The other week Domaine de Chevalier brought over samples of the 19 components of its 2022 red grand vin, plus a sample of the final blend. I’ve always thought blending...
I had to buy some more wine glasses the other day. I’ve always used Spiegelau ones at home – good quality, but not so expensive that breaking them induces a...
A wine, like a short story, should have a beginning, a middle and an end. Nobody would disagree with that. But how many do? How many start, toddle along for...
First of all, I should apologise to Lilian Barton. All I can say is that it wasn’t altogether my fault. A friend brought a bottle of Léoville-Barton 2014 to dinner...
My school coat was made of Harris Tweed. This is not relevant to anything, except that the other day I came across a wine with Harris Tweed tannins. They were...
You can always rely on Olivier Bernard for a good quote. Olivier is the chatelain of Domaine de Chevalier, on which you can always rely for a good wine, and...
Which is easier, to persuade people to drink a wine young if they think they should age it, or to age a wine they thought they could drink young? You...
When a wine costs north of £600 a bottle, what should you expect of it? What is it reasonable to expect of any wine? Is it reasonable to think of...
A couple of things have struck me recently. One was Richard Geoffroy, ex-chef de cave of Dom Pérignon, saying casually that he blends everything, even his breakfast orange juice. The...
It struck me, watching Katya Kabanova at Glyndebourne this last summer, that opera has terroir. It also has directors, who fulfil the same role as winemakers, either expressing the terroir...
It is probably safe, at this distance in time, to confess. The PR who organised it is dead; those at Rémy Martin will have moved onwards, upwards, outwards. It was,...
The trouble with taking human emotions and dumping them on to unsuspecting bottles is that they bring their connotations with them. A wine can be cheerful, or dour; that’s pretty...