Mistreating Wine
by Margaret Rand
First of all, I should apologise to Lilian Barton. All I can say is that it wasn’t altogether my fault. A friend brought a bottle of Léoville-Barton 2014 to dinner...
Author: Tim Atkin
The Curse Of Bordeaux
by Andy Neather
We splashed in the Saint Emilion lavoir, desperate to cool off on a 39-degree day in August. Yet this wasn’t when the weirdness of this broiling year really hit me....
What Are Americans Drinking?
by Farrah Berrou
For close to a year, I’ve been working as the self-proclaimed Ancient World specialist in a wine shop. In the process of spitting samples into a sink with various salesmen,...
The Tale of Two Château Palmers
by Charlie Leary
What would Major General Charles Palmer think of Château Palmer being turned into a public cinema in 2022? This is a different ChÃateau Palmer from the one most wine lovers...
The Spirit, Not The Letter
by Peter Pharos
Engaging in wine discourse means you get to meet more strawmen than a crow. Usually, those are conveniently arranged in dipoles. There are the consumer champions, speaking for The People,...
A Dachshund’s Ear
by Margaret Rand
My school coat was made of Harris Tweed. This is not relevant to anything, except that the other day I came across a wine with Harris Tweed tannins. They were...
Final Score?
by Tim Atkin
You’ve come a long way, baby. Watching the final of the Euro 2022 women’s football tournament, I was reminded of an advertising slogan for Virginia Slims cigarettes, of all things,...
Santorini Assyrtiko 2022 Report
by Peter Pharos
It is rather unlucky, if not downright unwise, to start producing a report on a grape variety at a point in time where its prime terroir underperformed. When I compiled...
The Warrior Mentality
by Clare Tooley MW
I have worked my entire life for restless warriors. First in a bohemian penthouse studio in Notting Hill, then in the stubborn landscape of Bordeaux, and now in the velvet-textured...
Collecting Flavour
by Tom Hewson
Every trade has its sartorial call-signs. The wine trade plays host to the fraternity-of-the-red-trouser, its membership made up of legs that appear to have filled, loafer-to-belt, with decades of luncheon...
Wine’s Next Big Thing
by Andy Neather
Not long after the Millennium, I lifted a glass of sparkling wine to toast the wedding of two good friends in London. They were both Italophiles and had somewhere managed...
Back In Barnes
by Harry Eyres
“That little country wine we found in the backwoods of [fill in the blank with a region of France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Croatia, Bulgaria not especially renowned for quality...