How, faced with the array of bottles in a wine store, do you pick the right one off the shelf? Here are few random but specific suggestions:   Decide on a...

Organic and biodynamic wines   This is a vast subject growing in importance which has been covered in some depth on the site already. Although an increasing proportion of...

In Part One , we looked at how much wine, water, and non-alcoholic drink to provide. Here are some specific suggestions as to what sort of wine to serve at which sort of gathering....

Quantities   A tricky one, this. Individuals' capacity for alcohol varies enormously, as you have doubtless observed yourself. No-one could possibly accuse a host who...

Some people think that because of their age or status, it is somehow not 'done' to bring a bottle. Others would never dream of crossing a friend's threshold without a bottle of wine in...

Until recently, I was the calibre of handyman who had to whisper ‘righty-tighty lefty-loosey’ to himself when using a spanner. Happily after five weeks at the winery my handiness...

Decanters   You can use any clean, watertight vessel to decant (pour the contents of) a bottle into. A china jug would do but glass is provably inert and has the great...

Peter Brown, Hertfordshire: Have you read the review of ‘Sideways’ in Journal of Wine Economics , Vol 1, 91, by Robert Stavins (see A new academic journal on wine )? ...

Chris Keeling, Shrewsbury:   I'm travelling to South Africa this Christmas and want to visit some vineyards and hopefully buy some wine. Have you any recommendations on the...

16 sep: See a spirited response to this from Stephen Browett of Farr Vintners in your turn and David’s response to it. David Lester writes: Since this...

Carol Horton, Rome:   Have you or anybody else ever heard of such a thing as a wine apprenticeship where I could learn about wine from the bottom up, or learn about any one of its many facets?!...

See also Toro – who makes the best wine? for tasting notes on about 80 Toro reds. Toro is such a relatively new fine wine region that many even quite sophisticated wine lovers outside Spain...

I have to confess that over the past 12 months I have, most gratefully, enjoyed more memorable meals than anyone is entitled to and, as a result, come across more, and not necessarily young,...

Paris over the past 200 years has witnessed some extraordinary culinary developments, not least the birth of the restaurant itself, but it is unlikely that the current simultaneous opening of two...

A fortnight ago I was completely duped. I arrived at Elena's L'Etoile in Charlotte Street, W1, ostensibly to have dinner with friends. But, rather than going through to the restaurant, I was...