A week ago, my friend Mel Brown messaged me to see if I wanted to go to a festival the following weekend. I was free, so I said yes. I…
Champagne Taittinger Prestige Rosé NV
Champagne Taittinger Prestige Rosé NV France £50 Waitrose, Asda, Wine Rack, Majestic, Harrods 12.5% alcohol There’s 15% of still red wine from Ambonnay and Bouzy in the blend, added to…
Three Muscadets, and how I am beginning to love Melon
Isn’t Melon an interesting grape variety? I’ve had good examples from Canada (Niagara) and Oregon of late. I’m glad people are working with a variety like this, which traditionally hasn’t…
Lisbon Family Vineyards: visiting three ambitious producers from Portugal’s Lisboa region
The wine region of Lisboa is a large, diverse one. It runs up north from Lisbon, bounded by the Atlantic coast on one side and the Tejo river to the…
Video: bottling sparkling wine on a mobile disgorging line
When I was in Canada last month I had a chance to watch Viniserve’s mobile disgorging line in operation. Disgorging is a vital stage in the life of…
Some BA lounge wines: what does business class get you these days?
Just did a bit of British Airways lounge wine sampling (BA Galleries lounge at terminal 3). These are wines available in business class. How good are they? The answer: not…
On divorce
[Aside: I have been running an internal debate about whether to write on this subject. It’s not like I’m the first person to get divorced: it happens all the time….
Gamay 31, Easthope Family Winegrowers 2015 Hawke’s Bay
There’s not a lot of Gamay in New Zealand, but it seems to have some promise here. The most well known example is the soild Te Mata Gamay, but there…
Fun in New Zealand’s Nelson-Tasman, at the top of South Island
I’ve been in New Zealand for the last week. The official reason for the trip was to present a couple of talks at the biodynamic and organic wine conference in…