COVID-19

Latest COVID-19

Inside information Barolo 2020 – sneak preview

What does the vintage produced in COVID times look like? Walter gives us a foretaste of wines that will be released on 1 January 2024. See also his tasting notes...

Walter Speller Tuesday 12 December 2023 • 1 min read

Free for all Lessons from an exile

Guest contributor Thursday 29 December 2022

Snow-capped mountains in the western Bekaa Valley with the vineyards of Kherbet Kanafar in the foreground

Free for all What Lebanese wine needs

Guest contributor Thursday 3 November 2022

More COVID-19

Hemming in Asia

Singapore reopens, gradually

Will the fortunes of wine in newly reopened Singapore be repeated around the world? After ten weeks of closure, Singapore’s...

Nick on restaurants

Mange, still on the move

Nick writes his first review in nearly four months. The coronavirus has wrought many changes in many households but in...

NHS food parcels being assembled at Annabel's

Nick on restaurants

Caring and doing

With tongue half in cheek, Nick suggests how the UK hospitality industry might effect a change in government policy. Richard...

Inside information

Italy's overflowing cellars – COVID or chronic?

With the pandemic having blocked the global market and shut down the hospitality industry for almost two months, Italy's wines...

Alder on America

Wine country reopens, cautiously

Alder takes his life in his hands to file this report on California wine tourism. I should probably come clean...

Inside information

US tariffs and the pandemic – double jeopardy

Burgundy is not just small family domaines. Matthew Hayes talks to those in charge of the much larger enterprises that...

Giorgio, Walter Speller's local grocer in Padova

Don't quote me

Unlocking the lockdown in Italy

Walter reports from the European country furthest along the path to relaxing a really stringent lockdown, and is far from...

Pool noodle hats in Cafe Rothe in Schwerin, Germany

Nick on restaurants

Do restaurants have a future?

A few suggestions from an ex-restaurateur and the father of a restaurateur. Social distancing in action in Germany above. Since...

Inside information

South Africa – the toughest country?

Malu Lambert writes from the only wine-producing country in the world where wine exports and all domestic sales have been...

Members of the Union des Grands Crus de Bordeaux

Free for all

Possible solutions to the 2019 en primeur conundrum

Anthony Hanson MW* compares en primeur then and now and suggests possible ways the 2019 bordeaux might be sold. See...

Kate McIntyre MW at Moorooduc Estate cellar door

Max on Oz

Australia – a lucky country?

One Australian family winery’s reactions to living with pandemic-related restrictions, restrictions that seem from the northern hemisphere to have been...