Friday night saw the official start of the i4c (international cool climate chardonnay conference). This was titled ‘8 chefs, 8 grills’ and was held at Hillebrand winery in Niagara. The…
Fun at Enoteca Ascari, Toronto
Monday evening in Toronto. A fun gathering of wine people at Enoteca Ascari. You can’t capture an evening like this is a blog post, but there are some wines that I’d…
Lunch at the Glasshouse, with Elgin Ridge
Had a great lunch at the Glasshouse, Kew on Monday, with Brian Smith, a now-biodynamic winegrower in Elgin, South Africa. I first met Brian and his wife Marion at the…
The Flower and the Bee, a wonderful Treixadura from Ribeiro
I love this wine. it’s beautifully packaged, and its contents are great, too. From the northwest of Spain, and specifically the Ribeiro appellation, it’s a varietal Treixadura (in neighbouring Vinho…
Shobbrook Giallo, a remarkable Sauvignon from Australia
This is an unbelievably good wine. I love it. It’s Tom Shobbrook’s Giallo. A Sauvignon Blanc, but made naturally, with some skin contact. And fabulously packaged, too. ‘The Sauvignon is…
Object types and the identity of wine
How do we organize and understand the world around us? We do it through classifying objects, which we assign properties to. And then we understand our environment through these objects….
A brilliant South African Sauvignon, The Infidel
When I bumped into Pieter de Waal in the Loire last month, he gave me a bottle of one of his wines to bring home. I am glad he did:…
Some nice surprises from the Balkan wine festival
So, after two day’s judging, today was the Balkan wine festival here in Sofia, where a number of producers gathered to show their wines. I just wanted to report on…
Washing, drying and maintaining a decanter
I love decanting red wines. And some whites. But I have always struggled with cleaning decanters properly. My usual technique is to was then in very hot water several times,…