Pingus with obvious pride, watching my eyes for a reaction. He’s a thoughtful, modest man, who abhors self-promotion and would never think...
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Our vanishing Master Sommeliers
Researchers say there are no more than 273 of them left in the world. Many of the males are old, long past a desirable reproductive age. They’re nocturnal for the...
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Is an imitation wine better than a fake?
Charles Caleb Colton is originally credited with the phrase, “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.” Yet it more often is attributed to Oscar Wilde, whose cheeky addition “…that mediocrity...
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The Wine Writers of Penzance
A scenic market town in South England. A gang of rowdy wine writers have ambushed a party of innocent wine sellers. The leading seller, a jovial, portly man in his...
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Bad times in Buenos Aires
Every year at the end of my three-week tour of Argentina, I sit down with Dr Nicolas Catena of Bodega Catena Zapata for breakfast. He, inevitably, wants to talk about...
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Freddie Perjury, Director of Greenwashing
Prick Family Vineyards owner Rich Prick has announced the hiring of Freddie Perjury as Director of Greenwashing. “I’ve given Freddie the assignment of communicating to the wine buying public our...
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Eccentric Current
English sparkling wine producers collectively present a terribly well-to-do appearance, all smart chinos and glasses of fizz on the lawn. But Pythonesque tendrils are creeping through the cracks in the...
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The Cost of the Dream
Is marriage a matter of the head or the heart? Driving back from my godson’s wedding in Nottingham recently, I heard an interview with Baroness Fiona Shackleton, Britain’s leading divorce...
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Natural Disaster Wines
Natural Wines are so last year. Oh, there’s the usual set of One Trick Phonies out there who will never stop evangelizing for Natural Wines. What else do they have?...
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Rock wine: the dry whites of Santorini
A staple of wine lore is how much better wine tastes at the place of its production. The bottle of Chianti at a villa in the Tuscan hills; the Provencal...
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Wine’s Magic Sauce
With the country sweltering through a heatwave, work sludges onwards towards August. Through an endless relay of ‘Out Of Office’ auto-responses, there’s only one thing everyone’s mind: holidays, and all...
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