The Tyranny of Travel
by Giles Cooke MW
If you’re of a certain age you may remember a routine by Ben Elton. He described his anxiety about getting on a train or a bus and how you “...
Author: Tim Atkin
Sam Euthanasia, the World’s Oldest Wine Critic, rates the 2016 Bordeaux
by Ron Washam
While other critics try to be the first to publish scores of a new Bordeaux vintage, Sam Euthanasia, who, at 95, is the World’s Oldest Wine Critic, as well as...
Where have all the wine merchants gone?
by Tim Atkin
What makes a good wine merchant? As a significant chunk of the UK trade returns from Bordeaux, having tasted their way through a few hundred samples of youthful, unfinished claret...
Crapaholics Anonymous
by Ron Washam
Hello, my name is Ronald. And I’m a Crapaholic. Hello, Ronald! This is my first time speaking at a Crapaholics Anonymous meeting, but I’ve been thinking a lot about the...
Ignoring the wine snobs
by Felicity Carter
When I was a music student back in the 1990s, a bomb went off in classical music. The world’s three greatest tenors – Plácido Domingo, Luciano Pavarotti and José Carreras...
Is meat really made for Malbec?
by Natasha Hughes MW
The wine trade loves a good shibboleth. Sauternes is the best match for foie gras, for instance. (Wrong, unless you’re into having your palate clagged up by an unctuous sweet...
Making wine on the West Bank
by Anna Greenhous
Imagine a wine region where delays at checkpoints are a part of daily life and your land can be confiscated at any time for “security reasons”. Where daily life is...
Can you mix wine and politics?
by Tim Atkin
“Stick to wine, Tim – you’re wasting time.” If you spend as many hours on social media channels as I do, then you get used to – and even rather...
How the Russians are secretly destroying the wine business
by Ron Washam
Solid evidence has been slow in coming, but there is little doubt that over the past decade the Russian government, under the direction of Vladimir Putin, has been tampering with...
Tricky food and wine matches
by Natasha Hughes MW
I really shouldn’t admit this as I could be talking myself out of a job, but most food and wine matching comes down to basic common sense. You don’t have...
Initiating the uninitiated
by Henry Jeffreys
Wine lists can be difficult for the uninitiated to understand. One restaurant in Los Angeles, Hatchet Hall, has taken this a step further: not only is their list incomprehensible to...
Almost human?
by Tim Atkin
What do you think of the following tasting note? “Inconspicuous boysenberries and cigar wrappers revel in unresolved rosehips, while dried wormwood and chemically tanned leather swim amongst illusive black liquorice.”...