I’m in an airport. It’s a place where you are bombarded by marketing messages. It’s made me think about wine marketing. Spirit producers tend to do a lot more marketing…
Quinta do Noval Vintage Port 2012
So, Noval has done another ‘eccentric’ declaration, this time of the 2012, and it’s quite early, too. Christian Seely announced the declaration on his blog, earlier this month. His logic…
Comments on Bruce Palling’s anti-natural wine article
Bruce Palling’s article on natural wine has been the subject of a lot of debate over the last week or so. I’ve read it twice. Three times if you count…
Centonze Frappato 2013, a beautifully floral Sicilian red
I do like Frappato. It’s a grape variety that yields beautifully fresh, floral, lighter-style reds, even in the warm climate of Sicily. This is a truly seductive, floral example. Centonze…
From the road in South Africa: Delaire Graff and 96 Winery Road
I’m on my way home from a brief trip to South Africa to judge a Chenin Blanc competition. I spent just two nights here, although because of the overnight flights…
Consider Chenin
For the last couple of days I have been judging the Standard Bank Chenin Blanc Top 10 Challenge, held at Klein Zalze in Stellenbosch. 126 different wines were entered, and…
Some great wines at lunch, including Cristal, Faiveley Corton and Schlumberger GC Saering
After judging the Roederer Awards on Tuesday, we repaired to Chez Buce, where – naturally – we popped a couple of bottles of Roederer’s Cristal. This was followed up with…
Off to South Africa again
So this evening I am flying to South Africa again. Just for a few days this time. And I’m going while it’s winter there, which is bad planning. There’s nothing…
Winning best overall wine blog in the Wine Blog Awards
It was nice to wake up yesterday to a facebook message from Katie Myers telling me I’d won the best overall wine blog category at the Wine Blog Awards in…