Last week saw a winemaking legend visit our Basingstoke HQ. Alvaró Palacios came to show us a fantastic selection of his (quite frankly astounding) wines and talk to us (all too briefly in the hour time-slot) about his wine making history. Starting at his family’s vineyard, Bodega Palacios Remondo (in Rioja), Alvaro trained for a […]

With the 2010 harvest imminent and the glorious 2009s due to hit the market shortly, it is easy to lose sight of earlier vintages. I have just had the opportunity though to review the red wines of 2007 in great detail. Nicknamed ‘Burgfest’, a tasting takes place every year when a group of importers along […]

Wine is a product of its environment, and if one had to choose a region to show just that then the Alto Adige, on Italy’s northern border with Austria, would be a prime example. It’s also one of the reasons why I love what I do: drawing on geology, climate, history, oenology, politics, people and markets […]

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…