Inside information

As a Purple Pager, you have the chance to win a pair of tickets to UK wine merchant Bibendum's big tasting of 2012 bordeaux at Lord's Cricket Ground, London NW1,  on 5 June 2013.  Once again, Bibendum are hosting over 70 Bordeaux properties at Lord’s Cricket Ground in London giving. More...

15 May - One more refinement to our tasting notes search : You can now choose to view exclusively ' Standalone' tasting notes , those added independently to our database of more than 82,000 tasting notes rather than as part of a tasting article. We continue to try to improve. More...

April is a transitional month. We wrap up our cellar work at Linden Vineyards, bottle the fresher aromatic whites, and take inventory of any vineyard maintenance problems that now need our attention. In the vineyard The vineyard has been pruned and tied. The established. More...

Many of April's best wines came from Bordeaux's 2012 vintage as part of our extensive en primeur coverage . But there were plenty of more mature wines making the grade this month, and some of the best were published as 'standalone' notes, uploaded surreptitiously into our servers by Team JR. More...

Last weekend the VDP Weinbörse in Mainz provided the first comprehensive opportunity to assess the wines of the 2012 vintage. The only wines not available for tasting at this stage are the Grosse Gewächse (the top dry wines) and the super-sweet Beerenauslesen and Trockenbeerenauslesen.. More...

Dear D, This isn’t going to be easy, for either of us. You and I, we’ve been through so much together. There’s no good way to say this … D, I’m so sorry, but I’m leaving you. I always thought we could solve our problems, but they turn out to be insurmountable. God knows I. More...

See Julia's notes on Pomerol 2012s on Monday. At the en primeur tasting earlier this month in their very fine new cellar (never mind the size, feel the quality), husband and wife team Jacques Thienpont and Fiona Morrison MW, along with sons William and George, proudly announced the introduction. More...

Don Francisco Javier Hurtado de Amézaga (left) was born in 1947, an important wine year both for both wines and wine people. The current Marquis of Riscal, he's known as Paco, a common Spanish nickname for those called Francisco. He is the winemaker and represents the family in the Marqués de. More...

Another titbit for those entirely uninterested in Bordeaux.... While Vino Nobile di Montepulciano in general seems a little inert of late, this is certainly not the case with its best-known producer Avignonesi. Virginie Saverys , scion of a Belgian shipping dynasty, started to get involved in. More...

Jim Law brings us this monthly report from Linden Vineyards in Virginia. March brings the awakening. We sense an upward thrust coming from the warming soil. Crocuses are the first visible sign of spring. They give us great pleasure and wonder, especially after they are. More...