How do you spend $47,221.09 on lunch for six people? Assuming your credit card company will authorise the transaction, it’s surprisingly easy if you’re a billionaire. To paraphrase Withnail in...
Australians don’t do pessimism. They’re generally such a chipper, stop-moaning-and-get on with-it nation that they’d rather share a hot tub with a great white shark than be accused of whingeing...
Here we go. Or rather ‘ere we go, ‘ere we go, ‘ere we go. Unless you’ve been in solitary confinement for the last year, you’ll be aware that the World...
Co-operation may be fashionable in political circles at the moment, but in the wine business it’s increasingly regarded as the equivalent of a tweed skirt: frumpy, moth-eaten and distinctly old-fashioned....
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...
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...
Imagine buying a case of wine. Now imagine removing six bottles and leaving them on Alistair Darling’s doorstep. That, in effect, is the upshot of last week’s budget, which has...
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...
How could they tell? The recent kerfuffle about fake pinot noir in the Languedoc reminded me of Dorothy Parker’s quip about the death of President Calvin Coolidge. If you missed...
Let’s start this column with something interactive. I’d like you to find a piece of paper and draw a line down the middle. On the left hand side please list...
You know things are bad when the Aussies, normally the most chipper of nations, start grouching about their lot. “We’re stuffed, mate,” one of their number told me recently, having...
“I love Chablis, but I can’t stand Chardonnay.” “I hate Sancerre, but I adore Sauvignon Blanc.” You used to hear such comments all the time, even from people who claimed...