Opinions on the perfect time to open that special bottle vary, even amongst those who have been working in wine for eons. Understanding how wines mature can help you to decide when to crack open that case of claret. Here Barbara Drew MW breaks down what maturity codes on bottles mean, how wines change as […]

What’s the best way to store opened bottles of wine? And when is it time to relinquish the contents of an open bottle to the sink? Barbara Drew MW explains. In my experience, the wine world divides neatly into two groups. There are those who endlessly worry about how to store half opened bottles of […]

Barbara Drew MW explains what biodynamic winemaking is, why it’s practised and what to expect from biodynamic wines. Burying cows’ horns in the vineyard. Fermenting flower heads in a stag’s bladder. Harvesting grapes when the moon is in front of a fire constellation. It is easy to see how biodynamic farming has been misunderstood and […]

Bordeaux’s négociants: are they anachronistic middlemen or a vital cog in the local machine? Barbara Drew MW takes a closer look. The négociants have been a fixture of the Bordeaux wine world for centuries. On one level, they help reinforce the stereotype of Bordeaux as corporate and commercial rather than romantic: they are middlemen, just […]