In Praise of Mystique
by Margaret Rand
Every generation of wine writers declares that it wants to remove the mystique from wine: to demystify it. I say, enough. Demystify by all means; but I will stand up...
Author: Tim Atkin
Mastering Wine Exams
by Clare Tooley MW
Wine exam week. The long MW one. Close to 22 hours of high-level performance over four days. It’s intense. I sat six weeks’ worth of MW exams. Enough I decided,...
Who’s Bashing Bordeaux?
by Tim Atkin
Americans call it putting lipstick on a pig. I was listening to one of Corney & Barrow’s Bordeaux Unpicked podcasts the other day. Yes, that’s right, podcasts plural. There are...
The Dirty Stuff
by Kate Lofthouse
When you imagine the grape harvest, what do you see? Green vines jewelled with clusters of plump golden grapes, planted in long rows bordered with grasses and wildflowers? Perhaps the...
The Point of Equilibrium
by Sara Danese
Someone recently told me that my saying “a bottle of wine is worth whatever the consumer is willing to pay for it” was a lazy, throwaway comment. But it’s the reality! I protest....
Good Enough?
by Andy Neather
If you ordered a glass of Sancerre and were served a cheap Sauvignon Blanc instead, would you notice? What about if you asked for Chablis but got the Sauvignon Plonk?...
Back to the Revolution
by Victoria Mason MW
The Swartland has got under my skin: the open, dusty, daydream-inducing roads; the dramatic granite outcrops; the big billowing skies; the swathes of slightly unkempt farmland, on the edge of...
Tides And Time
by Charlie Leary
Earlier this year I took a trip back to Nova Scotia and visited with a few winemakers, all in the stunning Annapolis Valley next to the epic Bay of Fundy...
Wine Fortunes
by Peter Pharos
“How do you make a small fortune in social media? Start out with a large one,” tweeted Elon Musk shortly after buying Twitter, and I felt like we ought to...
Seeing Differently
by Margaret Rand
How, today, can a wine surprise us? And does that element of surprise come by accident, while both we and the wine are, as it were, looking elsewhere, or can...
Under The Weather
by Rod Smith MW
Bordeaux needs a break. It was once regarded by the French themselves as the greatest of wine regions, but now youngsters are drinking less (and less wine) – just as...
A Fair Deal
by Tim Atkin
There are a few grapes still out there on the vines, but the verdict on the quality of the 2025 crop was harvested some time ago. After a run of...