Recently I was driving a hire car. Back in the day, cars used to have radios, and perhaps a cassette player. Then there were a few knobs to control the…
Let’s stop hiding behind subjectivity
In the Woody Allen film Midnight in Paris, there’s a wonderful interchange between the hero from the 21st Century, Gil Pender, and Ernest Hemingway, in 1920s Paris. Pender has written…
The Lidl Prosecco giveaway, and why we need Minimum Unit Pricing for booze
Yesterday people queued for hours outside branches of discount supermarket Lidl, all for a six-pack of cheap Prosecco. If you were one of the lucky first 20 or so…
Nine BA lounge whites, a bit of a mixed bunch, but some surprises
There are quite a few bottles open in the BA lounge (I’m off travelling again…), so I did a tasting. I’m following the example of one of my wine heroes,…
Winemaking ideologies, my contribution to the Texsom debate
Yesterday at Texsom I took part in a discussion on winemaking ideologies, with a very good panel. Each of us was asked to prepare something to say, so I wrote…
Texsom: exploring the wines of Mexico
Serafin Alvarado and Wayne Belding presented this seminar on Mexican wines, a subject I’ve virtually no experience of. Mexico isn’t an obvious place to grow high quality wine grapes: it’s…
At a festival, without very much wine
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…
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…
Rui Falcao on Madeira, at MUST 2017
Rui Falcao’s presentation at MUST was on Madeira. He began by showing a picture of a bottle of Madeira from 1795, and revealed that most of his great old wine…