How To Be A Buyer

by blog on April 17, 2018

Wine buyers fall into various categories. There are the buyers for investment purposes, wherein the wine is already a commodity with a burnished reputation. (The market has already ascribed a value to such a wine.) There are the buyers who work with oenologists and producers to create brands. The buyer for a small company, which […]

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Doug Decants: Momento Mori Staring at the Sun

by blog on April 12, 2018

New Zealander Dane Johns (who staged with the great Bill Downie) worked many years as a barista in Melbourne where he learned about roasting and the nuances of blending and flavour infusion. He was also a musician, making electronic music and then moving towards the analogue version (much like his winemaking). He worked several vintages […]

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Women in wine

April 10, 2018

This year we’ve seen some proper celebration of women in wine. There have been pop-up events, a BYO podcast, due acknowledgement on wine lists, and articles in the wine press, recognising that women have always played a significant role in this industry at every level. There are famous women who have reached the top of […]

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How Do You Like Them Appellations?

April 7, 2018

Not a lot! We recently received communication from our friends at Il Paradiso di Manfredi in Montalcino. Another example of appellations falling a long way from the tree of sanity: On this occasion we inform you that this year we will sell the vintage 2011 with the name TRENTENNALE, because it is the 30th year from […]

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The First Wine Cuckoo of Spring

April 4, 2018

The cuckoo in Wordsworth’s poem heralds the coming of spring, and whilst the cuckoo chants her merry song, one may also discern a more discordant vernal sound – that of a winemaker or critic exploding messily into print about natural wine. This is a subject that lies dormant over the winter months, but, as the […]

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Spotlight on: Te Whare Ra, Marlborough New Zealand

March 27, 2018

TWR – The Faré Side Te Whare Ra (TWR), pronounced Te Faré Rha (House of the Sun), is the oldest little winery & vineyard in Marlborough, being first established in 1979 in the sub-region of Renwick. Since 2003 it has been owned and operated by two vignerons – Anna & Jason Flowerday. She’s an Aussie […]

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Doug decants: Lovamor, Alfredo Maestro

March 27, 2018

Quoth the wine drinker… Lovamor! Do we love Albillo? Or what? It appears both fruitily in Nicolas Marcos’ La Fanfarria Blanco alongside Albarin (one Cangas wine you will never rue), and in the toothsome Lovamor by Alfredo Maestro. But what is it? In 2010, ampelographers using DNA analysis, discovered a parent-offspring relationship between Albillo and […]

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Some wine regions are born, some achieve greatness…

March 26, 2018

Having clocked up five hundred plus blogs, I sometimes feel that I have exhausted wine subjects to write about. Requiring inspiration, I consequently trawl social media in search of provocative opinions and look to field-and- respond to wine related questions that people throw out for their friends and acquaintances. One question recently lobbed out by […]

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Les Caves de Key Kegs

March 26, 2018

Key Kegs have been around for some time as a means of dispensing wine, but arguably have only really taken off in the UK in the past three to four years. The Concept Essentially a wine preserving bag, inside a keg. As a result, it can be operated using compressed air rather than bulky and […]

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Terroir matters

March 21, 2018

I was weaned on James Frazer. ‘The propensity to excessive simplification is indeed natural to the mind of man, since it is only by abstraction and generalisation, which necessarily imply the neglect of a multitude of particulars, that he can stretch his puny faculties so as to embrace a minute portion of the illimitable vastness […]

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