In praise of wine consultants
by Robert Joseph
“I can’t help admiring producers who don’t rely on someone else to tell them how to make their wine. Most of the bottles I enjoy drinking reflect their origin, as...
Topic: Column
Natural opinions – unfiltered and slightly fecal
by Ron Washam
A couple of weeks ago, Jamie Goode published an article on his blog, WineAnorexic (“Tragically Thin Opinions About Wine”) in which he bravely expressed his “unfiltered opinions on the world...
Sherry’s great leap forward
by Tim Atkin
Is Sherry in danger of becoming cool? Outside London, where a new generation of Spanish restaurants and tapas bars is slowly transforming the image of this most traditional of fortified...
Should cats sell wine?
by Henry Jeffreys
The first rule of the internet is that pictures of cats will beat anything in popularity. I have a writer friend who is pretty big on Twitter. He has 20k...
Wine’s missing link
by Robert Joseph
Thank God the food, music and art world aren’t run by the people who run the wine industry. Artists, musicians and chefs are allowed, and even encouraged, to experiment, to...
Who judges the judges? More thoughts on wine competitions
by Robert Joseph
We are living in – as the Chinese might say – electorally interesting times. India has just collectively decided to hand its governance to Narendra Modi who is variously described...
What’s the point of wine competitions?
by Robert Joseph
Wine competitions are the worst way to identify the world’s best wines. Apart from all the others that have been tried. I make no excuse for mangling Churchill’s famous quote...
Tokaj’s silver lining
by Wojciech Bońkowski MW
The Tokaj wine region organised its second wine auction recently. Modelled on the Hospices de Beaune, it featured unique lots of dry and sweet wines offered by the 136-litre barrel,...
Wine’s Forbidden Love
by Ron Washam
I’m not sure how I’m going to get through this confession. And, to be perfectly honest, I know that after reading it, you’re going to think differently about me, think...
The rain in Spain
by Tim Atkin
It’s probably scant consolation to château owners struggling to sell their wines en primeur right now, but Bordeaux wasn’t the only European region that had a difficult vintage in 2013....
Museum pieces
by Robert Joseph
There aren’t many wine writers, I imagine, who have been accused of communicating with the dead, but way back in the 1990s, The Sunday Times did describe me as a...
Bordeaux 2004: the indefinite article
by Sarah Abbott MW
This write-up is late, but then so was the vintage. It was interrupted by a visit to Georgia for the International Wine Tourism conference. (Georgia demands much, but gives more....