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Back in 1970 I used to crank up my stereo and listen to Creedence Clearwater Revival sing Stuck in Lodi Again. What a great song, but I did not have the faintest idea what or where Lodi was and certainly had no knowledge of a vine called zinfandel, o...

School’s out, summer’s here and I’m ready for nine weeks of sun-soaked relaxation with the kids … or am I? I’m always so excited for the end of school. I’ve never forgotten the exhilaration of breaking up for the holidays and so it’s catching when t...

Winemakers are faced with an ancient and genetically unstable grape that offers them over 1,000 clones to choose from. It would be fair to say, however, that the majority are not suitable for making good wine. The vine prefers a cool climate and, w...

Of the 14 million hashtags used last month on social media, right at the very top was #fashion, followed closely by #style and #beautiful. Fortunately, #love was right in there too, adding something a little deeper to the mix. It’s easy to criticise ...

Recently we have unloaded quite a few new wines and to say that they represent a broad range of tastes is putting it mildly. Let me give you a few examples. We have stocked two lovely rosé wines from Mirabeau in Provence and now we have just added th...

Last week I was away in England for a big family wedding. My cousin Sarah was getting married and somehow we managed to get every single cousin on my Mum’s side (there are 13 of us) in the same place at the same time. We’d gathered from all over the ...

Last Sunday, I woke up to the sound of the children arguing over whether or not to wake me. It was 7.43am. I’d said any time after 7.30am and Belle had been pacing the hallway for 13 minutes absolutely desperate to give me a huge teddy bear … mainly ...

The problem with training for May 24 right after Flora Duffy wins a triathlon on home soil is that, somehow, it doesn’t feel so impressive. I went along to watch the race with Belle and we got really lucky. We watched all the cycling at Crow Lane (w...

Two weeks ago I referred to comments on Californian wines that were taken from The Joys of Wine, written in the year that I joined the wine trade. I will now share its view on New Zealand wines: “One of the few considered to be of high- enough qualit...

You should probably check the obituaries section after this one. I’ve taken on a bit too much and might have died from overload in the interim. Being busy isn’t cool any more — I know that, I got the memo! We all know that stress is a killer, so I’m ...

Michael Robinson April 22 was Earth Day, an annual event that was established in 1970 to support protection of our environment. It is worth considering how vineyard owners respect our planet, and many of our wines can be classified as biodynamic, org...

There are winemaking areas on our planet where good weather patterns are the norm. With others — Bordeaux is a good example — the climate can vary a fair amount, so it is worth paying attention to the particular vintage. Looking back as far as 1990...