Is Sherry in danger of becoming cool? Outside London, where a new generation of Spanish restaurants and tapas bars is slowly transforming the image of this most traditional of fortified...
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Should cats sell wine?
The first rule of the internet is that pictures of cats will beat anything in popularity. I have a writer friend who is pretty big on Twitter. He has 20k...
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Wine’s missing link
Thank God the food, music and art world aren’t run by the people who run the wine industry. Artists, musicians and chefs are allowed, and even encouraged, to experiment, to...
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Who judges the judges? More thoughts on wine competitions
We are living in – as the Chinese might say – electorally interesting times. India has just collectively decided to hand its governance to Narendra Modi who is variously described...
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What’s the point of wine competitions?
Wine competitions are the worst way to identify the world’s best wines. Apart from all the others that have been tried. I make no excuse for mangling Churchill’s famous quote...
Read MoreChapoutier’s class of 2013
If the majority of the press surrounding the 2013 vintage in Bordeaux is to be believed, most en primeur samples should have been gathered up, put in a sack and...
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Tokaj’s silver lining
The Tokaj wine region organised its second wine auction recently. Modelled on the Hospices de Beaune, it featured unique lots of dry and sweet wines offered by the 136-litre barrel,...
Read MoreWine’s Forbidden Love
I’m not sure how I’m going to get through this confession. And, to be perfectly honest, I know that after reading it, you’re going to think differently about me, think...
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The rain in Spain
It’s probably scant consolation to château owners struggling to sell their wines en primeur right now, but Bordeaux wasn’t the only European region that had a difficult vintage in 2013....
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Museum pieces
There aren’t many wine writers, I imagine, who have been accused of communicating with the dead, but way back in the 1990s, The Sunday Times did describe me as a...
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Madeira quake
I always find it strange how fortified wines – Sherry, Port and Madeira – are so often portrayed as drinks for vicars and old ladies. The reality is these are...
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Bordeaux 2004: the indefinite article
This write-up is late, but then so was the vintage. It was interrupted by a visit to Georgia for the International Wine Tourism conference. (Georgia demands much, but gives more....
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