5 Regions in Australia You Should Know (if you pretend to know anything about wine)

ARGH. All this talk about boring, high-alcohol, industrial Australian wines. Usually by people who believe Australia is one large hydro-dam of Chardonnay. Yes, really. When I worked in Mayfair in London, someone actually asked me whether Australia has vintages. Someone who buys a lot of wine, and frankly, should have known better.

Arthouse Loire 2009

Skillfully made but distinctly low budget, 2009 Loire is an excellent remedy to the high madness of 2009 Bordeaux primeurs. Forget Bordeaux. Everything under £10 in Loire in 2009 is good value. More than good, excellent value.

From wine to widget (or, my Bordeaux sulk in Rome)

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes. – Marcel Proust

"What I don't understand," said my Roman friend as we walked through the ruins of the ancient city of Rome, "is how these high prices of Bordeaux wine (En Primeur) can be in the public good?"

Yesterday I was on holiday in Italy. Frankly, I needed a holiday. After waiting weeks for the big names of Bordeaux to release their wines, and just a torturous drip drip drip, I was officially in a Bordeaux sulk.

Lunch with Randall Grahm: Imagining Change

Imagine we live on a planet. Not our cozy, taken-for-granted earth, but a planet, a real one, with darkpoles and belching volcanoes and a heaving, corrosive sea, raked by winds, strafed by storms, scorched by heat. An inhospitable place. It’s a different place. A different planet. It needs a new name. Eaarth."

Environmentalist, Bill McKibben

To be honest, it took me a while to sit down and write this post after lunch with Randall Grahm from Bonny Doon vineyards. Why?

the blue wines of Tuscany

At first everything seemed fine, more than fine: from left to right, older terracotta-coloured wines from Chianti to the latest bright purple wines from the Tuscan coast of Maremma. The new 2006 Coevo sat in the middle: a perfectly balanced blend of two distinct regions, Chianti and Maremma. But then out came the Michelin-star Chef, Massimo Bottura, to introduce the food.

English Wine Week: Curiouser & Curiouser

Curiouser and Curiouser, said Alice in Wonderland, and she could equally be saying the same about English Wine. As it's English Wine Week (29th May - 6th June), let's go down the rabbit hole and find the English Wine bottle labelled DRINK ME.