Ageing wine critics
by Ron Washam
It’s a question from wine novices that comes up repeatedly. Just how do we know how long to age our wine critics? Furthermore, how can we tell which wine critics...
Author: Tim Atkin
Feck & Drink: why isn’t there more wine on TV?
by Henry Jeffreys
If you want to annoy certain people in the wine world, lean over and say to them, ‘what you really need is a Jeremy Clarkson of wine.’ Or a Jamie...
Talking Terroir
by Tim Atkin
“Soil is dirt.” I’m sure the Californian producer Bill Jekel was being deliberately provocative when he entered into a well-publicised debate about terroir with Bruno Prats of Château Cos d’Estournel...
Wine Trends for 2016
by Ron Washam
What will be the most important, most newsworthy trends in the wine business in 2016? What trends and events will trigger every idea-less wine blogger to take to his keyboard...
The truth about Christmas wine columns
by Henry Jeffreys
Elizabeth David’s spiced beef recipe is one of my Christmas traditions. It involves rubbing a piece of beef every day for up to four weeks with a selection of spices,...
How to build a great wine cellar
by Ron Washam
You don’t need a lot of money to create a great wine cellar. Any more than you need teeth to recite Shakespeare. Or fingers to go bowling. They just help...
Keeping it in the family?
by Tim Atkin
The front room at the Domaine Launay-Horiot in Pommard looks like something out of Miss Havisham’s mansion in Dickens’ Great Expectations. It’s dusty, cobwebbed and, on first acquaintance, more than...
Where are all the wine stories?
by Felicity Carter
German rehabilitation hospitals are pretty nice. My room had a view into the Black Forest, and there was a bar on the next floor. So when I opened my work...
Antonini versus Rolland: wine’s stylistic battleground
by Tim Atkin
In the early 1990s I was commissioned to write a story about Esme Johnstone, a former director of Majestic who’d bought Château de Sours in the unglamorous Entre-Deux-Mers region of...
Which wine goes with erectile dysfunction?
by Ron Washam
There’s an annoying trend in wine writing to recommend wines to accompany experiences other than dining. Specific wines with specific music, for example. How much sense does that make? Though...
South Africa’s New Wave
by Tim Atkin
When was the last time you entered a wine tasting through a record shop? It was certainly a first for me. But walking past racks of LPs at The Vinyl...
Rejected Entries for “The Oxford Companion to Wine”
by Ron Washam
I’m feeling a bit disappointed. I just opened the Fourth Edition of “The Oxford Companion to Wine” and not a single one of my entries was published. Admittedly, Jancis Robinson...