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In 1309 the French-born Pope Clement V decided to pack up in Rome and move to Avignon in France and so the papacy was based there until 1377. Clement’s successor decided that he had to have a special place to live and this is how the area became kno...

A quick explanation. Early each week I hand in my text to The Royal Gazette and, as the layout in the actual newspaper varies from week to week, they often change my heading for the story to fit their page. I suspect they also do it if they want to ...

Each year Wine Enthusiast magazine publishes a list of their 100 best buys. They explain it this way: “In a year when US gas prices, grocery prices, housing costs and interest rates all jumped dramatically, the price of a good bottle of wine still l...

New wines have been arriving at quite a pace at Burrows Lightbourn. This week we will stop in Australia, Chile and France and introduce you to grape varieties that are a little off the beaten path. Edward Tyrrell left England in 1858 and settled in A...

As Mother Nature has just given us a reminder of her power, I am thinking of wines that can do the same – the type of wine that makes me want to listen to White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane, or hear a steak sizzling in a cast iron skillet while I sme...

Nestled in the rolling hills of western Sonoma County, the Russian River/Green Valley appellation is a perfect microclimate for growing pinot noir. Only ten miles from the Pacific Ocean and 50 miles north of San Francisco, the site is influenced by ...

I was sitting at my desk when a messenger arrived to say that all students had to report to the assembly hall immediately. Once all the boys were seated (no girls in those days) the headmaster took centre stage and burned eight words into my memory b...

Finally, in 2020, a special day was created to celebrate a wine that was first produced almost 1,000 years ago in Tuscany, and so we now celebrate National Chianti Day on the first Friday of every September. In the 1970s, when I first became involved...

On August 30 we celebrate International Cabernet Sauvignon Day, so I intend to describe a few very fine ones to you. At 840,000 planted acres in the world, it can rightfully claim first place, as merlot has 657,300 acres and chardonnay 518,900. Its e...

Three years is far too long to go without seeing your first born, his young sons and their mother, but Covid-19 complications and a passport that disappeared into the maws of government in March, has put me in that position. On Sunday that came to an...