Cherishing the unpredictability of wine
by Tim Atkin
The jazz singer Nina Simone was a notoriously moody performer. Catch her on a good night and she was sublime; hear her play on a bad one and she was...
Author: Tim Atkin
Wine Families and How to Survive Them
by Tim Atkin
The comedian John Cleese once published a conversational if surprisingly serious book called “Families and how to survive them”. You don’t have to be Sigmund Freud, or a member of...
Independents’ day with The Dirty Dozen
by Tim Atkin
Dartmouth House, the home of the English Speaking Union, is an unlikely place for a revolutionary gathering. Set in the heart of Mayfair, it feels like a slightly fusty gentleman’s...
Human rights in the Cape winelands
by Tim Atkin
Talk about negative publicity. No wine industry would welcome headlines about the “dismal, dangerous lives” of its agricultural workers, but for South Africa, still keen to persuade the world that...
Lodi: California’s missing link
by Tim Atkin
You can drive from the southern end of the Napa Valley to Lodi at the northern end of the Central Valley in just over an hour, but the two regions...
What price wine elitism?
by Tim Atkin
Maybe no one should be surprised that when looters took to the streets in Clapham Junction last week, one of the few shops they left untouched was Waterstone’s. They were...
South Africa’s Mediterranean future
by Tim Atkin
For anyone interested in South African wine, London has been as exciting a place to be as Cape Town over the last month. First we were treated to an audience...
Bordeaux en primeur: the case for change
by Tim Atkin
As Bordeaux packs up the tents, ice buckets and traffic barriers for another year at Vinexpo, the region’s biennial trade fair, its focus has returned to the 2010 en primeur...
Juel Mahoney’s take on 2006 Brunello di Montalcino vintage
by Tim Atkin
There’s something reminiscent of Fashion Week about the Benvenuto Brunello event in Montalcino, with visitor passes, photographers, security guards and large tents. Amongst it all, this is where I tasted...
An agnostic’s view of natural wines
by Tim Atkin
The future of wine or a heap of hooey? Just like bio-dynamics, Dr Rudolf Steiner’s so-called “spiritual science”, the subject of natural wines tends to provoke extreme opinions. Listening to...
The Zen of Koshu
by Tim Atkin
There aren’t many wine styles that are unfamiliar to most people in the booze trade, but Japanese Koshu is surely one of them. I don’t mind admitting that before the...
The 2009 Burgundy vintage: second opinion
by Tim Atkin
“You call that work? ” asked a friend of mine when I told him about the rigours of Burgundy week in early January. “Most people would pay serious amounts of...