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I will start by quoting from the Mirabeau en Provence website: “Stephen had been in the corporate world for 15 years and, in August 2008, turned down a promotion that would have meant more money but also more stress, longer hours and less time with h...

Nine bottles out of ten of all wine produced will be consumed within the first year and 99 out of 100 within five years. In truth, somewhere between 5 and 10 per cent improves after a year and only 1 per cent after five to ten years, the lower figure...

As our offspring now reside in other countries, it was up to me on Mother’s Day to prepare the requested rib-eye beef roast and select the appropriate wine. Although a suggestion was given about a cabernet sauvignon from Napa Valley, I made the deci...

It is fair to say that Barossa Valley is to Australia what Napa Valley is to the United States of America; a most important and highly regarded area to grow wine grapes. Barossa is tucked in the southern edge of the great Australian continent and o...

Back in January, I wrote about the trend towards a new breed of blended red wines priced in their teens that have catchy names like Apothic Red, Primal Roots and 19 Crimes. All of them are proving to be most popular. I can think of no red wine fr...

First of all let me share something with you that has left me somewhat baffled. I often start a wine tasting by telling folks that we are really having a “wine smelling”. Our taste buds can only detect sweet, sour, bitter, salt and umami, whereas o...

Let me apologise for suggesting in last week’s article that a barbaresco would still be good in 3035 — a time we well might be enjoying wine on a “Goldilocks” (not too hot, not too cold) planet orbiting Tau Ceti in the constellation Cetus. It should ...

La Spinetta, which means top of the hill, was founded in 1977 by Guiseppe and Lidia Rivetti. Today they are truly among the finest producers of wine in the Piedmont region of Italy. They say that 90 per cent of their work is in their vineyards and ...

It is not always easy to come up with a topic each week, but with our planet’s annual production of approximately 31.2 billion bottles of wine, one might think that it is not a challenge. Fortunately, a little light just came on and said to me, “How ...

In Bordeaux the weather patterns of a particular year can make a significant impact on the style and quality of a wine, and 2009 was one where all the right pieces fell into place. In fact, the most influential wine critic, Robert Parker wrote: “200...