The charismatic, warm and fiercely-loved Nicolas Potel left the world stage on Friday afternoon, June 27, 2025. His warm smile, boisterous sense of humor and affinity for a good time...
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In Praise of Mystique
Every generation of wine writers declares that it wants to remove the mystique from wine: to demystify it. I say, enough. Demystify by all means; but I will stand up...
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Mastering Wine Exams
Wine exam week. The long MW one. Close to 22 hours of high-level performance over four days. It’s intense. I sat six weeks’ worth of MW exams. Enough I decided,...
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Who’s Bashing Bordeaux?
Americans call it putting lipstick on a pig. I was listening to one of Corney & Barrow’s Bordeaux Unpicked podcasts the other day. Yes, that’s right, podcasts plural. There are...
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The Dirty Stuff
When you imagine the grape harvest, what do you see? Green vines jewelled with clusters of plump golden grapes, planted in long rows bordered with grasses and wildflowers? Perhaps the...
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The Point of Equilibrium
Someone recently told me that my saying “a bottle of wine is worth whatever the consumer is willing to pay for it” was a lazy, throwaway comment. But it’s the reality! I protest....
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Good Enough?
If you ordered a glass of Sancerre and were served a cheap Sauvignon Blanc instead, would you notice? What about if you asked for Chablis but got the Sauvignon Plonk?...
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Back to the Revolution
The Swartland has got under my skin: the open, dusty, daydream-inducing roads; the dramatic granite outcrops; the big billowing skies; the swathes of slightly unkempt farmland, on the edge of...
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Tides And Time
Earlier this year I took a trip back to Nova Scotia and visited with a few winemakers, all in the stunning Annapolis Valley next to the epic Bay of Fundy...
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Wine Fortunes
“How do you make a small fortune in social media? Start out with a large one,” tweeted Elon Musk shortly after buying Twitter, and I felt like we ought to...
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Seeing Differently
How, today, can a wine surprise us? And does that element of surprise come by accident, while both we and the wine are, as it were, looking elsewhere, or can...
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Under The Weather
Bordeaux needs a break. It was once regarded by the French themselves as the greatest of wine regions, but now youngsters are drinking less (and less wine) – just as...
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