Travelling Light

by Margaret Rand
‘Trouble is,’ said my old friend, ‘that’s just not what I want to drink any more.’ He was referring to the cellar he’d built up over 30 years and more:...

Spanish Strategies

by Andy Neather
The setting was magical, steep terraces plunging to the River Miño below. But José Moure was hard-headed about the challenges: “We’re in crisis – the big buyers bought very few...

The Burgundisation of wine

by Guy Woodward
Every so often, a new buzzword springs up in the wine world. Often rather nebulous, sometimes completely intangible, its role is pithily to reflect a trend gaining traction with the...

The Dilution of Terroir

by Guy Woodward
First up, a trigger warning… I’m approaching this article from the premise that terroir exists. It’s a position to which I would hope most readers of this site would subscribe....

The Vauxhall Paulée

by John Atkinson MW
The Jesuit promise to take the child and return the man holds loosely for wine.  Making the right calls during the formative stages of production should help deliver successful outcomes....

A Different Path

by Margaret Rand
Did any grower ever say, ‘I’m looking for a really cold, wet site – Yorkshire, maybe, or Derbyshire – so I can plant Ortega and Huxelrebe and Rondo’? Equally, how...

The Ladder Of Quality

by John Atkinson MW
The bucolic opening sequence to The Hunger Games makes the dystopic Panem State seem homely; a place where you can stitch a quilt, or share a venison kill with your...

Peaks And Troughs

by Margaret Rand
I’ve always liked Sauzet Burgundies well enough. And if that sounds tepid, it’s supposed to: they were clearly very good, but just never set my pulses racing. And then this...

Resonant Rosé

by Margaret Rand
To be perfectly clear, I love rosé. On a hot summer’s day it’s all you want; on a cool drizzly summer’s day it reminds you that it is in fact...

Burgundy’s Benevolent Haunting

by John Atkinson MW
Something is said to be resilient if it maintains its form and structure under pressure. In the context of Burgundy, form and structure translate as character and hierarchy. Thus, Pinot...

Ticking the right boxes

by Margaret Rand
I’ve been doing some recreational online shopping in the lockdown. But only for things I know will be reliable; only things which will be as I expect. Once upon a...