Back in 2007, I was one of a number of journalists who attended New Zealand’s first ever Syrah Symposium in Hawke’s Bay. It was a bold — some might say...
Read MoreJilly G, Gary V and wine TV
Call me a member of an endangered minority, but I still miss Food and Drink, the BBC cookery show that Delia Smith once dubbed “the most disgusting programme on television”....
Read MoreTurning water into wine
Someone once described the BBC as the “least worst” television service in the world, an opinion which remains valid while the licence fee continues to exist. The quote reminded me...
Read MoreIn defence of Chardonnay
What’s the most insulting thing you can do to a grape? Mixing it with cola, lemonade or tonic water is a slap in the face, but the lowest of low...
Read MoreSherry: the world’s greatest fortified wine
It’s the first rule of pessimism that when things are bad they invariably get worse. Just ask Sarah Ferguson or the nine Sherry bodegas who were recently fined E6.7m by...
Read More2009 Bordeaux en primeur: will the bubble burst?
A friend who works for a City hedge fund calls it “the taxi driver moment”. His theory is that when London cabbies start talking about a guaranteed way to make...
Read MoreNovelty wines: Arrogant Frog and other labels
Back in the early 1980s, the Australian producer Wolf Blass invented a sparkling red called René Pogel. Wolfie, as he’s known to friends, is a brash, but extremely successful bloke,...
Read MoreThe other side of own-label
As oxymorons go, they may not be as absurd as “French resistance”, “amicable divorce” and “camping holiday”, but there’s still something fundamentally silly about Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference Spaghetti Bolognese,...
Read MoreWine, social media and the power of the internet
Clay Shirky may sound like the sort of moniker people come up with when they combine their first pet with their mother’s maiden name to create a fictional porn star,...
Read MoreRasputin and underwater wines
What is it about the Baltic and champagne? Last week’s high profile discovery of a cache of bubbly aboard a shipwreck is not the first time fizz has been found...
Read MoreWines to drink by the Med
When the package tour operator Goldtrail Travel collapsed last week, cancelling the summer holidays of some 50,000 customers, bar owners in Greece and Turkey must have had mixed feelings. Goldtrail’s...
Read More