Chatting with: Bronwen Percival of Neal’s Yard Dairy
Bronwen Percival is one of the UK's leading cheese experts. She is Neal's Yard Dairy's buyer and technical manager. She also co-authored, with her husband Francis, the book "Reinventing The…
Wine Controversies: Wine Faults versus Wine Flaws
Statement: There are discernible wine faults, there are also legitimate wine flaws. Wine cleanliness is wine godliness. This notion of the paramount important of cleanness in winemaking is inculcated at…
Wine Controversies: Do Cheap Wines Need to Exist?
Statement: Received commercial wisdom would have us believe that cheap wines are necessary to bring new consumers into the wine-buying market. The argument goes that it is patronising to tell…
Natural Wine Thoughts via Georgia
The other day I was hosting a masterclass on orange wines and opted to commence proceedings with my favourite Niels Bohr quote to the effect that “If quantum mechanics hasn't…
Wine Labelling: The Argument in a Nutshell – Part Two
Continued from Part One... There ain’t no sanity clause? One of the problems with charters is the administrative burden that they levy on individuals. If they are to be worth…
Wine Labelling: The Argument in a Nutshell – Part One
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…
Doug decants: The Wines of Andreas Tscheppe
Of Dragonflies, Stagbeetles, Salamanders and Butterflies Andreas Tscheppe is part of the Styrian quintet of vignerons called Schmeck das Leben (taste of life). He has small vineyard parcels in a…
Doug Decants: Bruno Duchêne’s La Luna
One of our “fauve-rite” summer reds Bruno Duchêne hails from the Loire Valley, where his family had a thriving business selling farm machinery. Before starting his career as a winemaker, he…
A Trip to Georgia: Day 3
Of chacha at the gallop, Crazy Pomegranate=crazy-good food, old Rkat and new pet nat. They say in Sighnaghi that if you drink wine and chacha all night long you start…
A Trip to Georgia: Day Two
Of healing cheese, #skintouch, bonny Saperavi, a qvevri academy and super Supra. "Truth is not found in other people's grapes. You can't call that your wine. Truth is in growing…
A Trip to Georgia: Day One
Two semi-supras, twenty-one score and five grape varieties, the other Iberian coffee, dodgy spice dealing and trying not to fall in qvevris After an overnight flight you’re bound to hit…
Tutti i Giorni: Three light Italian reds for every day glugging
We experienced a tantalising flicker of high summer the other day, the kind of weather that moves the great British populace to invoke the inalienable peasant rite of “pulling a…
Doug decants: Franck Balthazar, Cornas
Illustrious Hermitage is spoken with a regal drawl, all languorous and timeless, Cote-Rotie, with its pleasing assonance and alliteration, trips authoritatively off the tongue, then there is Cornas. Not Corn-ah,…
#thebeastfromtheyeast and other cringeworthy wine hashtags
“…A man who could make so vile a pun would not scruple to pick a pocket.” Gutenhashtag! Und #nichtsehrgutenhashtag! Only Donald Trump could make twitter synonymous with acute logorrhoea. Here…
Doug decants: The Wines of Philippe Bornard
Philippe Bornard lives in the village of Pupillin near Arbois. His vineyards were inherited from his father, who previously sold only to co-ops. It was Pierre Overnoy, no less, who…
Pretty in Pink: Part 2 (The Rest of the World)
And so we continue on our Rosé journey with some utterly delicious pinks… Was it Mariah Carey in We Belong Together (remix) (feat. Jadakiss and Sty) who extolled the great…
Pretty in Pink: Part 1 (The Frenchies)
We’ve probably endured enough whimsical articles about “la vie en rosé” and how we should be “tickled pink” by surprisingly drinkable rosé wines, but that’s not going to stop this…
Wine Wabi-Sabi
There are two broadly opposed approaches to farming and winemaking that illustrate the personal aesthetic of those people who are involved in the process. One is to see farming and…
Doug Decants: The Auvergnate Wines of Domaine Maupertuis
Too much and too little wine. Give him none, he cannot find truth; give him too much, the same. --Blaise Pascal (born in Clermont-Ferrand) Jean Maupertuis tends 3.8 hectares of…
How To Be A Buyer
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…
Doug Decants: Momento Mori Staring at the Sun
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…
Women in wine
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,…
How Do You Like Them Appellations?
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…
The First Wine Cuckoo of Spring
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…
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…
Doug decants: Judith Beck Welschriesling Bambule!
The Beck winery is a family estate in Gols, in northern Burgenland near lake Neusiedl. Traditionally, there were small mixed farms in the area, but they always grew vines as…
New Arrivals: From Oregon to Croatia, Marlborough to Burgenland!
Oregon trailers Ovum’s Off The Grid Riesling has just rejoined our supply to power your electrifying Riesling needs. Since I Fell For You Gewurz is the latest Traminer to fall…
Ficheing for information
We want information, information, information --The Prisoner There is no substitute for standing in a vineyard and shaking the clay from the soles of your shoes. To share the same…
Doug decants: Franz Weninger Vom Kalk, Burgenland Austria
Just as each wine grower is a unique individual, so too are their vineyards. Franz Weninger insists on expressing the different soil types found throughout Burgenland and uses Blaufrankisch as…
The wine in Strine stays mainly off the plain
The reverse convict boat from Australia docked recently with some convincing grog from our alternative and alliterative artisans. Pat Sullivan has sent us one of his indeterminate gluggers: Jumpin Juice, a…
Dare To Be Different
Original grapes, traditional styles, quirky stories, oddities, curiosities, accidents and a fanatical urge to push the envelope. Mauvais Temps, Nicolas Carmarans, Aveyron A last chance to try the native Negret…
What’s (not) in your wine?
It is symptomatic of the world we live in that we obsess about the niceties of labelling rather than talk about the quality of the contents of a bottle of…
Doug Decants: Vale da Capucha Arinto
The Marques family and their estate, Vale da Capucha, represent the viticultural renaissance that the Lisboa DO has experienced over the last decade. Having grown fruit for bulk wine production…
The Cavistes’s Wet January
Decanting our wines of last month * Our first soggy plump comes from the parish of Mr Board, who proffers Kolbroek Syrah Intellego as his wine dish of the day…
Tastes change
The other day I was trying a wine called In Côt We Trust from the stable of Pierre-Olivier Bonhomme. I remember (back in the time) my first encounter with this…
New Wine Resolutions: Refresh your palates and wine lists
We're nearly a month out from the holidays, and it’s time to refresh your palates and your wine lists. Ignore dry January for try-new-wine-January (or February or March) instead because, when…
Doug Decants: Piquentum Wines
This is a tale of a son of a Frenchwoman and an Istrian father, growing native Croatian grapes and making them in an old Mussolini-era concrete water tank. Born in…
Keep on Punching: The Rise of Testalonga Wines
Our first batch of 2017s have arrived and the Testalonga wines have gone to another level. Craig Hawkins is in a good place. He and Carla are now ensconced in…
Wine is Politics: Part Two
Continued from Part One... DOC, heal thyself - globalisation versus the grower In France and Italy the official structures (appellations, interprofessional bodies, bureaucratic involvement) have been seen to militate…
Doug Decants: Filippi Wines
Soave is normally not sophisticated. At worst it may be a sulphurous travesty and even the better examples tend to be neutrality personified with all the fruit of the thinnest…
2017: The Year of Treading Softly
A Swift Retrospective It was not the best of times, it was not nearly the worst of times, despite the fact that a sociopathic orange person was wreaking daily fresh…
In 2018 I predict…a quiet riot
There is a saying that even a stopped clock tells the right time twice a day. Trends, by definition, are rootless and transient, yet wine commentators are often falling over…
The Cavistes’ Wines of the Year
In no particular order we bring you some of the personal highlights from our team of passionate and hard-working Cavistes, who were asked to nominate their favourite wines of 2017…
Wine is Politics: Part One
I am at a natural wine fair in Vienna. Growers and visitors come together. They drink wine, they talk, they learn about each other. The fair is about sharing wine…
A Price Too Far?
Of mark-ups and wine accountancy The one benefit of a recession, said a wine merchant to me way-back-when in 1991, is that good businesses emerge from it stronger, pared down…
Sir Wregg’s Wines of the Year
I don’t append scores to wines, or have an inner wine-orgasmatron that registers the veritable height of aesthetic and subjective waves of pleasure, but here are my uneven eleven best…
Doug Decants: Georgas Retsina, Greece
Buy me brandy, A snifter of wine. Who am I kidding? I'll drink turpentine. Barney Gumble, 'A Boozehound Named Barney', The Simpson's (a parody of 'Feed The Birds' from The…
Unicorn Wines: Part Three
Unicornucopia! There are wines which are so rare because to make them requires nature to smile on the vineyard, or for the vigneron to feel that the quality of the…
Of Cult and Icon Wines
Petrus – What is the wine about? Imagine a cathedral lit with every light and line focused on the high altar. And on the altar, very reverently placed, intensely there,…
Unicorn Wines: Part Two
Unicornucopia! There are wines which are so rare because to make them requires nature to smile on the vineyard, or for the vigneron to feel that the quality of the…
Doug decants: The Wines of Antonino Caravaglio
Nature is an aeolian harp, a musical instrument whose tones are the re-echo of higher things within us. -Novalis The history of artisanal winemaking in the Aeolian Islands off the…
The Natural Wine Idioticon
A is for additives such as acidification. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it and if it is broke if the fault of the way the wine is made in…
A Pocketful of Natural Wines near Rye
This is a follow up to the recent Q & A with Ben Walgate of Tillingham (which is the name of Ben’s nascent wine project in East Sussex). Outside of…
Nouveau Nouveau: Christina Rasmussen
Bojo Nouveau is vieux chapeau, n’est-ce pas? By no means! Christina Rasmussen describes how we are falling in love with a new style of new juice. Christina works as wine…
Doug decants: The Wines of Didier Barral (Faugères)
I believe that there is a subtle magnetism in Nature, which, if we unconsciously yield to it, will direct us aright. –Henry David Thoreau This Renaissance man, naturalist, and biodynamic…
Unicorn Wines: Part One
Unicornucopia! There are wines which are so rare because to make them requires nature to smile on the vineyard, or for the vigneron to feel that the quality of the…
New and grooving wines
Forthcoming new and grooving wines Natural Burgundy, Napoleon’s favourite tipple (sort of), rare volcanic gems, tiny production single vineyard Barolo, a natural Retsina (yes!), a cool Malbec-dominated wine from a…
Doug Decants: Andert Wine
Michael Andert was born into a large family and grew up on a farm with mixed agriculture, livestock and viticulture and learned to respect his family, his animals and the…
A guest podcast episode with: Si Vintners on The Vincast
Based in Melbourne, James Scarcebrook has worked on all sides of the Australian wine industry He blogs on his website, The Intrepid Wino, and is the host of the popular podcast The…
Chatting with: Ben Walgate, the qvevri-crazed English natural winemaker
Ben Walgate is currently making natural wines in Georgian qvevri on his farm in East Sussex. We ask him about his journey to the amber side and what the future…
Doug Decants: Rabasco Wines, Abruzzo
The Not-so-Full Montes Iole Rabasco inherited her family’s small vineyard and olive grove, neither of which have ever been treated with chemicals. And she’s taken that blessing and run with it.…
Another Rare Creature: Ribeyrenc
Our spare Ribeyrenc Ribeyrenc, also Rybeyrenc, though grape encyclopaediae will have it under the more prosaic-sounding Aspiran noir), is a variety that was traditionally grown between Minervois and Clermont…
Revisiting Taste, Tasters and Tastings
Looking at the glass-twitchers, sniffers and slurpers at one of our recent shindigs made me think that tasting is as much about mood as anything. The more generic the tasting…
Thirsty for Hungary
When you are in a country for a very short period you barely have time to get your bearings let alone taste enough wine to come up with a qualified…
Doug Decants: Minimus Origin Gouges Zivo Vineyard 2016
This is Chad Stock’s second foray into Pinot Noir Blanc territory. Yes, a red grape mutated into a white with partial skin contact. Go figure! Zivo is the name of…
Les Caves at The Great Sherry Tasting
The Great Sherry Tasting returned to London this month, a chance for us to mug up on our soleras and criaderas, and plunge quizzical beaks into copitas of Palo Cortados…
Chatting with: Wine Writer Simon J Woolf
Award winning writer, natural wine expert and Decanter contributor Simon J Woolf today announced the launch of his first book Amber Revolution. Subtitled “How the world learned to love orange…
Doug decants: Forlorn Hope
2015 Gemischter Satz by Forlorn Hope We love a crazily fearless blend and this wine is the mashiest of Austro-Germanic mash-ups. Matthew Rorick writes of his Forlorn Hope project: 'The…
We’ve got a not-so-little-list
“The list is the origin of culture. It’s part of the history of art and literature. What does culture want? To make infinity comprehensible. It also wants to create order.”…
Les Caves’s Autumn Trade Tasting!
Tuesday 3rd October, 10am-6pm at The Hellenic Centre Something new, something old, something fun to banish the wine blues Our autumn tasting is a timely dip into the wilds and werewolves…
One score and ten years in the wine business
Grizzled vets don’t have to grizzle to be accorded that status. But they have to have seen a reasonable amount of wine of all colours and all qualities flow beneath…
Don’t Pass Over These Yaks
Domaine d'Aurensan and Chateau de Leberon: Vintage Armagnacs Domaine d'Aurensan The Aurensan vineyard – a family venture run by father Bernard and his two daughters, Sophie and Caroline, spreads over…
Doug Decants: Casa Belfi, Raboso Colfondo
The birthplace of Casa Belfi natural wines is San Polo di Piave, Veneto, where the river meets the sea. The philosophy behind the project is the respect of natural processes…
Humour in wine
“Wine can of their wits the wise beguile, Make the sage frolic, and the serious smile” ~ Homer (the poet, not the Simpson). Wine has inspired beautiful poems, tracts of…
Beyond The Wine List
Mais naturellement, Les Caves de Pyrene are winier than winey, with around 1,700 “references” (as the wine trade is wont to call them) from around 500 vignerons hailing from 18…
Jazzing Up Restaurant Wine Lists
“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…
Doug Decants: The Wines of Céline & Laurent Tripoz
Lochéd and loaded All the Tripoz vineyards (11 hectares) are in or just outside of Loché in the Maconnais, where the cellar is located. With vines on eastern exposures rooted…
Topping up the Georgians
It is public knowledge that we’ve had a love affair with Georgia for the past few years and were one of the first companies to seriously focus on importing wines…
Rest in Peace Haridimos Hatzidakis
A few days ago, the great Santorini winemaker, Haridimos Hatzidakis, sadly took his own life. Tributes have been pouring in and we wanted to add our own panegyric to the…
Can Natural Wines Age?
The beauty of natural wines is their singularity. Constantly evolving, they need to find their own time and place. The best natural wines result from sensible farming. Healthier vineyards, tended…
What We Are Reading: The Dirty Guide to Wine + Tasting Georgia
The Dirty Guide To Wine Following Flavours From Ground To Glass by Alice Feiring We often think of wine in a very square way – for example, we might group…
Doug Decants: 2016 Burja Zelen, Vipavska Dolina
The third generation to cultivate grapes in his region, Primoz left the family estate in 2009 to start his own label, ‘Burja’, the name of the strong wind that blows…
Passion for Natural Wines – La Cav magazine, Chile
--By Francisca Jara V. Translation by Amy Morgan. In the world of wine, almost everything can be controlled. From the temperature of fermentation to its colour. But last May, 170…
Chatting with: Derek Morrison at The Good Wine Shop
Derek Morrison is the Retail Manager at The Good Wine Shop, an independent wine merchant with shops in Kew and Chiswick in West London. Derek is also the co-founder of…
Coming soon to a wine portfolio near you…
As the great Oscar Wilde didn’t say: “There’s only one thing better than talking about wine that has arrived in our bonded warehouse, and that’s talking about wines that have…
Doug Decants: Macon Cuvée 910, Clos des Vignes du Maynes
AKA Life in the Bojo slow lane and Cistercians doing it for themselves Macon-Cruzille Rouge “Cuvée 910” a field blend that harks back a millennium plus change. (or no change)…
Chill the Rouge!
Chilled reds are not just for summer. In summer, all reds should either spend an hour cooling their heels in the fridge, or be granted a swift bath in an…
All you needed to know about Oregon: Part Three – Alternative Perspectives
Alternative Perspectives As one may easily see Oregon is home to a highly unified, friendly and supportive producer network. I would go further: In my experience, Oregon presents the most…
All you needed to know about Oregon: Part Two – The Emergence of Wine Culture
History & The Emergence of Wine Culture The history of Oregon and its wine industry might be characterised as one that has progressed by leaps and bounds in a very…
All you needed to know about Oregon: Part One – Pinot Noir and life beyond
Oregon produces quite a small amount of wine but an awful lot of noise. Which is not at all to say that the state's wine industry is overrun by brash…
Doug Decants: Award-winning Saffas, Sherry-not-Sherry, New Slovenians, Matassa, Commando G + More!
Elgin Ridge Takes Top Gold! Elgin Ridge Chaos White 2016 (98 points) wins top gold at the International Organic Wine Awards! We will have our tiny allocation of this biodynamically farmed…