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...
Author: Tim Atkin
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...
Horsemeat, bullshit and wine
by Tim Atkin
How hungry would you have to be to eat a spaniel? What about a monkey, a camel or a rat? During the siege of their city in 1870, starving Parisians...
Sir George hits 50
by Tim Atkin
Is there such a thing as the New Zealand dream, a Kiwi equivalent of America’s fabled journey from poverty to prosperity? If so, Sir George Fistonich is surely its personification....
Frank Buck: natural wine hunter
by Ron Washam
They’re out there, natural wines, you can smell them. You just have to hope that they can’t smell you first, smell your fear. I hunt them. Someone has to. I...
2008 Bordeaux revisited
by Sarah Abbott MW
Bordeaux is the most confident and comfortable of fine wines. Great Burgundy is like riding a runaway horse, bareback. Diving into a top Bordeaux is like being chauffeur driven in...
South Africa seizes the day
by Tim Atkin
Is 2013 going to be South Africa’s year? Su Birch, CEO of Wines of South Africa (WOSA), certainly seems to think so, judging by an upbeat press release earlier this...
The Secret Official Sommelier Manual
by Ron Washam
When I officially became a sommelier, I had to swear on a stack of Karen MacNeil Wine Bibles purchased from the remainder table at Border’s, piled right next to Whole...
Georgian qvevri wine: if it’s good enough for God . . .
by Simon Woolf
For Father Gerasim, whether to treat his wines with sulphur or any other additive isn’t a matter of choice. The imperative is simple. Any impurities in the finished product would...
Crystal ball: the wine world in 2013
by Tim Atkin
Moaning about the weather is second nature to us Brits. However stoical we may claim to be, upper lips stiffened against the wind and rain, we have had a lot...