A five hour flight to Lebanon coupled with a lengthy, fog-bound delay at Heathrow is a good time to do some reading about this most complex of Middle Eastern countries....
Read MoreOdds-on winner
Why don’t off-licence managers look out of the window in the morning? The answer, according to a joke that’s doing the rounds in the booze trade, is that they’d have...
Read MoreThe Outsiders come to London
Getting to grips with terroir “Have you ever thought about making your own wine?” If you write about fermented grape juice for a living it doesn’t take long before someone...
Read MoreTime to learn Mandarin?
David Cameron’s visit to Beijing this week at the head of the biggest-ever British trade delegation acknowledged a simple, if slightly uncomfortable fact. For the foreseeable future, the world’s economy...
Read MoreWhy is Asia in love with Lafite?
A long face is almost de rigueur for anyone working in the London wine trade right now. There was a brief outbreak of optimism in the late spring and early...
Read MoreWrangles at Wine Australia
What’s happening to the Australian wine industry at the moment reminds me of the famous line from Oscar Wilde’s play, The Importance of Being Earnest: “To lose one parent may...
Read MoreBurgundy 2009: first impressions
Dominique Lafon “Hey, guys, great choice of time to visit.” Dominique Lafon of Domaine des Comtes Lafon in Meursault was only voicing the views of many of the Burgundian growers...
Read MoreGrape heists – no ladder required
It was among the most famous heists in the art world. Early one February morning in 1994, two crooks propped a ladder against the wall of Oslo’s National Gallery. They...
Read MoreAustralia: the joy of Melbourne
Coffee culture You don’t need an excuse to spend time in Melbourne. At least, I don’t. It’s Australia’s most cosmopolitan city, with a fantastic food and wine culture and some...
Read MoreWine and alcohol: how low should you go?
“And how many units of wine do you drink a week?” If you’ve been to see your GP for a health assessment recently, you may recognize the question as well...
Read MoreA wino visits El Bulli
General de Gaulle famously complained about the difficulty of governing a country that produced 246 different cheeses. Dining at El Bulli, the world’s most famous restaurant, leaves you with a...
Read MorePass the artichokes: difficult food and wine matches
Long before Ant and Dec came up with the idea of subjecting minor celebrities to the indignity of eating witchetty grubs in the Australian jungle, a friend of mine invented...
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