After three days, countless seminars and much wine tasting, Sophie Thorpe is back in the office and recovering from the whirlwind of Olympia. Here she ponders a handful of the ideas in discussion at the London Wine Fair 2016. Are the Old and New Worlds over? Caroline Gilbey MW suggested in her Romanian masterclass that […]

Day two at the London Wine Fair 2016 saw an opportunity to get slurping and spitting. Sophie Thorpe was only too happy to oblige: here she reports on how Pinot Noir is faring beyond Burgundy. The industry briefings of day one felt like an assessment of the UK trade here and now, with a glance […]

Sophie Thorpe reports from day one of the London Wine Fair – the UK’s most important trade forum, and a hotbed of views, opinion and exciting new wines. As Miles Beale, Chief Executive of the Wine & Sprits Trade Association (WSTA), so succinctly stated in his industry briefing, “the London Wine Fair matters and it […]

Jim Clendenen, the shaggy-haired, famously renegade wine personality behind California’s Au Bon Climat, is still courting controversy three decades after founding his legendary winery. Here, Sophie Thorpe comes face to face with the Wildman of wine. “I don’t know how I went straight from Wild Boy to Wild Grandpa, I never got a wild middle […]