Spotlight on: Te Whare Ra, Marlborough New Zealand
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…
Doug decants: Lovamor, Alfredo Maestro
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),…
Some wine regions are born, some achieve greatness…
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…
Les Caves de Key Kegs
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…
Terroir matters
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…
30 years of Fatalone Primitivo Riserva: A Report
The History of Fatalone The Fatalone name originated with Filippo Petrera (2nd generation), Nicola’s son, who was, in his time, nicknamed Il Fatalone. It quickly caught on becoming the family…
Doug decants: The Wines of François Rousset-Martin, Jura
Some growers seem to be born iconic, some have iconic status thrust upon them and some seem to avoid the limelight entirely, simply content to sell their wines. It helps…
Natural Wine Philosophy: Non-Philosophical Musings
What is your personal philosophy, Lucy asks Charlie Brown. He thinks for a moment: 'Life is like an ice cream cone – you have to lick it one day at…
The Stirrings of a UK Wine Culture
Are you curious to know if there a disjunction between London and the rest of the UK in terms of wine taste? Although I am mainly interested in regional attitudes…
Wines of The Sea – The Life of Brine
Wine lists are organised by price, by country/region, by grape variety and in the broadest sense, by style or flavour profile. But when one thinks that wines come from particular…