Last week was exhausting. In the course of judging the 2016 Graffigna London Steak Awards I had to visit four of London’s best steak restaurants on four consecutive nights. I...
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The Tour de West Norwood
Whilst most of my boyhood friends had pictures of John Barnes or Ian Rush on their walls, I had Gianni Bugno and Laurent Jalabert. In my teens, cycling was my...
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The Spanish Revolution
Which country makes the finest wines in the world? When the Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi gave a speech at Vinitaly earlier this year, he caused a stir in the...
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Announcing Master of Wine Lite
The Institute of Masters of Wine is pleased to announce its new program, Masters of Wine Lite©. Tired of being the only person in your wine tasting group without initials...
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Some like it cool
At the first wine course I ever took the tutor explained that Syrah and Shiraz are actually the same grape but under different names. It felt like an illuminating nugget...
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Alice’s Adventures in Naturaland, and Through the Isinglass
Chapter One: Down the Rabbit Hole Alice was getting very tired of sitting by herself on the bank. Though she was usually by herself, unless she was at a wine...
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Hey, big spender: wine on the high street
Failing the emergence of a last minute saviour, BHS looks set to slide into administration this month, joining a list of major high street casualties that includes Comet, Woolworths and...
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En primeur: the other side of Bordeaux
The ‘primeur’ show is over for another year and the dust has settled here in Bordeaux. The journalists and buyers of the wine world with their brimming laptops and stained...
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Chapoutier 2015 Sélections Parcellaires: the best vintage since 1990?
Every spring, Rhône ringleader Michel Chapoutier comes to London to unveil the new vintage of his top single vineyard wines, the Sélections Parcellaires. It’s a hotly anticipated tasting for a...
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The Climate Change Paradox
You don’t have to be meteorologist to appreciate that something very unusual is happening to the world’s weather right now. I’ve just got back from South Africa, where dams were...
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The truth about the 1976 Judgment of Paris
Forty years later, it’s time to finally reveal that the Paris Tasting of 1976 was staged, much like Neal Armstrong’s phony moon landing, Elvis Presley’s death and auction wines. Furthermore,...
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South Africa triumphs at the Lismore Chardonnay tasting
Way back in 1992, so long ago that it’s even disappeared from remaindered bookshelves, I wrote a tome about Chardonnay. It was a tour d’horizon of the world’s most popular...
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