The ‘Wine Mom’ has become an infamous staple of popular culture. She loves a meme, her personalised ‘mummy juice’ glassware and sassy ‘wine o’clock’ kitchen signage – and she can’t...
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Capital ventures
When London’s first urban winery opened in 2013, I was cynical. But London Cru is still going strong, having since won multiple awards for its wines and gained listings in...
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South African wine’s Day Zero
Day Zero sounds like the title of a dystopian disaster movie, starring Matt Damon or an ageing Bruce Willis perhaps. But what’s happening in South Africa right now has nothing...
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So You Wanna Be a Wine Judge.Com
Hello! And welcome to So You Wanna Be a Wine Judge.Com!, your online wine judge certification program. Once you complete this simple online course, you’ll be completely qualified to judge...
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The mindful glass?
27 Wine is as good as life to a man, if it be drunk moderately: what life is then to a man that is without wine? for it was made to...
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Praising Chile’s diversity
The samples didn’t look very special, to be honest. Bottled in the sort of thing they ask you to fill in doctor’s surgeries, they’d arrived by plane from the south...
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Why buy Bordeaux en primeur?
During Richard Nixon’s visit to Beijing in 1972, the Chinese premier Zhou Enlai was asked what impact he thought the 1789 French Revolution had had on the world. His reply...
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What do we mean by fine wine?
“Wine doesn’t get much better than this”, a London-based wine merchant wrote on Instagram recently. Pictured above his comment was the cork from a bottle of 1959 Château Lafite-Rothschild, his...
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The Future of Wine (1988)
When I first began blogging about wine back in 1988, there wasn’t even an internet. The whole world was like North Korea, except with dogs. That didn’t stop me from...
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The perfect 8/10 vintage
Last week I opened a bottle of 2010 Bordeaux. Nothing fancy – Château La Tour de By, a reliable Cru Bourgeois from the Médoc. Nope; still not ready. It hardly...
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The HoseMaster of Wine’s Christmas wish list
Dear Santa, This Christmas, I don’t want anything for myself. I have everything I need, Santa. A cellar filled with the great wines of the world, and Oregon wines, too....
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Deluxe redux
Serendipity is part of the pleasure of owning a wine cellar. Unless you’re the kind of person who keeps a log of every bottle that’s down there – I’m as...
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