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 […]

As iconic British designer Sir Paul Smith turns his hand to our Good Ordinary Claret and Good Ordinary White, we compile a short-list of bottles that hold serious table appeal. From buxom beauties to sinister twins and simple fonts, these labels are sure to turn heads. Everyone knows you should never judge a book by […]

This month we sent Sophie Thorpe to report on Noble Rot, the new eatery from the team behind the eponymous magazine – a wonderfully unstuffy spot that offers fantastic food and seriously fine wine. When I worked on a stall in Borough Market three years ago, I was shivering my way through a quiet midweek […]

Sophie Thorpe’s South African adventure takes her to Fable Mountain Vineyards, and an encounter with the storybook charms – and serious wines – of Paul Nicholls and Rebecca Tanner. Fable Mountain Vineyards is uniquely beautiful. Don’t tell anyone, but it might just be paradise. I visited at the very end of October last year, after […]