2003 Bordeaux: tales from the strip club
by Sarah Abbott MW
“You don’t go to a strip joint looking for a relationship”, says the young man defending the merits of 2003 at BI’s annual “10 Years on Bordeaux Tasting”. This is...
Author: Tim Atkin
Bucking the trend: Natural wines at Gut Oggau
by Simon Woolf
Somewhere, out there on the internet, the discussion rages on about natural wines. To true believers, it’s the one and only righteous path, to sceptics, nothing more than a farcical...
Getting warmer: wine and climate change
by Tim Atkin
Moaning about the weather is practically a national sport in England. There’s a bit of me that thinks that we enjoy being grumpy, “coveting disappointment” as the comedian Bill Bailey...
In praise of real wine journalism
by Tim Atkin
Peter Cook and Dudley Moore once did a very funny sketch about what they considered the worst job in the world. From memory, their choice involved working for Jayne Mansfield...
The Frugle Awards
by Ron Washam
The finalists for the James Beard Awards were announced recently to great fanfare. The James Beard Awards are often referred to, mostly by dolts, as the Oscars© of the food...
An exchange of letters with Dan Jago of Tesco
by Tim Atkin
On February 15th, I published a column in OLN entitled Flogging a dead horse about what I saw as the potential similarities between the horsemeat scandal, then at its height, and what...
Priorat: from tradition to hi-tech to terroir
by Victor de la Serna
When the International Wine Academy, the august Geneva-based institution, first visited Catalonia two decades ago, its members didn’t make it to Priorat: the roads were bad in 1994, accommodation almost...
Brunello and Bordeaux: a tale of two appellations
by Tim Atkin
Brunello and Bordeaux, Bordeaux and Brunello. Italy and France’s most famous wine regions have a lot in common, not least that they both hold high-profile tastings in the first part...
Who needs Bordeaux vintages?
by Robert Joseph
No one could have predicted the impact the Senkalu Island crisis of March 2015, ten years ago, would have on the wine world. When President Hollande’s decision to align France...
I’m 100 points on that…
by Tim Atkin
A favourite Paul Simon tune was at the top of my iPod play list last week. When Numbers Get Serious isn’t as famous as the Sounds of Silence or Fifty...
Sommeliers without borders
by Ron Washam
Larry Anosmia, Master Sommelier, had a vision. He knew there were millions of people around the globe suffering, and suffering in unimaginable agony, simply because they didn’t have access to...
Because you’re worth it
by Robert Joseph
Two strangers, a man and woman meet at a cocktail party. The man turns to the woman and says, I’ve got a hypothetical question for you. The woman, whose curiosity...