Losing wood: the death of the barrel

by Robert Joseph
The ISPB – International Society for the Protection of Birds – announced yesterday that it was supporting the  “Get Wood” campaign recently launched by France’s leading barrel-making organisation FAT –...

Arrogant Frogs?

by Tim Atkin
What’s wrong with France? asked the distinguished journalist Christine Ockrent in a recent think piece in Prospect. Her analysis, which is worth reading in full, begins at the top. President...

Making Sense of Matt Kramer

by Ron Washam
Imagine for a moment that you are me. Yes, I know, that’s ridiculous. It’s like asking you to imagine that you’re Albert Einstein or Abraham Lincoln, but let’s just say...

RIP, two great men of wine

by Tim Atkin
I’m not sure if Peter Lehmann and Tim Hamilton Russell ever met, but I like to think they would have got on, despite their very different personalities. One was a...

Wine: you don’t have to be rich…

by Tim Atkin
Ever felt like making your own wine? If you work in the business, whether as a retailer, sommelier, importer or impoverished hack, the chances are that you’ve entertained just such...

The World Cup of Wine

by Ron Washam
I don’t care about Canadian wine. I don’t know anybody who does. Canadians should be making wine like Jamaicans should be bobsledding. Oh, but they make great Ice Wines, eh!...

In search of wine expertise

by Tim Atkin
Last week I was an invigilator at the Master of Wine exam in London, supervising a tasting paper that I’d helped to set. Before the roomful of candidates sweated, slurped...

Fruits, newts and cutes

by Robert Joseph
In the Wine And Novelty Corp. boardroom, the atmosphere was tense. Behind Warner Biggereturne III, the company president, the chart on the electronic whiteboard said it all: wine division sales...