To understand how, in 2014, one man with a grudge managed to bring down some of the highest and mightiest in Bordeaux, you have to know a little about the...
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RIP, two great men of wine
I’m not sure if Peter Lehmann and Tim Hamilton Russell ever met, but I like to think they would have got on, despite their very different personalities. One was a...
Read MoreWine Mosaic: Saving rare grapes from extinction
When was the last time you had a glass of Uvalino, Limniona or Österreichisch Weiss? Possibly not so recently, if ever – all three grape varieties are on the...
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The Swartland Revolution
Every revolution needs a spark, a catalyst that changes things forever. It might not compare with the storming of the Bastille or the fall of the Berlin Wall, but the...
Read MoreThe Pulitzer Prize for Wine Reviews
Though it has yet to gain the kind of attention its other prizes have achieved, the Pulitzer Prize for Wine Reviews was handed out for the first time in 2013....
Read MoreWine: you don’t have to be rich…
Ever felt like making your own wine? If you work in the business, whether as a retailer, sommelier, importer or impoverished hack, the chances are that you’ve entertained just such...
Read MoreGolden Burgundies and funny money
Chapter One It all began so simply. In London, one day in January 2014, the wine writers Tom Nutkin, Albert Joshua and the superstar German winemaker Dr Titan were having...
Read MoreLondon’s wine scene: a tale of two cities
Considering its total lack of vineyards, London’s long-established position in the wine world might seem surprising. But this has proved to be London’s strength; historically there has been no local...
Read MoreThe World Cup of Wine
I don’t care about Canadian wine. I don’t know anybody who does. Canadians should be making wine like Jamaicans should be bobsledding. Oh, but they make great Ice Wines, eh!...
Read MoreIn search of wine expertise
Last week I was an invigilator at the Master of Wine exam in London, supervising a tasting paper that I’d helped to set. Before the roomful of candidates sweated, slurped...
Read MoreFruits, newts and cutes
In the Wine And Novelty Corp. boardroom, the atmosphere was tense. Behind Warner Biggereturne III, the company president, the chart on the electronic whiteboard said it all: wine division sales...
Read MoreWine’s whistle blowers
Traitor or patriot? Whistleblower or scoundrel? Depending on your point of view, Edward Snowden, the man behind the recent revelations about the National Security Agency’s surveillance techniques, is either a...
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