At a recent Pinot tasting, a leading South African producer long known for elegant wines firmly denied that they had ever copied Burgundy. Fair enough. We all want to be...
Role Models
The Perfect Gift
I remember the first time I saw a four-leaf clover. I was five. It was gifted to me by a kind lady called June, a childhood friend of my mother....
Au Revoir, Michel
Twenty-five years ago, when Michel Rolland was in his pomp, I was lucky enough to have dinner with him at the Cinnamon Club in London. I arrived early and was...
Future Forward
What we’ll be drinking in 2029 In my grandmother’s kitchen there’s a cover of The Sunday Times Magazine stuck on one of the cupboards. It’s the final edition from 2009,...
Collecting Flavour
Every trade has its sartorial call-signs. The wine trade plays host to the fraternity-of-the-red-trouser, its membership made up of legs that appear to have filled, loafer-to-belt, with decades of luncheon...
Back to the future
Fine wines are timeless – that elusive combination of elegance, complexity and gravitas, plus ageing potential in spades. Their prices unfortunately are not. Top rank Bordeaux, Burgundy or mature Barolos...
Drink Promiscuously
It bothers me that wine drinkers frequently choose wine based on colour, or indeed dismiss those of the “wrong” colour. I have encountered this discrimination most overtly in the rosé...
A Fruity Number
I know we’ve just come through the silly season, when tales of killer chipmunks and dolphin sign language deputise for what’s normally classed as news in the British media, but...
