Rioja’s third way
by Victor de la Serna
The story of Rioja resembles the old Chinese curse – they’ve lived through many interesting times. Boom and bust, fame and oblivion. Rioja wine is on the ascent again as...
Author: Tim Atkin
Ten things you need to know about the 2011 Burgundy vintage
by Tim Atkin
My full report on the very enjoyable 2011 vintage in Burgundy will be published in January 2013, once I have tasted another 1000+ plus samples in London, but these are...
Turkish Delights
by Tim Atkin
Diyarbakir in south-eastern Anatolia is one of the wine world’s wilder fringes. Rugged, mountainous and remote, it’s a place where grape growers carry guns and Kurdish separatism is openly discussed....
Etna: wines from the volcano
by Simon Woolf
As far as wine regions go, Mount Etna could be described as a wine geek’s wet dream. Volcanic soil, obscure indigenous grape varieties, high altitudes and pre-phylloxera vineyards are just...
What’s the point of food and wine matching?
by Natasha Hughes MW
One of my earliest gigs as a wine writer was to write up profiles of some of the world’s hottest sommeliers for the Decanter website (which, at the time, generated...
Creating a stink about screwcaps
by Tim Atkin
Imagine being a cork salesman in Australia. If you turned up suffering from bubonic plague, a dead rat dangling from each hand, you’d be only slightly less welcome at most...
Do New World wines age?
by Tim Atkin
What’s the difference between a New and an Old World wine? Twenty-seven years ago, when I started writing about the subject, the distinction was clear-cut. The received wisdom was that...
Wine education: the difference between a Bordeaux and a claret
by Tim Atkin
“I love Chablis, but I can’t stand Chardonnay.” Anyone who has ever done a public tasting, mixing with people who know what they like but not a lot more, will...
Patrick Sandeman: a life well lived
by Tim Atkin
It was one of those where-were-you-when-you-heard-the-news moments. I was sitting at my computer on a Sunday evening when I saw a Tweet by wine journalist, Guy Woodward: “Truly terrible news...
Never mind the quality…
by Tim Atkin
What’s in a name? If you think that monikers are irrelevant to the choices we make ask yourself if you’d buy something called Brad’s Drink, surf the net using BackRub,...
Before the rain: 25 wine euphemisms
by Tim Atkin
They’ve barely picked a grape in Bordeaux, but the region’s euphemism generator is already up and running. “A winemaker’s vintage”, as one château owner described the 2012, is another way...
Definitely Picking Time
by Brian Miller
the fucking sky looks fucking dim the fucking forecast’s fucking grim the fucking fruit won’t fucking set the fucking farm’s in fucking debt my fucking pay’s a fucking crime evidently...