WELCOME TO WINE TERROIRS & TALES

A Quick Heads Up Having published a wine book, a wine blog and an Instagram site devoted to the grape, I was happily surprised when I was asked by the Academie du Vin Library if I would review some of their books. As it was set up by Hugh Johnson (whom I met years ago and have read so often) and Steven Spurrier (whom I knew and who features prominently in my book), I of course concurred. What better way to spend one’s retirement than reading a hopefully good tome on my favour

Quintessential Chambolle   2009. After the record drought heatwave summer of 2003, 2009 was perhaps the start of the higher frequency of hot years, with, recently, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2022 and 2023. It gives riper fruit and thicker density, more punch and more alcohol. Some like it, personally I find it tends to gloss over the pure beauty of Pinot Noir. Nice, but tending towards the cloying and the heavy, and subsuming those elegant differential nuances between vineyards into a

Waiting to go into the Pavillon Ledoyed for the tasting of Domaines Familiaux de Bourgogne It is a rare privilege for Burgundy lovers to secure an invitation to the annual tasting of the Domaines Familiaux de Bourgogne at the very posh Pavillon Ledoyen, a Michelin starred restaurant in Paris, so I thought I might post a few thoughts. I’m not going to give a list of tedious tasting notes on mega label wines, nor a bunch of photos of me trying to hobnob with some of the greates

Yacoraite vineyards Jujuy is the region of a million photos, from the crazily coloured chevroned mountains of Hornocal to the turquoise and glistening white Salt Plains next to Bolivia, in the Atacama Desert. The play of light on the ever-changing palette of the Andes would drive Claude Monet to distraction. It is beyond spectacular, the textures, shade and brilliance shifting at every bend in the road. Throw in llamas and guanaco (in the cactus-strewn fields, or the wool sho