Brunello and Bordeaux, Bordeaux and Brunello. Italy and France’s most famous wine regions have a lot in common, not least that they both hold high-profile tastings in the first part...
No one could have predicted the impact the Senkalu Island crisis of March 2015, ten years ago, would have on the wine world. When President Hollande’s decision to align France...
A favourite Paul Simon tune was at the top of my iPod play list last week. When Numbers Get Serious isn’t as famous as the Sounds of Silence or Fifty...
Larry Anosmia, Master Sommelier, had a vision. He knew there were millions of people around the globe suffering, and suffering in unimaginable agony, simply because they didn’t have access to...
How hungry would you have to be to eat a spaniel? What about a monkey, a camel or a rat? During the siege of their city in 1870, starving Parisians...
They’re out there, natural wines, you can smell them. You just have to hope that they can’t smell you first, smell your fear. I hunt them. Someone has to. I...
Is 2013 going to be South Africa’s year? Su Birch, CEO of Wines of South Africa (WOSA), certainly seems to think so, judging by an upbeat press release earlier this...
When I officially became a sommelier, I had to swear on a stack of Karen MacNeil Wine Bibles purchased from the remainder table at Border’s, piled right next to Whole...
Moaning about the weather is second nature to us Brits. However stoical we may claim to be, upper lips stiffened against the wind and rain, we have had a lot...
The story of Rioja resembles the old Chinese curse – they’ve lived through many interesting times. Boom and bust, fame and oblivion. Rioja wine is on the ascent again as...
My full report on the very enjoyable 2011 vintage in Burgundy will be published in January 2013, once I have tasted another 1000+ plus samples in London, but these are...
Diyarbakir in south-eastern Anatolia is one of the wine world’s wilder fringes. Rugged, mountainous and remote, it’s a place where grape growers carry guns and Kurdish separatism is openly discussed....