Getting Better All The Time?
by Andy Neather
Dream’s hit Things Can Only Get Better was the theme tune of Britain’s Labour Party in Tony Blair’s 1997 victory, much reprised at Labour’s election landslide earlier this month. It...
Country: England
By The Book?
by Margaret Rand
Can winemakers still be self-taught? Or must they, in this technocratic age, be able to sport some letters after their name? When I asked Peter Hall, the arch-maverick of Breaky...
Having Fun With Wine
by Tim Atkin
At first sight, it looked like a PR disaster. Sir Ed Davey, leader of the Liberal Democrats, was filmed falling off a paddleboard into Lake Windermere five times. He’s a...
Same, Same But Different
by Robert Joseph
There is no such thing as Jane Eyre, or the Mona Lisa, or Citizen Kane. Or a bottle of Château Lafite or Pinot Grigio. At least, there is no precise...
Pouring Politics
by Charlie Leary
A recent article in Punch argued that we must re-inject politics into wine: “Without politics, terroir is just soil.” The article’s pretext was that some sort of ideological power play...
Drink Promiscuously
by Cong Cong Bo
It bothers me that wine drinkers frequently choose wine based on colour, or indeed dismiss those of the “wrong” colour. I have encountered this discrimination most overtly in the rosé...
Mental Geography
by Andy Neather
It felt mildly embarrassing. A member of the team from Black Chalk was trying to explain to me exactly where their Hampshire vineyard was as we sipped the fine, precise...
The Tale of Two Château Palmers
by Charlie Leary
What would Major General Charles Palmer think of Château Palmer being turned into a public cinema in 2022? This is a different Chíateau Palmer from the one most wine lovers...
The Warrior Mentality
by Clare Tooley MW
I have worked my entire life for restless warriors. First in a bohemian penthouse studio in Notting Hill, then in the stubborn landscape of Bordeaux, and now in the velvet-textured...
The Clay Sea
by John Atkinson MW
In discussions of terroir rocks have exalted status. The journey downwards through the geological record is mostly a search for hard boundaries – chalk, basalt, slate – while the overlying...
Offensively Inoffensive
by Andy Neather
It was an easy target. A recent Twitter flurry over the by-the-glass wine list at Gordon Ramsay’s Michelin-starred London restaurant Pétrus focused on the punchy prices. And it’s true: charging...
The Myth Of Aristocracy
by Harry Eyres
I have not yet been to the cinema to see the latest despatch from that castellated stately home where half the inhabitants speak in a strange strangulated drawl and wear...