Rest assured I’m not about to tell you how the Piemontese wines of 2010 taste before they’ve been made…although, and call me ‘nebbiolonuts’, has anyone else noticed the similarity between vintages over the past four decades, eg. ’09/’99/’89/’79 etc..? Only ’81,’82, ’91 and ’04 appear to buck the trend radically…

The idea was as immediately appealing as it was self-evidently indulgent, namely to conduct an ‘experiment’ to assess the on-going impact of altitude on the taste and flavour of Champagne. And we are not talking 35, 000 feet here, and the effects of cabin pressure and recycled air of a dubious nature. On the contrary, […]

A very warm week in Tuscany in July with our Italian Buyer, David Berry-Green, recently, was both informative and enlightening. A swift drive in David’s Alfa Romeo Brera down the motorway from Pisa Airport on Monday, took us straight to the excellent Tenuta di Valgiano in the Colline Lucchesi. Valgiano are considered the best producers […]