Think the wine business is glamorous? Ask the poor souls who spend several hours a day each autumn up to their knees in grape mush. Once upon a time, many parts of the world used foot power to squish their grapes, but now, treading is virtually unique to a few […]
Yearly Archives: 2007
Ist possible?!? French wine trying to simplify matters? News that four Bordeaux appellations are going to join forces (see here) means that the region now has only 54 AOCs instead of 57. OK, it still means that it’s as confusing as anything to a normal person, but at least it’s […]
Bordeaux gets a little sensible
So the Bordeaux cru bourgeois classification is going to be suspended (see here). Golly, this WILL have the rest of the winemaking world quaking in its boots. Why, oh why do the French spend so much time on things that the rest of the world doesn’t give a stuff about? […]
Cru Bourgeois – who gives a stuff?
I have neither the time nor the liver to get through the amount of wine I taste. But that doesn’t mean that I open the bottle, slosh some round my mouth and immediately dispose of the rest to the sink/postman/dog/whatever. What I do do is annoy the pants off my […]
Ten Green Bottles…
Just read Max Davidson’s bit in the weekend Telegraph. I’m in two minds about whether to agree with him. I know restaurants have to make money, but they shouldn’t do it by ripping people off. If you’re an ambitious restaurant that aims to inspire, tantalise, invigorate diners with your food, […]
Ripper or ripped off?
Yum yum, California, I’m on a corpulent hippy of a wine tonight, like Jerry Garcia after a curry, while the acid is still weaving its magic, but before the flatulence and heartburn has set in. It’s Domaine de la Terre Rouge Mourvèdre 2001, a wild, feral, meaty wine, possibly too […]