by Tim Atkin

Eating out? Please bring a bottle

How do you spend $47,221.09 on lunch for six people? Assuming your credit card company will authorise the transaction, it’s surprisingly easy if you’re a billionaire. To paraphrase Withnail in...

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by Tim Atkin

Au revoir, Chamarré?

“Made in France, enjoyed everywhere,” runs the tag line on Chamarré’s appropriately colourful website. At the time of writing, both parts of this statement remain true, but for how much...

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by Tim Atkin

The trouble with Australia

Australians don’t do pessimism. They’re generally such a chipper, stop-moaning-and-get on with-it nation that they’d rather share a hot tub with a great white shark than be accused of whingeing...

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by Tim Atkin

Grenache and Woody Allen’s Zelig

Some grapes are born great, some achieve greatness, while others have greatness thrust upon them. But what about the supporting actors: the spear carriers, the chorus, the walk-on parts? There...

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by Tim Atkin

World Cup Wines

Here we go. Or rather ‘ere we go, ‘ere we go, ‘ere we go. Unless you’ve been in solitary confinement for the last year, you’ll be aware that the World...

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by Tim Atkin

What’s great about Grenache

Delegates at the first ever conference dedicated to Grenache were handed a bag celebrating “G-Day” upon arrival, a tongue-in-cheek allusion to the Normandy landings in June sixty-six years earlier. To...

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by Tim Atkin

A taste of English fizz

How do you define Englishness? To some, it’s village greens, warm beer, stiff upper lips, pinstriped suits and the changing of the guard. To others, it’s a little less idealised...

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by Tim Atkin

Beaujolais – more than nouveau

Talking about Beaujolais in May feels weird, like donning thermals in the height of summer. This vibrant, juicy red is so closely associated with Beaujolais nouveau day, a worldwide celebration...

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by Tim Atkin

Wine and the spirit of co-operation

Co-operation may be fashionable in political circles at the moment, but in the wine business it’s increasingly regarded as the equivalent of a tweed skirt: frumpy, moth-eaten and distinctly old-fashioned....

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