Lord Stuart Rose interview: Former M&S boss opens up on the ill-fated Stronger In campaign and his 10,000 bottles of wine November 9, 2016 Lord Rose of Monewden knows how to do things in style. In the space of a 45-year business career he managed to navigate his way through more boards, bids, bust-ups and blow-ups than seems possible in a single lifetime, collecting a knighthood, then a peerage and a comfortable fortune on the way. More to the [...]
Malbec in Bordeaux and in Burgundy bottles to boot: The new label extraordinaire going against the grain October 4, 2016 France has always been a nation of revolutionaries, whether they are political ones like Robespierre and Danton, scientists such as Marie Curie, or philosophers like Descartes or Jean Paul Sartre. So I suppose I should not be surprised to find a genuine wine revolutionary living next door to my new home in Gascony, who is [...]
Lessons in wine: A leisurely stroll through the sublime Medoc region September 22, 2015 Those who love Bordeaux will know that the Left Bank is Cabernet Sauvignon territory while the Right Bank is dominated by Merlot. My apologies to readers who are loyal to the wines of the Right, but today I want to delve further into the wines of the Left. The likes of Petrus and Cheval Blanc [...]
Gotta be in it to wine it: 26 miles, 20 wine tastings, 1 Medoc Marathon September 21, 2015 A burly man is trying to force me to eat an oyster. Beside me, a group of fancy dress Caesars are jostling with a herd of pantomime Norwegian cows (they have udders on their heads, for some reason). They are all drinking glasses of Sauvignon Blanc. I’ve just run 24 miles, I still have another [...]
Lessons in wine: Don’t be intimidated by fine wine, it’s a fun journey September 15, 2015 Recently in this column we have waxed didactic on popular wine regions for drinking and investment, detailing facts about Bordeaux, Champagne, and Tuscany. But for readers who are new to fine wine and perhaps overwhelmed by the plethora of information, how and where does one start? The easiest answer, of course, is via client dinners [...]
Why Chile is perfectly suited to making delicious wine September 8, 2015 This week we attended a tasting run by one of Bordeaux’s leading negociants, CVBG. However, it surprisingly featured no Bordeaux wine, instead only Italian and Chilean. The Place de Bordeaux is the wine trading system originating in the middle ages which sells 70 per cent of Bordeaux’s wine by volume into 160 countries. What some [...]
Lessons in wine: discover the sweet magic of Sauternes September 1, 2015 Most of us would rank Bordeaux among the great red wine-making regions of the world and, with around 450m bottles produced there each year, we’re certainly not short of a drop. However, there is also a substantial following for White Bordeaux; Sauvignon Blanc fans would be advised to divert their attention from New Zealand for [...]
Demystifying the Italian stallion of the wine world August 18, 2015 Have you ever felt as though the world of wine was an elite club, made up of snobs intent on throwing around words such as “mouthfeel”, “cuvée” and “vinification”? You are not alone. Learning about wine can seem daunting, and plenty of people will try to convince you that their palate is more sophisticated than [...]
Desert Island wines with Bordeaux Index founder Gary Boom December 9, 2014 While we’re toiling away at screens and desks, day-dreaming about the Grand Cru we might open with friends on Saturday, Gary Boom is doing just that. He’s the former City broker who had a brainwave about the wine business after making his first fortune, and has turned it into Bordeaux Index, one of Britain’s largest [...]
Graciano: An obscure but memorable wine from Rioja and Navarra November 18, 2014 It’s not often I come across a completely new wine these days. But that’s what happened when I was wandering through the vineyards of Rioja a few weeks ago at harvest time. Intriguingly, it is a wine made from a grape variety that has been around for more than a century. The grape varietal [...]