WELCOME TO WINE TERROIRS & TALES

Jujuy - illustration from my new book by Arabella ‘Porque el vino, cuando es verdadero, no envejece: solo se transforma en memoria’ (Because wine, when it is true, does not age, it only becomes a memory) Alejandro Vigil, winemaker El Enemigo & Catena, Mendoza, Argentina Argentina is a land of extremes. Take the fabled Ruta 40, the road that forms the backbone of the country, from the cactus strewn Alto Plano high mountain Atacama desert on the Bolivian border, via the salt pl

It was in the twelfth century that the Ricasoli family took over the castle in Gaiole in Chianti. It has weathered the centuries of attacks from outside (the Spanish) and inside as the Sienese battled with the Florentines (Brolio being geographically closer to the former but politically allied to the latter). The current edifice, a rather massive pinkish stone caste with crenelated battlements and various different towers, stands in lovely gardens surrounded by vines and oliv

A Year in the Vineyard at Domaine Clape Cornas By Magali Jacob & Quentin Preaud (linocut illustrations) English & French Editions, 2025   I’ve just paid for a clean up and upgrade of this little website, so I hope it’s all working and thoroughly visible. It’s a shame how much work and money you have to expend to get the likes of Google to list you on their searches… Anyway, it’s that time of year – the last golden outburst of autumnal Nature in all its Fauvist glory, the cyni

45 years apart When you are past middle age, shall we say politely, it’s not often you get to taste your birth year vintage once, let alone twice in a few weeks. Especially when it happens to be the legendary 1961. It started back in 2011 at a tasting of Bourgueil wines from Lame Delisle Boucard at Caves Bossetti in Paris. They were straight up from their tufa chalk cellars, cool and deep in the Loire Valley. And 100% Cabernet Franc. To be honest I know the wines of Chinon so