Don't quote me

The admirable Tim Hanni MW of the Napa Valley has been rattling our cages recently – not least by building on his researches into how different all our palates and preferences are. See, for example, his activities and findings at the Masters of Wine Napa Valley Symposium back in 2006 and then,. More...

I don’t know, you go for days and days without much happening and then come a great welter of stories of interest all at once – just like the well-known herd instinct of the 73 bus? There’s a useful overview  here  of the long-rumbling saga of the multinational Diageo ’s. More...

The 'news' that Nyetimber, an English sparkling wine, had supposedly beaten Champagne Bollinger in a blind tasting organised in Italy, was picked up by the British wine media, and consequently reported on, as in this article on decanter.com at the end of last week. [I was asked by The. More...

I had breakfast with the French Minister of Agriculture yesterday, the way you do. Actually, it was a breakfast meeting – subtle difference – arranged by the indefatigable Parisian wine PR man Jean-Pierre Tuil to chime with his annual presentation of awards to members of the press by the. More...

Well I trod the boards for the first time since I was 17 last Saturday night - for about 10 steps. Fortunately I had no script to remember and was required only to half-recognise Hugh Johnson and his bottle of Royal Tokaji as a drunken waiter and to be escorted in to Vinderella 's ball, mistaken. More...

‘The people have spoken and the Ontario wine industry appears to have listened.’ So begins a report in yesterday’s Canadian press by Monique Beech on proposed changes to the controversial labelling of the wines that dominate the volume sales in Canada. These are blends of mainly. More...

The super-fastidious New York Times published a story on Sunday in which writer Frances Dinkelspiel detailed the opposition in northern Sonoma County to Jess Jackson’ s bid to have Black Mountain, located east of the town of Geyserville and north of Healdsburg, in Alexander Valley, renamed. More...

All is far from well at Vinfolio, the ambitious San Francisco-based fine-wine retailer, storage company and cellar-management company described here when we integrated our tasting notes database with theirs last month. To an outside observer, the chronology of events yesterday is. More...

Post script - J&B have very kindly suggested that I taste some leftover samples of the Bruno Clair wines that I missed on Monday when I will be chez eux tasting Comte Liger-Belair wines.  Phew! I owe you Purple pagers an apology.  I got my strategy wrong at. More...

There is bad news on the Burgundy 2008 front, and not just that I am starting to taste wines lower down the ranks where the acidity really does seem too obtrusive. (My tastings in Burgundy in November were exclusively at top domaines.) Until very recently I was one of very few. More...