On the table: The Clove Club

On our quest to explore London’s finest dining rooms, Sophie Thorpe makes a trip to The Clove Club in Shoreditch, an eastern mecca for the city’s foodies which offers an experience like no other Shoreditch, it turns out, isn’t just home to middle-ageing hipsters. Within its Town Hall lurks a new and special breed, a […]

Sour Grapes: a vintage con

As Rudy Kurniawan serves out his sentence, Sophie Thorpe reports on the new film documenting his story, Sour Grapes – the spellbinding tale of a connoisseur turned conman. Wine isn’t particularly sexy. Aside from the delicious way it makes you feel, it’s a nerd’s hobby – it’s basically geology, biology and chemistry. And a little […]

A conversation with Eric Texier

Eric Texier is a leading light in the Northern Rhône, with his traditional (whisper it: natural) winemaking techniques delivering wines which, he believes, are the equal of anything Burgundy’s Grands Crus can offer. One might think that nuclear physics to natural winemaking isn’t a likely career path, but that is exactly the route that Eric […]

Lodi Rules?

As Blog Editor Sophie Thorpe travels to California to collect our “Best Wine Industry Blog” award, she reports back from wine country. I’ve spent the past few days loitering in Lodi, a little corner of the Central Valley that – until now – I knew very little about. Encounters with Californians that led me to […]