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...
White Varietal: Riesling
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...
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”....
Rasputin and underwater wines
by Tim Atkin
What is it about the Baltic and champagne? Last week’s high profile discovery of a cache of bubbly aboard a shipwreck is not the first time fizz has been found...
The trouble with Australia
by Tim Atkin
Australians don’t do pessimism. They’re generally such a chipper, stop-moaning-and-get on with-it nation that they’d rather share a hot tub with a great white shark than be accused of whingeing...
World Cup Wines
by Tim Atkin
Here we go. Or rather ‘ere we go, ‘ere we go, ‘ere we go. Unless you’ve been in solitary confinement for the last year, you’ll be aware that the World...
Riesling and the high Mosel bridge
by Tim Atkin
“Ah, classic aromas of petrol on the nose.” Professional wine speak can sound silly at the best of times, but the description that invariably makes punters splutter into their Paris...
Black Tower and the spirit of the Seventies
by Tim Atkin
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...
Happy Birthday, Cloudy Bay
by Tim Atkin
Happy birthday, Cloudy Bay. As the first grapes of 2010 are picked in Marlborough, New Zealand’s largest wine region, the country’s most famous winery is celebrating its 25th anniversary. Who...
Beware of floods, fires and locusts
by Tim Atkin
If “Sex change bishop in mercy dash to Palace” is the funniest fictitious headline ever written, then “Small earthquake in Chile: not many dead” is surely the dullest. Claud Cockburn’s...
All NZ’s grapes in one basket?
by Tim Atkin
Let’s start this column with something interactive. I’d like you to find a piece of paper and draw a line down the middle. On the left hand side please list...
The Perfect Dozen
by Tim Atkin
If you gave up booze for a month on 1 January, as several of my friends did, you may have reached the point, two weeks later, when you’ve locked away...