A Natural Solution?
by Fintan Kerr
Considering we have the good fortune to deal with one of mankind’s greatest creations, we wine people spend a lot of time worrying. Our industry is inextricably linked to nature...
Topic: wine
The Stage And The Actor
by Margaret Rand
I had to buy some more wine glasses the other day. I’ve always used Spiegelau ones at home – good quality, but not so expensive that breaking them induces a...
Insider Talk
by Peter Pharos
“When art critics get together,” Picasso is meant to have said, “they talk about form and structure and meaning. When artists get together, they talk about where you can buy...
Burrowing
by Tom Hewson
A confession: I’m pretty sure I used the term ‘Kafkaesque’ before I’d read any Kafka. In itself this could count as faintly Kafkaesque in its admission that authenticity and the...
Can Wine Beat The Odds In 2023?
by Andy Neather
As wine-world knockabout, it was hard to beat. On BBC Newsnight last month, Conservative right-winger Jacob Rees-Mogg, perhaps the most arrogant British politician of his generation in a tough field,...
A Sensorial Symphony
by Susan Lin MW
Vibrant. Rich. Exciting. Layered. Powerful. Complex. These words describe the third movement of Johannes Brahms’ Violin Concerto in D Major. They also describe a vintage Champagne of excellent quality. In...
Sommeliers In Body Armour
by Sergey Panov
Each of them had other plans for this summer. Back in February, Anastasia didn’t think she’d be saving other people’s lives on a battlefield. Anatoly didn’t imagine he’d voluntarily swap...
A Dachshund’s Ear
by Margaret Rand
My school coat was made of Harris Tweed. This is not relevant to anything, except that the other day I came across a wine with Harris Tweed tannins. They were...
Back In Barnes
by Harry Eyres
“That little country wine we found in the backwoods of [fill in the blank with a region of France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Croatia, Bulgaria not especially renowned for quality...
Offensively Inoffensive
by Andy Neather
It was an easy target. A recent Twitter flurry over the by-the-glass wine list at Gordon Ramsay’s Michelin-starred London restaurant Pétrus focused on the punchy prices. And it’s true: charging...
The Myth Of Aristocracy
by Harry Eyres
I have not yet been to the cinema to see the latest despatch from that castellated stately home where half the inhabitants speak in a strange strangulated drawl and wear...
New Wine In Old Bottles
by Andy Neather
I should have expected it in a temple of Tuscan kitsch: Chianti in fiasco, the bulbous bottles wrapped in straw that were a symbol of Italian eateries in 1970s Britain....