An ambitious tasting of Italian Rieslings held in Alto Adige on 8 Nov showed that Italy needs to focus on terroir if it wants to pick up the German gauntlet. This annual competition...

Anne McLennan of Cleggett Wines, secretary of the Langhorne Creek Winemakers' Association , wrote to me out of the blue from South Australia the other day, and since this is one wine...

I hear it was snowing in London last week. Well it wasn’t a great deal warmer in Sydney the week before that on my first-ever trip to Australia. In fact, it was the coldest October day for 30...

Melbourne-based wine writer Max Allen was in the UK this week to a) help his mother pack up prior to a move to Australia and b) conduct a seminar on the increasing popularity and quality of his...

First an apology to the many visitors here who do not live in the UK and are therefore not within reach of a branch of our most famous retailer (especially of underwear - hence the image, not...

We Masters of Wine went back to school last month with an AGM preceded by a tasting in Vintners' Hall (shown here) of some of Austria’s finest wines. This was held in honour of Pepi Schuller...

With harvest fast approaching, there is a growing sense of anticipation in the vineyard. The weather for this final trimester has so far kept fair – that is, dry enough and warm enough – to...

In a nutshell : Vertiginous slopes and fine, racy, underpriced Rieslings at all sweetness levels. Main grape : Riesling (white). The vines which grow on the banks of the Mosel...

See also my tasting notes on 169 Alsace 2007s. It is perhaps not surprising that French wine producers have been much slower to embrace screwcaps as an alternative stopper to natural...

In a nutshell : France's most varied, and neglected, wine region. Most wines noticeably crisp. Main grapes (going downriver): Sauvignon Blanc, Cabernet Franc, Gamay,...

France has an extraordinary, and in many ways extremely difficult, position in the world of wine. To many of us, France is wine, and a certain sort of wine, not always the easiest to appreciate...

In a nutshell : Cool. Main grapes : Pinot Noir (red); Chardonnay, Riesling (white). Wine production on Tasmania has always been small, but its potential is now being realised....

Today is the day that a score or two of very hardworking wine students around the globe have been chewing their nails and checking their mail anxiously for it's the day that the Institute of...

In a nutshell : Distinctive reds, a good range of whites, some bargains and increasingly convincing answers to international styles. Main grapes : Chenin Blanc, Cabernet Sauvignon,...

A significant proportion of those who choose to devote much of their lives to wine were inspired to do so by a single wine and in my experience that wine is most likely to have been a red burgundy,...