I was asked a question by a journalist today: Our readers want to live vicariously: What does a $30,000 bottle of wine taste like? Do wine experts appreciate them significantly…
Learning, the counter to subjectivity in wine appreciation
Like what you like. That’s what we are so often told, in terms of appreciating wine. It’s fair advice. When it comes to wine preferences, no one should tell you…
On beauty, and wine
Is beauty intrinsic to a wine. Or is it a quality that is conferred upon the wine by the taster? Think of people. What makes someone special, someone beautiful? Isn’t…
A great new wine publication, Noble Rot
A plug for a new wine magazine. Titled Noble Rot, it’s a bit counter-cultural and edgy (without being pretentious), with a good dollop of food and popular culture thrown in….
A brilliant, inexpensive Gamay from the northern Rhone
I was interviewing Oz Clarke and Chris Murphy yesterday for a feature for M&S magazine, and one of the wines we looked at was this, a brilliant inexpensive Gamay from…
What do you look for in a wine?
I’m curious. What do you look for in a wine? Is it power? Concentration? Complexity? Does it matter if it is natural or not? Must it display a sense of…
More Pinot Noir 2013 people
Pinot Noir 2013 has finished, and I’m exhausted. It was amazing, and I’ll write a lot more about it. For now, some more pictures of the pinot people. Sherwyn Veldhuizen,…
Some Pinot Noir 2013 people
Some snaps from this brilliant Pinot Noir conference in Wellington. Marquis Sauvage of Burn Cottage, and below the Burn Cottage tattoo on his leg, which took 4 h and was…
Jasper, Rudi and Nick, and the 7 metre Wellington dive!
Wellington is a cool city. On the waterfront there’s a 7 m diving platform that’s very popular on a hot day like today. Jasper Morris, Nick Mills (Rippon) and Rudi…