For those of a certain age the words Beirut and Lebanon are shorthand for all that has gone wrong in the Middle East over the past generation; the cauldron of a preternaturally complicated Civil War is still simmering; checkpoints abound on the dusty roads and even smart buildings such as the famous downtown hotel Phoenicia are […]

My first visit to Japan was a most agreeable experience; it was, by turns, up-lifting, rewarding and surreal to see how the delightful team who make up BBR Japan are spreading Berrys’ unique message to a new and clearly very sophisticated constituency of wine drinkers.  The BBR offices are, one cannot deny, a little less […]

There is something beguiling about Spain, about the way in which this oldest of cultures is able to embrace the new and give it a pleasing twist of tradition. The beauty in that most modern of constructions, the Guggenheim in Bilbao, resides in its affinity to its surroundings; the way in which the shapes and […]

It is now a full two years since your correspondent selflessly embarked on a fortnight’s voyage of discovery of the vineyards of Champagne. Accompanied by the equally selfless Alun Griffiths MW, I set off on the long and frankly sometimes rather uneventful drive through the badlands of the Pas de Calais, taking advantage of the […]