Wine and alcohol: how low should you go?
by Tim Atkin
“And how many units of wine do you drink a week?” If you’ve been to see your GP for a health assessment recently, you may recognize the question as well...
Topic: Column
Wine, moustaches and 50 words for snow
by Tim Atkin
The Inuit languages famously have more than 50 words to describe different types of snow, enabling native speakers to distinguish between a landscape that is variously fresh, firm, packed, rippled,...
In praise of older wines
by Tim Atkin
How long does it take you to drink a bottle of wine once you’ve bought it? A day? A week? A year? I’m not sure how accurate the statistic is,...
Are wine consumers stupid?
by Tim Atkin
One of my favourite “Yobs” cartoons from Private Eye shows a couple of thugs sitting at a restaurant table. “Great,” says the male skinhead to the sommelier awaiting his verdict...
The cult of the winemaker
by Tim Atkin
The death of the Nouvelle Vague film director Claude Chabrol earlier this week has prompted a spate of national mourning in France, with president Sarkozy comparing the great man to...
Syrah: New Zealand’s other great red
by Tim Atkin
Back in 2007, I was one of a number of journalists who attended New Zealand’s first ever Syrah Symposium in Hawke’s Bay. It was a bold — some might say...
Jilly G, Gary V and wine TV
by Tim Atkin
Call me a member of an endangered minority, but I still miss Food and Drink, the BBC cookery show that Delia Smith once dubbed “the most disgusting programme on television”....
Turning water into wine
by Tim Atkin
Someone once described the BBC as the “least worst” television service in the world, an opinion which remains valid while the licence fee continues to exist. The quote reminded me...
Acid trip
by Tim Atkin
“Buy on an apple, sell on a piece of cheese,” runs an old wine trade saw. It’s good advice for consumers, too. If a wine, especially a red wine, can...
In defence of Chardonnay
by Tim Atkin
What’s the most insulting thing you can do to a grape? Mixing it with cola, lemonade or tonic water is a slap in the face, but the lowest of low...
Sherry: the world’s greatest fortified wine
by Tim Atkin
It’s the first rule of pessimism that when things are bad they invariably get worse. Just ask Sarah Ferguson or the nine Sherry bodegas who were recently fined E6.7m by...
2009 Bordeaux en primeur: will the bubble burst?
by Tim Atkin
A friend who works for a City hedge fund calls it “the taxi driver moment”. His theory is that when London cabbies start talking about a guaranteed way to make...