No fewer than eight wine professionals from seven countries, several of them purple pagers, have recently qualified for the internationally recognised title Master Sommelier, following the Master...

Bertrand Faure Beaulieu, 44, would like the world's best sommeliers to work either for a two- and three-star restaurant or for him. This Swiss-born entrepreneur seems to have timed his...

A few months ago I was introduced to the new wine label, Evening Land Vineyards (see tasting notes and more background here ), which produces some particularly impressive wines from Oregon and...

Purple pager Barbara Burlingame of Rome has just reminded me of an article I wrote for the Financial Times five years ago which she found particularly useful. It occurred to me that the...

Many congratulations to purple pager Isa Bal, head sommelier of The Fat Duck, Heston Blumenthal’s restaurant in Bray-on-Thames, who was recognised as Best Sommelier of Europe in the...

The nerves of UK sommeliers were particularly tightly stretched last night at the De Vere Holborn Bars where t he final of the Champagne Ruinart UK Sommelier of the Year 2007 took place. After...

If a man, not a wine professional, takes me out to eat, I can never quite decide whether it is charming or perverse if he insists on ordering the wine himself. Okay then, I admit it, I am...

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...

Amit Patel’s recent thread in our members’ forum about the 'strong rebuke' he received from a waitress recently when he asked her to decant his young burgundy...

For me, choosing the right wine to serve on a particular occasion is almost as thrilling as the wine itself - perverse as that may seem. It gives me real pleasure to feel that the bottle, or...

In Piedmont last week I took part in a big annual Barbera tasting at which the wines are served blind to tasters by a bevy of experienced sommeliers. The night before all my fellow tasters, old...

Julie Arkell writes: Anyone who has stayed at a Ritz-Carlton hotel knows how they like to pamper their guests big-time. But their new establishment in Battery Park, New York, goes an...

Although I claim no expertise as a wine waiter, I do always feel a little nervous when pouring wine for professional sommeliers. I know they manage a neat circumcision of the capsule over the...