Two wines I shall go out and buy: the red and white LAMs by Swartland start Lammershoek, who since the 2010 vintage have been on fire. These were tasted today…
Mountford Estate Chardonnay 2008, one of the highlights of today’s NZ tasting
Spent a few hours at the New Zealand Wine Growers tasting today in London. It was great to see so many winemakers and punters there, but it did make it…
Lunch at La Trompette with Scali Pinotage
Lunch at La Trompette today, the Nigel Platts-Martin restaurant out in the wilds of Chiswick, west London. It was very good indeed. Starter: smoked haddock and creamed leeks with grain…
Funniest label of the year, so far
Caught a glimpse of this new wine label from D’Arenberg, for a celebratory sparkling wine they are releasing. It’s very funny indeed. (For those who don’t get the joke, see…
Another brilliant Dao wine from Alvaro Castro
I bought this wine last year at a ridiculously cheap price in a sale from online Portuguese wine merchant Castas. It’s my last bottle, and I’m sad that I don’t…
Some of my leading blog posts from the last year
The nature of a blog post is that it is somewhat ephemeral. Most blogs don’t encourage readers to hunt around the archive, even though there are tag clouds and category…
The importance of impartiality
For any wine critic or writer, impartiality is a non-negotiable. And I think that all wine writers realise this. So the real danger is not corruption, or obvious conflicts of…
Greywacke Pinot Noir
Very impressed with this. Kevin Judd is well known for his Sauvignons, but this Pinot Noir is one of a growing band of serious expressions of this grape from New…
Syrah and Pinot Noir, and why I love them
Two wines tonight, shared with friends, which really worked. The first, a northern Rhone Syrah from the Cornas appellation, but bottled as Vin de Pays. It’s the Les Collines de…