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”....

The other side of own-label

by Tim Atkin
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,...

Eating out? Please bring a bottle

by Tim Atkin
How do you spend $47,221.09 on lunch for six people? Assuming your credit card company will authorise the transaction, it’s surprisingly easy if you’re a billionaire. To paraphrase Withnail in...

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...

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...

Turn on the lights

by Tim Atkin
Where are we to find such bottles? It’s harder than you might think, particularly if you want to drink something at 12% or below. White wines from the cooler parts...

Christmas reds and whites

by Tim Atkin
WHITE   2008 Errazuriz Chardonnay, Casablanca Valley (£4.99 each for two, 13.5%, Majestic). Reduced from £7.99, which makes it a stunning deal, this is an easy drinking, peach and citrus...