Category: Old World

Postcards from the Rhône

After another en primeur tasting visit, we ask well-versed Rhône expert Matt Walls for his advice on where to eat, drink and sleep in this wide-ranging French appellation Every year I produce an in-depth report on the new Rhône vintage, so I spend two weeks tasting over a thousand wines and visiting dozens of estates. […]

Rhône 2016: a tale of two terroirs

The 2016 vintage has already been much lauded as a truly standout year for the region. In the North the wines are classical, concise, and pure. In the South, they have dazzled all round. Here, Simon Field MW reports his findings It would be somewhat simplistic, but not wholly inappropriate, to cut France in two […]

Bordeaux 2014: the Southwold tasting

Each year, Fine Wine Quality & Authentication Manager, Philip Moulin, joins The Southwold Tasting – a chance to sound out the best of the most recently bottled and shipped Bordeaux vintage. Here, he reports on his findings on the 2014s Every year in early February, a tasting group representing the core of the UK fine […]

The meaning of value

What is a good value wine? We ask Wine Director, Mark Pardoe MW, for his thoughts on what “value” really means Value, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. There cannot be a universal definition of value as the concept must always be a subjective one. A sense of value is arrived at […]