The Inuit languages famously have more than 50 words to describe different types of snow, enabling native speakers to distinguish between a landscape that is variously fresh, firm, packed, rippled,...
Read MoreIn praise of older wines
How long does it take you to drink a bottle of wine once you’ve bought it? A day? A week? A year? I’m not sure how accurate the statistic is,...
Read MoreAre wine consumers stupid?
One of my favourite “Yobs” cartoons from Private Eye shows a couple of thugs sitting at a restaurant table. “Great,” says the male skinhead to the sommelier awaiting his verdict...
Read MoreThe cult of the winemaker
The death of the Nouvelle Vague film director Claude Chabrol earlier this week has prompted a spate of national mourning in France, with president Sarkozy comparing the great man to...
Read MoreSyrah: New Zealand’s other great red
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,...
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