The story of Rioja resembles the old Chinese curse – they’ve lived through many interesting times. Boom and bust, fame and oblivion. Rioja wine is on the ascent again as...
Read MoreTen things you need to know about the 2011 Burgundy vintage
My full report on the very enjoyable 2011 vintage in Burgundy will be published in January 2013, once I have tasted another 1000+ plus samples in London, but these are...
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Eleven shades of Nebbiolo
To begin with I didn’t get it. Drinking Nebbiolo seemed like trying to swallow a cube, cut from a tree. It was hard, it was sharp, it was dry; and...
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Turkish Delights
Diyarbakir in south-eastern Anatolia is one of the wine world’s wilder fringes. Rugged, mountainous and remote, it’s a place where grape growers carry guns and Kurdish separatism is openly discussed....
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Etna: wines from the volcano
As far as wine regions go, Mount Etna could be described as a wine geek’s wet dream. Volcanic soil, obscure indigenous grape varieties, high altitudes and pre-phylloxera vineyards are just...
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What’s the point of food and wine matching?
One of my earliest gigs as a wine writer was to write up profiles of some of the world’s hottest sommeliers for the Decanter website (which, at the time, generated...
Read MoreThinking outside the shop
Some interesting things have been happening to the wine shop over the past few years. Evolutionary pressures appear to have pushed it into unexpected territory. Ten years ago, it wasn’t...
Read MoreCreating a stink about screwcaps
Imagine being a cork salesman in Australia. If you turned up suffering from bubonic plague, a dead rat dangling from each hand, you’d be only slightly less welcome at most...
Read MoreDo New World wines age?
What’s the difference between a New and an Old World wine? Twenty-seven years ago, when I started writing about the subject, the distinction was clear-cut. The received wisdom was that...
Read MoreWine education: the difference between a Bordeaux and a claret
“I love Chablis, but I can’t stand Chardonnay.” Anyone who has ever done a public tasting, mixing with people who know what they like but not a lot more, will...
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Trocken roll: Riesling remixed
Generational bickering between winemakers is nothing new. Sometimes, like the use of barriques in Barolo, it’s a stylistic choice rather than a simple ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way of doing things....
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Patrick Sandeman: a life well lived
It was one of those where-were-you-when-you-heard-the-news moments. I was sitting at my computer on a Sunday evening when I saw a Tweet by wine journalist, Guy Woodward: “Truly terrible news...
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