Bordeaux: can you argue with the market?
Lots of people reply to my anti-Bordeaux price hike blogs with the likes of ‘well, you can’t argue with the market’ or ‘go spend your money elsewhere’ or ‘why waste your breath – they are simply doing the same as any company’. Which is good – I want to encourage debate – and I will, [...]
Bordeaux 2010: a tale of two worlds
Well I never. The day has arrived that I can finally write this piece. I didn’t think it was going to happen but, credit to Robert Parker, he has enabled it. Over the last couple of years (if the germ hasn’t been around for about a decade) there has been a continually mounting tide of [...]
Bordeaux 2010: Parker’s attack?
As it has been, I’m sure, beamed across the net, we know that Robert Parker ranks the 2010 Bordeaux vintage as highly as 2005 and 2009 (his vintage appreciation was published on 2 May). This should, at the very least, ease the sales process along nicely once the top châteaux decide to release their wines. [...]
Ah, woman. That conundrum. That unknown quantity. The lunatic Other. Apparently She drinks wine too. Yes, I know: who the blazes understands that? So, of course, when a Vinexpo study gives us an insight into our diminished opposite number and her drinking habits, it is only natural that we, men, should listen up. And I’m [...]
Natural Wines: a wine writer’s cop-out?
It may come as a surprise to some readers that this post is not yet another snipe at the Natural Wine phenomenon. It is, in fact, a shift of angle. What I want to question is the unending positivity shown by wine writers the world over and (as a consequence) what they deem their own [...]
Chinese government bans wine
The Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, Hu Jintao, has called on his country to end its ‘decadent’ relationship with wine, ordering all Chinese nationals to stop consuming the beverage. The Chinese State media reported this morning that all foreign shipments of wine would be turned back at the borders and that wine storage warehouses [...]
