Lay & Wheeler, now a part of Majestic, recently held a rather unusual tasting in Manchester. Showcasing a selection of wines from its own stocks, supplemented with older vintages from its broking list, I wasn't going to miss the chance to taste the wines of Tenuta dell'Ornellaia and of Château de Beaucastel - despite them not being the most obvious of bedfellows.
Read MoreTo bastardise the words of Aeschylus, Hiram Johnson or Oliver Stone, the first casualty of wine is integrity. An almost inevitable result of the spate of mergers and acquisitions that seemed to characterise and redefine the Australian wine industry around the turn of the century was the loss of many of the things that had led to the companies involved being worth so much money.
Read MoreAfter the excesses of Christmas, midway between the joyous fervour of well intentioned resolutions and the pay cheque that will once again allow you off the wagon, January can often seem to be the longest of months. What better way to shake off the malaise than by maintaining the level of decadence to which one has recently grown so accustomed?
Read MoreThe importance of Marchesi Piero Antinori’s contribution to Tuscan wine specifically, to Italian wine generally and to the standing of both in the wider world of wine cannot easily be overstated. The figures make impressive enough reading on their own: Piero is the 26th generation of a family whose unbroken winemaking provenance dates back to 1385…
Read MoreI have a deep and abiding love for Château Musar, so much so that I’ll accept its myriad of idiosyncrasies any one of which would cause me to reject another wine outright. This Bordeaux inspired oddity, with its distinctive blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cinsault and Carignan, divides opinion more than any other wine I can think of.
Read MoreA recent weekend away was a rare chance to spend time with many of my closest friends, as well as an extended excuse for a few drinks. However, as lovely as it was, it wasn’t really the occasion for great wines. That being said, who can go a whole weekend with nothing decent to drink?
Read MoreThanks to Ben and Mark at the award winning Hanging Ditch Wine Merchants for organising a very enjoyable and interesting Bordeaux tasting dinner earlier this month at the St. James’s Club. Given their ethos of quality being paramount I knew that the wines on offer would not disappoint, but the objective of keeping the wines affordable was going to be more of a challenge.
Read MoreGiuseppe Quintarelli, the incomparably gifted and inspirational maestro of the Valpolicella region, has passed away aged eighty-four after suffering from Parkinson's disease for some years. Each of his wines, from his Valpolicella to his Amarone Riserva, has such effortlessly beautiful poise, concentration and sense of place that it is easy to overlook the dedication, the skill and the love that the quietly unassuming "Bepi" lavished upon them.
Read MoreCommon wisdom states that you should never return to a past love, and so it was with a degree of trepidation that I opened a bottle of wine which I had tasted (and loved) only once before, almost twelve years ago to the day.
Read MoreI played hooky on Tuesday to attend Decanter’s Great Winemakers of Italy tasting in London. I suspect that the Istituto Del Vino Italiano Di Qualità Grandi Marchi is little more than a good excuse for many of the great and good of Italian wine to get together, pat themselves on their backs and come up with new ways of inflating their prices, but if it means more tastings of this calibre then I can’t complain too much.
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