A moderately severe winter, though without the deep freeze of the previous year, ended early and a fine spring was ushered in from the middle of March. The wind patterns were unusual, blowing mainly from the north (the benchmark wind on Palm Sunday), cool and dry, or veering right round to the south, warm and […]

It’s been an absorbing two weeks on the road covering nearly 4000 kms between Piemonte and Puglia. As outlined in my previous blog, my destination was the Puglian town of Savelletri di Fasano for the Radici del Sud southern wine fest, but I made the most of the opportunity there and back to visit current […]

I’m fresh out of the ‘Radici del Sud’ tasting of southern Italian wines here in Savelletri di Fasona, Puglia, after three days of sampling indigenous white and red varieties. I was privileged to be part of an international panel of judges lead by Jancis Robinson MW. Like Jancis, it was my first visit to the region, whose […]

Whilst on a recent trip to Bordeaux for the 2010 En Primeur tastings, we had the great pleasure of spending an evening with Olivier Bernard and his wife, Anne, proprietors of Pessac-Leognan estate, Domaine de Chevalier. After a tour of the winery where Olivier outlined his winemaking ethos, minimal intervention to allow the personality of […]