The Confessions of Dr Conti
by Ron Washam
OK, I made a deal with Mr. Koch to tell everything I know about wine fraud. You know, I think it’s going to feel good to get all this off...
Author: Tim Atkin
The natural wine challenge
by Robert Joseph, Simon Woolf
What happens if you take two wine critics with opposing, sometimes polarised views on natural wine, throw them into London’s biggest celebration of the sector and force them to taste...
Call me Jancis
by Ron Washam
Call me Jancis. Everyone does, even though it’s not my name. Well, it is when I’m conducting a wine seminar, or giving a speech at some God-forsaken outpost of weird...
The net effect
by Tim Atkin
“Would you like to go up in one of our planes?” asked Eduardo Martín, director of the Argentinean Ministry of Agriculture’s anti-hail squad. It was an offer that was all...
In praise of wine consultants
by Robert Joseph
“I can’t help admiring producers who don’t rely on someone else to tell them how to make their wine. Most of the bottles I enjoy drinking reflect their origin, as...
Natural opinions – unfiltered and slightly fecal
by Ron Washam
A couple of weeks ago, Jamie Goode published an article on his blog, WineAnorexic (“Tragically Thin Opinions About Wine”) in which he bravely expressed his “unfiltered opinions on the world...
Sherry’s great leap forward
by Tim Atkin
Is Sherry in danger of becoming cool? Outside London, where a new generation of Spanish restaurants and tapas bars is slowly transforming the image of this most traditional of fortified...
Should cats sell wine?
by Henry Jeffreys
The first rule of the internet is that pictures of cats will beat anything in popularity. I have a writer friend who is pretty big on Twitter. He has 20k...
Wine’s missing link
by Robert Joseph
Thank God the food, music and art world aren’t run by the people who run the wine industry. Artists, musicians and chefs are allowed, and even encouraged, to experiment, to...
Who judges the judges? More thoughts on wine competitions
by Robert Joseph
We are living in – as the Chinese might say – electorally interesting times. India has just collectively decided to hand its governance to Narendra Modi who is variously described...
What’s the point of wine competitions?
by Robert Joseph
Wine competitions are the worst way to identify the world’s best wines. Apart from all the others that have been tried. I make no excuse for mangling Churchill’s famous quote...
Tokaj’s silver lining
by Wojciech Bońkowski MW
The Tokaj wine region organised its second wine auction recently. Modelled on the Hospices de Beaune, it featured unique lots of dry and sweet wines offered by the 136-litre barrel,...