Spring in all its Glory
Season of fancy and of hope, Permit not for one hour, A blossom from thy crown to drop, Nor add to it a flower! Keep, lovely May, as if...
Naturally Curious
An independent blog based on 40 years of love of wine, stories, travels and tasting. Nothing professional, nothing expert, just pleasure and, I hope, good taste. Read on, and enjoy. Subscription is free.
Season of fancy and of hope, Permit not for one hour, A blossom from thy crown to drop, Nor add to it a flower! Keep, lovely May, as if...
It has been a long time since my last post, and that was a rather depressing one on the problems of dead white burgundies, so with spring...
As most of my Burgundy allocations finally get delivered towards year end, I always look forward to December, an excuse to spend time in...
Christmas, or whatever the festive end of year season is allowed to be called these days. An excuse to dig out some nice bottles, though...
The Langhe in Piedmont, a region of rolling hills topped with ancient villages and interspersed with valleys; a patchwork quilt of...
The hilltop La Morra under MonViso and the Alps at sunset, seen from Monforte d'Alba It was back in 2007 that three men from the hamlet...
The world seems to be ever more full of mega-egos, just look at our politicians. Social media undoubtedly facilitates the trait and I...
Chateau Lynch Bages 1995 - classic, lovely 1995 1995. Life was not so much rosier back then. The US was rocked by domestic terrorism in...
Sadly, I have never had the chance to meet these two stars of the Burgundian firmament. I have met the son of the first, and have a CD...
Burgundy. The blessed slope with more history, vaunted terroir, heritage, pricing and words than any other wine district on earth. And as...
I don’t usually write about wines we’ve drunk here unless there’s a theme or a purpose. There needs to be a story, or something of...
I have noticed on Instagram that there is almost an obsession with ancient bottles with crumbling corks and rotting labels. Time and...
Haut Brion. It is perhaps the wine I most love to hate or is it I most hate to love? For me it encapsulates everything that is best about...
Lockdowns, travel bans, R numbers, partial deconfinement, vaccine passports. Time to let the windmills of your mind turn and take your...
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea, The plowman homeward plods his weary way, And leaves...
When I arrived in France in 1991, visitors to my Paris apartment joked that the furniture was mainly made up of wooden wine cases. They...
In the last decade, demand for top wines has skyrocketed and so, inevitably, have prices. We have seen the emergence of cult domaines...
It was about 25 years ago that I finally began to appreciate the beauty of Burgundian chardonnay, and it started in Meursault. At the...
I don’t ‘do’ scores and I don’t usually like to post about a single bottle I’ve drunk, as it seems to lack enough reader interest and...
1976. I was a school kid in England, and I can still remember the cricket pitch going from lush green to a faded fatigue to frazzled...