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...
Read MoreCanada: you can’t build an industry on Icewine
I wonder how many people buy themselves a second bottle of sparkling Icewine. Fun to try once, but it can feel a little bit… gimmicky. Let’s face it, who even...
Read MoreHow to Throw a Perfect Home Wine Tasting
More often than not, when I attend a wine tasting at a private home it’s disastrous. And not just because I was invited. A wine tasting seems like an easy...
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Meet the Osborns
There can’t be many world-famous wineries founded by teetotalers, but d’Arenberg in McLaren Vale is one of them. Despite working in the industry as company secretary at Thomas Hardy &...
Read MoreLooking for the BrewDog of wine
How conservative is the wine business? Less than it once was is the obvious answer, at least in the UK. When I started writing about the subject in the mid-1980s,...
Read MoreRawfair steals the show
It’s the third Monday in May. I’m in East London, in a barn of a building, buzzing with wine producers, press and trade. There’s a palpable sense of excitement throughout...
Read MoreIn a parallel universe
In a parallel universe 1 (in which there is an Empress of Wine.) The most influential voice in the parallel wine world is Roberta Parker who regularly appears on television demonstrating...
Read MoreThe London Wine Fair: time to move
When the London International Wine Fair closes its doors at ExCel next Wednesday evening it will mark the end of a short and not particularly distinguished era in the show’s...
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The Wine Snob: an endangered species?
The snob may look just like you and me, but it is a parasite in disguise. It leaves its victim poisoned. When the snob discovered wine, like a facehugger, it...
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