Talk about negative publicity. No wine industry would welcome headlines about the “dismal, dangerous lives” of its agricultural workers, but for South Africa, still keen to persuade the world that...
Read MoreLodi: California’s missing link
You can drive from the southern end of the Napa Valley to Lodi at the northern end of the Central Valley in just over an hour, but the two regions...
Read MoreWhat price wine elitism?
Maybe no one should be surprised that when looters took to the streets in Clapham Junction last week, one of the few shops they left untouched was Waterstone’s. They were...
Read MoreCelebrating 25 years of the IPNC
What would a neo-Prohibitionist make of the International Pinot Noir Celebration in McMinnville, Oregon? There’s enough wine consumed over the course of the three day festival to stock a chain...
Read MoreBordeaux 2010: end of term report
At last, the 2010 en primeur campaign is over. Even for people who are fascinated by what happens in the world’s largest fine wine region, it had become a bore...
Read MoreSouth Africa’s Mediterranean future
For anyone interested in South African wine, London has been as exciting a place to be as Cape Town over the last month. First we were treated to an audience...
Read MoreBordeaux en primeur: the case for change
As Bordeaux packs up the tents, ice buckets and traffic barriers for another year at Vinexpo, the region’s biennial trade fair, its focus has returned to the 2010 en primeur...
Read MoreSleepless in Bordeaux?
As Bordeaux prepares to welcome the world to the biennial Vinexpo trade fair this weekend, the increasingly overblown 2010 en primeur campaign has gone into hibernation. But what happened earlier...
Read MoreA world without Bordeaux en primeur?
It’s a bank holiday in France today, so the 2011 en primeur bandwagon has been pushed into a lay-by until tomorrow morning. To be honest, it’s barely got out of...
Read MoreThe joy of Austrian red wines
Heaven, runs the old joke, is where the police are British, the chefs Italian, the mechanics German, the lovers French and it’s all organised by the Swiss. Hell, on the...
Read MoreAustralia: lessons from the past
There’s nothing like a tasting of old wines to give you a sense of perspective. Sipping from bottles that were made before you were born (increasingly rare in my case...
Read MoreTwo great South African white blends
Wandering around the London International Wine Fair can be a bewildering experience. You could spend three weeks at ExCel, a series of ugly aircraft hangers in the Docklands, and only...
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