Doug decants: Camillo Donati’s Lambrusco Frizzante

by blog on October 15, 2019

Slow food pilgrims who take their hunger, scrip and staff to Bologna and environs know that it’s possible to find interesting, well-balanced Lambrusco from artisanal producers and go-ahead co-operatives. We are talking frothy and refreshing wines that one can sip on the piazza or enjoy with a pizza. Little of the quality Lambrusco escapes Emilia-Romagna, […]

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Focus on: Bodegas Emilio Hidalgo, Jerez de la Frontera

by blog on October 15, 2019

Bodegas Emilio Hidalgo was founded in the mid-nineteenth century by Emilio Hidalgo Hidalgo, so good they named him twice. The company is owned and operated by the fifth generation of his descendants and our host for the visit was the genial Fernando Hidalgo. The winery has been located, since its inception, in the old part […]

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Guest Blog: How I Caught the Natural Wine Bug – Freddie Johnson

October 15, 2019

My professional experience with wine starts unconventionally as a 19-year old cowering in the cellar of a Michelin-starred London restaurant. As I pondered just how many times a commis chef could set an entire flat top grill aflame mid-service before being relieved of his position, my eyes drifted over a number of striking, colourfully-labelled bottles […]

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Indestructible Wines

October 9, 2019

We are taught to believe that wines inevitably decay from the moment the cork is pulled or the cap twisted. Oxygen is seen as the enemy here, hastening the precious liquid to its either instant or gradual demise. There is even a saying that wine begins to oxidise the instant it is exposed to air. […]

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Doug decants: Le Capitalisme Rouge est un Vin de Garage

October 2, 2019

Is this the most allusive wine label ever? I bloody hope so. But probably not. Before I explicate, a word from our sponsor, Monsieur Brendan Tracey, who has a technicolour past.  Brendan was born in the United States, in 1954, to an American father and a French mother. One could easily describe Brendan as a […]

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Drinking Outside The Box: A review of our autumn trade tasting

October 1, 2019

We called our autumn trade tasting “Drinking Outside The Box” because we always want people to leave their preconceptions alongside their coats in the cloakroom and to approach our wines in a sensitive, wide-eyed, and, dare one say, an intuitive way. There are so many ways one may divide a tasting or describe a group […]

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Focus On: Pol Opuesto Wines

October 1, 2019

The Wines of Pol Andsnes, The Uco Valley, Argentina You’re in a restaurant leafing through their bible of a wine list. You leaf in vain. There is no natural skin-contact Torrontes! Rightly, you walk off in a huff and hail your uber(natural) taxi. Fear not. That gaping list chasm can be bunged now with the […]

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Wines of the Year: Part Two

September 17, 2019

Will and Doug uncork some of their vinous highlights of 2019. (Read Part One of our Wines of the Year HERE.) Will: Although my views about best-of-year picks tend to ebb and flow like the tide, I feel that the following are going to take some beating!  What’s more, none of these are liable to […]

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Doug Decants: Cascina Iuli’s La Rina (Piedmont, Italy)

September 17, 2019

Fabrizio Iuli grew up in a restaurant family. For over 60 years, the Iuli family served award-winning Piedmontese cuisine in their guest house/hotel, but it was the local demand for a house wine that launched Fabrizio onto his current career. He planted more and more vineyards (9 ha in total) and cultivates Nebbiolo and Pinot […]

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What goes on when we taste wine?

September 16, 2019

There are moments when you drink a wine that become hand-wringing, bell-ringing events; transcendent moments that palpitate the nerve-endings and lodge in your memory cortex forever. When we post about an experience on Insta, Twitter or FB, the experience is flattened out. No #hastag, after all, can resurrect the quality of the sublime. I have […]

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