WELCOME TO WINE TERROIRS & TALES

The 3D map of Barolo If Burgundy is the temple of terroir, and now the altar to hype and the unaffordable, Barolo is fast becoming the alternative new cult for the poor folk who are not billionaires or retain some sense of value for money. For those obsessed with the terroir-driven Pinot Noir, the Nebbiolos of the Langhe offer a nostalgic flashback to some of what Burgundy used to be: a complicated patchwork quilt of vineyards, but here with multiple valleys and all points of

As good as it gets with Langhe Nebbiolo? Endless rain, a million damp slippery leaves underfoot, shortened days, holidays seemingly long gone, it’s that somewhat depressing time of year. Enjoy the last exuberant blast of technicolour Nature and hang in there until Christmas. But the season also brings its blessings – a new grape harvest, an abundance of mushrooms and, if lucky, truffles. In fact, I wish I was in the Langhe, trudging around the vineyards of Barolo, dreaming of

Dupont-Tisserandot's Gevreys Gevrey-Chambertin. It’s the first biggish and, of course, major wine village that you hit when heading south into the Cote de Nuits, and as you head down the Route des Grands Crus out of town towards Morey-Saint-Denis, the road bisects the famed grand crus, Charmes, Mazoyeres, Griotte and Chapelle on your left (east, downslope) side and Latricieres, Mazis, Ruchottes and the jewels of Chambertin and Clos de Beze up over your right shoulder. For any

Colourful Burgundy rooves in NSG I realise that I’ve been negligent in posting, though I do have a valid excuse (writing a book, to be published in 2025 which will hopefully perambulate joyfully around Piedmont, Tuscany, Sicily, Valtellina, Napa, Salta, Patagonia, and all that is French viticulture). So when we needed to find a stop off point en route to the south (and some blessed sunshine, such a rarity this year), Beaune seemed the obvious place. Always a good road sign to

Natural wine publicity The radio this week has been full of despairing parents complaining about unavoidably ubiquitous smart phones at primary schools and worried politicians debating how to regulate AI. The generation gap between us Baby Boomers and the I-phone Babies could not be more obvious. But it’s not just technology and social media that demonstrates the yawning divide, it’s drinking habits too. Whilst the (grand?) parents rummage around in their cellars for preciou

High altitude vines Jujuy. It’s two hours flight northwest of the Argentina capital on the border with Bolivia, with a long backbone of the Andes and, on top, the Atacama desert with its salt plains and cactus parks. The backdrop is not just a matter of towering mountains and the majesty of the Andes – you find that equally in Patagonia, Mendoza and Salta, but here in Jujuy you add a painter’s palette of colours, a brilliance of light and a crazy array of all shades of the sp

Novello Every time we drive back from Italy, we snake up the motorway through the narrow Val d’Aosta to the Mont Blanc tunnel, and admire...

‘La France va mal’. Having lived here for 30 years it’s a perennial cry. France is sick! Looking across the Channel at the ongoing...

The age-old rivalry. No, not the French and the English, but the Bordelais and the Bourguignon. Bordeaux versus Burgundy, the gently...

I last visited the royal town of Pau and the next-door wine town of Jurancon twenty-five years ago, and a lot has changed since. First of...

Occasionally a kind and vinously very well-connected friend invites me to a tasting with one of the grands. I don’t usually post...

Soil in Les Clos, Grand Cru, Chablis I have written before of the link between a village on the south coast of Dorset in England called...

I am not a great believer in these huge comparative tastings when people proudly show off the thirty (or more) bottles that they’ve just...

A few 2000 grand crus Who remembers Y2K? It was I guess the beginnings of the tech obsession, but back then in 1999 everyone was apparently terrified that when the clock struck midnight not only would Cinderella’s glass slippers turn to rags, but the whole computer and time infrastructure would somehow collapse. And so, we all spent silly amounts having Y2K experts and consultants help us fix something that was never broken. 9 months later and the hype about the new millenni

Standing on top of the fifteenth century Tower of Belem looking out over the Tagus River towards the Atlantic, it is difficult to imagine winching down the sails 550 years ago with the next uncharted landfall being the Americas. Nothing but you, the ocean, the wind, a creaky wooden boat, storms, diseases and pirates. Amazing bravery. But I fully admit to having rather forgotten Portugal, one of the smaller and poorer member countries of the EU. The last time I drank its mos

My affection for Argentina dates back to the late 90s. The people, the culture, the grandiose scenery, the fishing (of course) in...

Paris on Sunday. It was an extraordinary match, an extraordinary atmosphere and an extraordinary achievement. The pavements were packed outside every bar in the rain, large screens blazing out the titanic almost biblical duel between the old and the new, the master and the pupil, the next generation of genius. The screams, the cheers and then the groans echoed around the city as exhausted, emotional supporters yelled themselves hoarse. And eventually, almost impossibly in

Living in France is wonderful if you want to pop down the autoroute to Burgundy or the Loire, to eat and of course to drink, but there...

This is not really focussed on wine, so please forgive me, or just skip to the end where I will get back on track I promise. But tumbling temperatures, fluttering golden leaves and the return of rain usually makes wine and food lovers think of things Italian, porcini mushrooms and tartuffi white truffles. The gold is either white or black, depending whether your dog is sniffing under Alba hazel trees or Perigord oaks (though these days the largest source of tuber melansporu

I don’t usually like to post about a single bottle as it invariable means some ego-boosting label that nobody else can afford, so what’s the interest other than so called ‘wine porn’? But I thought the Antarctic chardonnay was a remarkable story, and here I have another bottle that gave considerable pause for thought. Chateauneuf du Pape (CNP). It makes you think of the hot south and those galets , flat round stones that cover the vineyards and act as storage heaters during