What does success look like for the UK’s best wine bloggers? Gaining ever more readers? An endless stream of free samples? Or perhaps earning money from advertising? It’s different for...
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Semillon: the naked grape
When I was younger, fitter and considerably trimmer than I am now, I took part (twice) in a wine trade version of The Full Monty for charity. The name of...
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Wine is Just So Depressing
It’s just so hard to learn about wine. I try and I try, but, frankly, it’s depressing. Really depressing. I guess that’s just the way of the world right now....
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Lidl takes the low road
It was a familiar scenario. Offer Brits what seems like a bargain and they’ll form orderly queues at 6.30am on a Bank Holiday Monday. To be fair to those early...
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The Emperor of Wine Donald Trump’s Guerrilla Guide to Wine
Wine is simple, folks. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. It’s simple. Believe me, I know simple. I married simple. Wine isn’t hard to understand. It isn’t hard to understand,...
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Floral testimony
In the car park on my street there is a rose bush. Every so often when walking past I pause to cup one of the red flowers in my hand,...
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Burgundy’s net benefits
It’s squeaky bum time in Chablis at the moment. Grape growers all over the world consult weather forecasts on a regular basis, but in the Yonne it’s almost an obsession....
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Parker in the Bardo
The Emperor of Wine was brooding. What had it all been for, he asked himself. The power, the points, the bluster. Now, nearly 70, the body breaking down like En...
Read MoreWhose wine is it anyway?
“…and cool wine, fitting glove-like over those finer nerves that seem to tremble from the roof of my mouth and make it spread (as I drink) into a domed cavern,...
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Roll over leafroll?
The vineyards of the Western Cape are at their most beautiful in the autumn, a variegated canvas of browns, reds, oranges and yellows. But those colours hide a secret that...
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The Threat of Global Wine Terrorism
The threat of global terrorism has finally reached the wine business. Wineries, importers, sommeliers, wine writers— all have found themselves under siege from various loosely organized but determined groups of...
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Fino’s context warning
Elegy V Here take my picture; though I bid farewellThine, in my heart, where my soul dwells, shall dwell. Tis like me now, but I dead, ‘twill be more When...
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