Burrowing
by Tom Hewson
A confession: I’m pretty sure I used the term ‘Kafkaesque’ before I’d read any Kafka. In itself this could count as faintly Kafkaesque in its admission that authenticity and the...
Author: Tim Atkin
Wine Cultures
by Peter Pharos
I think it was the bottle filled with urine that did it in the end. I felt bad for my friend. This was meant to be the evening of a...
Christmas Wine
by Peter Pharos
You can tell a lot about a business by the film it chooses as representative of its customers. In the case of wine, the everlasting popularity of Sideways among professionals...
On The Trail Of Peruvian Wine
by Tim Atkin
Where is the gastronomic capital of the world? Lyon perhaps? San Sebastian? A growing number of foodies and critics would nominate Lima right now. Restaurants like Central, Maido and Osaka...
On Complexity
by Margaret Rand
A wine, like a short story, should have a beginning, a middle and an end. Nobody would disagree with that. But how many do? How many start, toddle along for...
The Passing
by Clare Tooley MW
Hard not to crave and seek, magpie-like, the shiny brightness and vigorous fruit burst of a brand-new wine. We open our bottles within hours of purchase and revel in instant...
A Sensorial Symphony
by Susan Lin MW
Vibrant. Rich. Exciting. Layered. Powerful. Complex. These words describe the third movement of Johannes Brahms’ Violin Concerto in D Major. They also describe a vintage Champagne of excellent quality. In...
On Marginality
by Charlie Leary
In the early 1990s, I tried growing wine grapes in Louisiana, near the Mississippi border. As I recall, Ruby Cabernet, the cross developed in 1936, was among the selected varieties....
Wines That Stop You In Your Tracks
by Harry Eyres
There are pieces of music that stop me in my tracks. I mean that quite literally, as I do a lot of my listening to music while driving. I recall...
Dreadful Weather, Decent Wine
by HÃ¥vard Flatland
“Excuse me sir, would you like to try this wine? It’s from a crap vintage.” Hardly a selling point, if you as a waiter want to keep your job. Wine...
The Good Old Days
by Peter Pharos
The past is a foreign country we get to rule as we wish. It is as we say it was and as we sit back to have some wine, talk...
Faith In Fakes
by Tim Atkin
A good friend of mine turned 80 recently. To celebrate, he invited a few of us round for dinner and opened a bottle of 1942 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti Grands...