Archive

Labels may provide useful information or gobbledegook. As those ruminatively munching their impeccably-labelled Shergar-burgers will be aware, they may be an accurate guide to what you are consuming - or…

The hoary chestnut roasting on today’s open fire is the thorny thicket of labelling. Part of me fantasises about serving the überinterventionist winemaker with the lengthiest of self-inflicted writs –that…

"The butler returned with a huge album bound in crocodile leather. You are looking at the binding, I notice, said the host. It is the skin of a crocodile I…

The Nature of Wine Tasting Many dozens of books have fully explored the mechanics of taste, its fixities and definites, and there are numerous systems to codify or judge these.…

Q & A on Les Caves’ “Fighting Wines” Tasting Everywhere I hear the sound of marching, charging feet, boy Cause summers here and the time is right for fighting in…

Phile under Pinot I’m sure Pinot’s musky quality directly stimulates the part of the brain that processes sensuality yet I've had more unfulfilling encounters with this grape than I care…

 Of pointyheads, pulse-quickeners & phoeno-types Compare this, rank that, analyse to the nth degree – the more you reduce wine to numbers the less you understand it. A scientist is…

Terroir, of course, a term used - and occasionally abused - in the wine world, and not just by the French, refers to wines that exhibit the character of the…

--by Christina Pickard Jelena and Fulvio Bressanare some of Friuli's (in the northeast of Italy) finest winemakers. Champions of rare native grape varieties like Pignol, Schioppettino, and Verduzzo Friolano, Bressan's…

If I may rehash my chirpy cockney praise for natural wine fairs: A bit of natural wine, from the organic vine More than good, it’s fine – it’s out of…

-by organiser Doug Wregg The dust has settled, the broken glass swept up, the spittoons dismantled for another year, the lights switched off and aching limbs and slightly sore heads…