Acid trip
by Tim Atkin
“Buy on an apple, sell on a piece of cheese,” runs an old wine trade saw. It’s good advice for consumers, too. If a wine, especially a red wine, can...
Country: Chile
In defence of Chardonnay
by Tim Atkin
What’s the most insulting thing you can do to a grape? Mixing it with cola, lemonade or tonic water is a slap in the face, but the lowest of low...
In praise of natural wine
by Tim Atkin
The wine style I want to promote doesn’t come from a specific region, although most of its exponents are French and Italian. More frustratingly still, it has no legal definition...
A cloud with a silver lining: natural wines
by Tim Atkin
Walk into any wine shop and you can see the bottles that sell, placed strategically in the fridge or in attention-grabbing piles close to the till. The wall flowers are...
What makes a great sommelier?
by Tim Atkin
It’s been a mixed month for Gallic gastronomy. If the French were insulted by the fact that their country didn’t feature once in Restaurant Magazine’s list of the top 10...
Black Tower and the spirit of the Seventies
by Tim Atkin
It was a Life on Mars moment. Hearing about the imminent relaunch of Black Tower made me feel like Sam Tyler, the detective in the BBC television series who gets...
Beware of floods, fires and locusts
by Tim Atkin
If “Sex change bishop in mercy dash to Palace” is the funniest fictitious headline ever written, then “Small earthquake in Chile: not many dead” is surely the dullest. Claud Cockburn’s...
Interview with Pedro Parra
by Tim Atkin
Pedro Parra is crouching in a hole with a small hammer in his hand, chipping away at the soil like a demented sculptor. “Granitic, pure grantic,” he says, lifting a...
The Perfect Dozen
by Tim Atkin
If you gave up booze for a month on 1 January, as several of my friends did, you may have reached the point, two weeks later, when you’ve locked away...
The Atkins. My wines of the year for 2009
by Tim Atkin
First, the good news. Not since 1990 has the world enjoyed such a consistently promising vintage as it did in 2009. The châteaux owners of Bordeaux may be leading the...
Christmas reds and whites
by Tim Atkin
WHITE 2008 Errazuriz Chardonnay, Casablanca Valley (£4.99 each for two, 13.5%, Majestic). Reduced from £7.99, which makes it a stunning deal, this is an easy drinking, peach and citrus...
Youngest First
by Tim Atkin
I’ve never been to a Tupperware party, let alone an Ann Summers get-together, but I have a feeling that’s where the people behind i-wine (i-wine.tv) found their inspiration. Billed as...