Volcanic Wine Awards 2026
In 2026 we partnered with Volcanic Wine International to hold a wine competition focused solely on wines from volcanic terroirs around the world. Here you’ll find the details of the competition as well as the results, which we will post as they become available.
Trade and media interested in attending the Volcanic Wine Conference on 10 June in NYC please visit Volcanic Wines International.
The awards competition and the results
The why and how behind a tasting focused on wines from volcanic soils around the world. Written by the man who started it, John Szabo MS. Above, a vineyard in...
Explore volcanic wines on this site
Sicily’s Etna is regularly described as the ‘Burgundy of the south’, which I take as a reference to its parcellated, high-density vineyards rather than to its wine style. Some of the pale, fragrant reds currently being made on Europe’s largest...
Brand new MW Yiannis Karakasis (right) and Grigoris Michailos (left), aka the Wine Commanders, are founders of the independent wine blog winecommanders.com. Both are Diploma holders and WSET educators. Since 2013 Yiannis and Grigoris have joined hands to communicate their...
Last week I was given probably the rarest wine I will ever have the chance to taste. It was only five years old but there are only three – correction, two – bottles in existence. Santorini producers Gaia decided they...
This article is also published in the Financial Times . See also my detailed tasting notes. Italy has no shortage of official wine territories – 575 at the last count – but there is one that has recently been exciting...
Amid the doom and gloom surrounding Italy’s 2014 grape harvest, there is one wine region where growers are extremely pleased with their 2014 vintage – Etna in eastern Sicily, whose small districts, named after important wine villages, are called contrade...
Italy’s fondness for en primeur tastings continues unabated (see, for example, Chianti Classico, Brunello di Montalcino, Nebbiolo Prima, etc, etc). While many are lavish affairs showcasing a huge number of bottles of the latest vintage of a given wine region...
This is a longer version of an article also published in the Financial Times. See my Exotica from the Canary Islands tasting notes. Question: Where are the highest vineyards in Europe? Switzerland, eat your heart out. In fact, they are...
See also Canary Islands – where the vines and wines, creep up on you.I've been intrigued by the wines of the Spanish Canary Islands off the coast of Morocco ever since tasting some made from unusual white wine grapes by...
A generic tasting of Sicilian wine has become an annual fixture on London's wine calendar. The event is organised by the Istituto Regionale Vini e Olii di Sicilia, which, unlike most other Italian producer organisations, firmly believes in a strong...
This article was also published in the Financial Times. With its serried ranks of tables, heavy wooden chairs and a kitchen dominated by a large metal grill that produces excellent steaks, the interior of La Taskita de Eduardo looks very...
From €11.50, £14.50 Find this wine I spent last Friday night in St Michael's Church, Bath, hosting a wine tasting for the excellent bookshop Topping & Co, an independent operation set up in Bath and Ely by the team who...
From €28, £23.95 Find this wine Quite a few respondents in our recent brief survey asked for more coverage of Spanish wine. Your wish is my command. Actually this is far from standard-issue Spanish wine. For a start it is...