Back in the early 1980s, the Australian producer Wolf Blass invented a sparkling red called René Pogel. Wolfie, as he’s known to friends, is a brash, but extremely successful bloke,...
As oxymorons go, they may not be as absurd as “French resistance”, “amicable divorce” and “camping holiday”, but there’s still something fundamentally silly about Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference Spaghetti Bolognese,...
When the package tour operator Goldtrail Travel collapsed last week, cancelling the summer holidays of some 50,000 customers, bar owners in Greece and Turkey must have had mixed feelings. Goldtrail’s...
The wine style I want to promote doesn’t come from a specific region, although most of its exponents are French and Italian. More frustratingly still, it has no legal definition...
Co-operation may be fashionable in political circles at the moment, but in the wine business it’s increasingly regarded as the equivalent of a tweed skirt: frumpy, moth-eaten and distinctly old-fashioned....
Walk into any wine shop and you can see the bottles that sell, placed strategically in the fridge or in attention-grabbing piles close to the till. The wall flowers are...
If his diaries are to be believed, the late Alan Clark always went to bed early on New Year’s Eve, avoiding noisy parties to get a good night’s kip in...
It’s been a mixed month for Gallic gastronomy. If the French were insulted by the fact that their country didn’t feature once in Restaurant Magazine’s list of the top 10...
It was a Life on Mars moment. Hearing about the imminent relaunch of Black Tower made me feel like Sam Tyler, the detective in the BBC television series who gets...
“Read it? I know him.” Travelling around Turkey on a wine trip, there are times when you’re reminded of the joke about the Polish man who goes to the optician’s...
Italy is blessed with many beautiful places, but the view from the top of the Cartizze hill in Conegliano Valdobbiadene is still a bit special. The vineyard itself, Prosecco’s only...
Clohars-Carnoët or Collioure? That’s the decision the French television channel TF1 has to make over the next month or so, according to a recent article in Le Parisien. These two...