Everyone has advice for whom you should know in the wine business. Article after article on the subject have appeared in online publications. And each one is self-serving crap, a...
It’s highly unlikely that Dave West, the former barrow boy who created Eastenders in Calais, and Serge Hochar of Lebanon’s Château Musar ever met. The former didn’t strike me as...
I’m sure you’ve already had your fill of writers telling you that they’re giving up drink for January or that they’re not giving up anything for January because they’re different....
Shut up about alcohol levels, for Christ’s sake. You don’t know what you’re talking about. And what ABV (Alcohol By Verisimilitude) is it that you’re referring to, the number listed...
Mad Frankie Fraser, the notorious gangster who died last week, was famous for using pliers to extract his victims’ teeth under torture. One hesitates to say that the wine trade...
Given his normal upbringing on the outskirts of a great metropolitan city, no one would have been able to anticipate that humble Brett Bung would one day emerge as the...
In his play No Exit, Jean-Paul Sartre outlines a vision of hell. It consists of three people who don’t like each other confined together for eternity. Mine? It’s that I’ll...
Some milestones make you think. Next year will be the 30th anniversary of the founding of Cloudy Bay, one of the most successful wine brands ever, and a label that...
I am often asked what it takes to become a successful wine writer, which is like asking Harold Pinter how to become a successful song writer. He’s dead, you idiot....
If anything can be said to create a buzz in the South African wine industry, it’s the annual announcement of the Platter’s Wine Guide’s 5 Star Wines. There were 50...
Like a weathered George Michael cynically observing a shiny young Justin Bieber, Muscadet must be thinking to itself ‘been there, done that’. After its 1980s heyday of wild success, Muscadet...
One of the requirements for becoming a Master of Wine is an original and rigorous research paper of between 6,000 and 10,000 words. The words must be placed in sentences,...