Archive

Label – Luxury Cuvée Label - Never judge a label by its wine. Labels – Did you know that the text on all wine back labels is written by the…

A guest post by Maddie Bryett Recently I attended lunch with some industry companions, two of whom happened to be wine buyers. All of us being British there was the usual…

So what’s showing at our Spanish tasting on October 14th? We are pleased to announce that representatives from the following wineries will be present to pour and talk about their…

*Part 1 1/2 of our Galician adventures. When you have supped on the lethal local aguardiente time becomes a relative notion! * Gorgeous gorges, crazy vineyards In Ribeira Sacra, that’s where the men…

EXCEPTIONAL OFFER!!! VINUDILICE – ONE OF THE GREAT TERROIR ROSES OF THE WORLD  OF THE WORLD *Volcanic terroir *One of the highest vineyards in Europe *Blend of indigenous grapes *Some vines up…

Valdeorras: Valley of Gold It is a truth universally acknowledged that the last winery visit of the day, especially if scheduled after a beautiful boat trip on a river and…

Of Cainos, Cephalopods and Swimming Pools SCENE: Gatport Airwick TIME: Ridiculously early AM Queasyjet to Santiago The bleary-eyed somnambulistic Pyrennies, shod in regulation flip-flops and shorts, tousled and/or hair-gelled, assembled…

Jabberwock - Juvescent Jabberwock – The language of certain wine commentators. Jacob’s Creek - Father Ted (hunched over picnic basket to conceal what he is doing): Okay, Father, I’m just…

Christina’s piece told a story of a liberated, vibrant wine scene in Australia. Despite the obvious divides and the way the Australian wine industry is structured to favour the larger…

INAO - Irrigant INAO - Interfering Nosy Aggravating Officiousness. Bless. Though sometimes INAO is INAO. Ice Wine – A vinous beverage improved immeasurably by the addition of an ice cube…

Extracting sunbeams from cucumbers may be beyond their capabilities, but some oenologists seem to have the alchemical inclination to squeeze base gold out of simple grape juice. Wanting more from…

Hammurabi - Hype Hammurabi – Ancient king of Babylonia and not an embryonic Basque grape variety Hand – positive – Hand harvested (which is selected by eye) implying an artisan,…

--by Christina Pickard Earlier this year, about a three weeks into my new life in Perth, Australia, I received an invite from a winemaker with an unpronounceable name asking if…

If music be the wine of love, fill your i-pod with Pinot A vague survey proved incontrovertibly that stuff happens to you when you taste wine with different music. The…

Gaillac to Gyropalette Gaillac - One of the first vinicultural centres of ancient Gaul with strong traditions and a spread of traditional grapes. Red wines, whites, vins jaunes, slightly sparkling, off…

By Maddie Bryett Carso is a small DOC situated in Friuli bordering Slovenia, in the far North East of Italy. It takes its name from the hilly plateau of calcareous…

Fake - Furmint That’s enough effing and blinding, Ms Austen -Pride and Extreme Prejudice Fake 1 - The latest example of passing off fraudulent wine to a Californian company was…

Earthy to Extraction Earthy - refers to a wine displaying characteristics which are less obviously fruit-driven and more to do with flavours of the soil. Wines from the South West…

A bev(v)y of wines that are hot to trot… 2012 Musikanto, Rafa Bernabe, Alicante Musikanto! If music be the food of love play on- but this wine needs no food.…

Dame to Dung Dame - “The last time that I trusted a dame was in Paris in 1940. She was going out to get a bottle of wine. Two hours…

“All Life is a Dispute Over Taste and Tasting” (Friedrich Nietzsche) When the words wine and industry appear together in a sentence, portentousness and navel-gazing are always in the vicinity. However, junk and science is one of my…

Bandwagon to Burgundy Bandwagon - ‘If you see a bandwagon, it’s too late’ said Sir James Goldsmith. Unfortunately, too many bandwagons rumble on flattening everything in their path. The frenzied…

Behind the winespeak If you really want to know your Alsace from your Elbling here is a sideways squint at the real meaning beneath the language of wine… ABC -…

Favourite Qvevri The clay jar on which I left my steaming wet pawprints at Makatubani, signed but not sealed with a loving set of dabs. Favourite unpronounceable grape Favourite Monastery…

As well as places for retreat, prayer and ascetic contemplation, monasteries have historically been associated with, amongst other disciplines and crafts, reading, writing, scientific research, farming and winemaking. Telavi Monastery…

DAY 3 – PART 2 “Feats of Clay” Suffused with bonhomie and with the lingering whiff of cha-cha in our nostrils the intrepid travellers said their fond adieus to Iago…

Day 3 – part 1 13:00-14:00 - Wine tasting and Lunch at Iago’s wine cellar in village of Chardakhi read the itinerary. The meagre description could never do justice to…

Day 1 Salobie AKA “The Bean Place” Let’s talk beans. Beans, mountain-style from Mtskheta about 15 km from Tbilisi. Street food which puts the gorge into gorgeous Georgia and the…

I’m at home having a “madeleine episode”, prompted by drinking/guzzling Iago Bitarshavili’s Chinuri (Skin Contact) out of a clay drinking bowl. This bowl has recently been the repository for olives…

I have just returned from Georgia after a five day trip organised by the Qvevri Symposium. It was a whirlwind tour, visiting growers and being present at the opening of…

Our list... for nerd-do-wells: Did you know that... *We list no fewer than 30 rosés including ones from Morocco, Lebanon, Australia as well as a further 10 pink champagnes or…

NEW LIST FOR OLD Meet the new list, not quite the same as the old list! Here are some of the highlights. Our buying team has been toiling and moiling…

(Continued from previous post, 7 Steps to Natural Disambiguity) Critics would argue that there is a vast middle ground of entirely rational intervention which creates technically stable and terroir-accented wine…

Unwined. At the extreme of denatured wine is a mass of grape juice with chemical intercessions at every stage of the manufacturing (sic) process from the intensively-farmed vineyards to the…

What is wine to you? Is it the Masnavi of Hafiz or the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam or a Bacchanalian frenzy or an altogether more intellectual affair? Does it bring…

At yet another of those conferences where the audience is harangued for not being globally ambitious the newly appointed head of Fozzies laid out his blueprint for world domination. “I…

It is well known that Oscar Wilde was an epicurean of the highest order. Did he not aver that chefs were only lying in the gutter looking up at the…

It had to happen and so it did. In the wake of the hugely successful Cloudy Bay locator, Les Caves de Pyrène, an insignificant company based in Guildford, has teamed…

Thoughts on note taking and wine writing Tasting notes may be the reconstruction of objective analysis (given the limitations of objectivity), or they may be intended to capture the spirit…

“I dislike arguments of any kind. They are always vulgar, and often convincing.” --Oscar Wilde There are various classes of people who emerge from the wormy woodwork when the subject…

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…