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California ABC

California and Cabernet go hand in hand: Screaming Eagle, Harlan Estate, Scarecrow are all top producers that have been in pursuit of perfection for many a decade now and, for some, they achieve it. As wonderful as they may be, one cannot survive on ยฃ3,000 bottles of wine. Our daily rations must come cheaper and […]

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California vineyard

Second Best?

Second wines are second best. You can argue the point all you like but their purpose in life is to take second place after the grand vin. Nearly all of the big chateaux in Bordeaux have a second wine, a wine supposedly made from the grapes not deemed quite good enough for the top claret.

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Number two balloon

Bollinger vs. Krug

Embarking upon the task of getting to know Champagne is a bit like going down a rabbit hole. It is a world of twists and turns that take you from Champagne houses, to growers, to cooperatives, to arguments over prestige and fashion, and the question of how many vintages are in each cuvรฉe. It feels

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Champagne glasses

Demystifying Burgundy

They say it takes a lifetime to really โ€œknowโ€ Burgundy which is rather unhelpful. Most of us have about 5 minutes of head space per day to think about something as frivolous as wine. The good news is that theyโ€™re wrong. Those in the โ€œknowโ€ might like to think that only they hold the secretsย but

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Burgundy Shield

South Australia

South Australia has the good, the bad, and the ugly when it comes to wine and if you’re not careful you can easilyย find yourself drinkingย overpriced and average plonk.ย Butย it is also a place where serious winemakers have gone to make seriously top class wines. There are also plenty of them, so, instead of listing them all,

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Barossa Valley

Leoville: Head to Head

History Originally one estate Domaine de Leoville in St-Julien, Bordeaux became three in the 19thcentury: in 1826 Hugh Barton purchased a quarter of the estate and named it Chateau Lรฉoville-Barton; in 1840 the remaining vineyards were divided between Pierre-Jean Las Cases, who founded Chateau Lรฉoville-Las Cases and his sister Jeanne Las Cases whose daughter founded

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Leoville Las Cases Entrance

Piedmont

Piedmont seems to bring out the poet in people โ€“ paragraph upon paragraph is written about the scenery and its endless gastronomic offerings, wine included. It is a beautiful part of the world and the Piedmontese certainly know a thing or two about good food, wine and generous hospitality. If you find yourselfย in a little

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Gaja, Piedmont

Dominio de Pingus vs. Numanthia

Up until the midย 1980โ€™s the only Spanish wine that wasย worth drinking outside of Spain was Rioja and even then you had to tread carefully. Their exports were dominated by low quality bulk wine and their poorย reputationย seemed destined to remain had it not been for a seemingly well-orchestrated industry wide turnaround. Spain was suddenly producing higher

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Dominio de Pingus vs. Numanthia

Summer Vibes

I think we can all safely say that summer has arrived and, although we dislike being told that we should be breaking out the barbecue and bathing in rosรฉ, we will freely admit that a fair number of our wines are not really tempting us in this weather. So for the next few weeks we

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summer vibes

Sweet

Growing up in a largeย wine drinking familyย Iย always presumed myย approach to wine wasย perfectly normal. I realised its abnormality when I reached university and my peers were confused by my love of dessert wine (or pud wine as weโ€™ve always referred to it). Whenever we had a family celebration an uncle, parentย or third cousin once removed would

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1996 Chateau Nairac Barsac

Starting Early

I donโ€™t come from a family of wine drinkers. My father was in the Royal Navy and the extent of his drinking was one glass of Pusserโ€™s Rum before bedtime each night.  My motherโ€™s drinking stretched to a glass of Piesporter if we ever happened to find ourselves in a restaurant, and perhaps two glasses of

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Vintage Krug

Vieilles Vignes

Givenย the recent revelation that grape varietiesย grown today are so closely relatedย to those grown by the Romans 2,000 years ago, we thought that this week might be a good week to talk about old vines. Vieilles Vignes (old vines) is a term used in France to denote a wine that is produced from vines usually older

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Old_vine_cabernet

Super Tuscans

London Wine Fair week tends to produce a large number of hangovers by 4pm. Luckily I did my homework and tactically manoeuvred my way around the very large and very packed exhibition centre to the tastings I thought would offer the most insight. There was a good tasting of artisan Champagnes; and an excellent one

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Sassicaia

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