Sweeping aside the rubbish that chokes Napoli’s streets, and Silvio’s garbage currently clogging up the nation’s arteries and airwaves, denigrating its fine people, I have just spent a paradoxically upbeat couple of days among the Campanian hills seeking out Aglianico as expressed though the Taurasi DOCG, along with white siblings Fiano di Avellino and Greco […]

Oh, the many wonders of Sherry. In my mind it is undeniably the world’s most underrated, underpriced and truly splendid wine. Now, I’m not really talking about the sweet tasteless stuff that Auntie Mavis used to drink with the Queen’s speech on Christmas Day, I’m enthusing about the serious, nutty, complex, mouth-watering delights of the […]

  As I write, the last of the Nebbiolo is being harvested, notably by Mario Fontana (Cascina Fontana) and Davide Rosso (Giovanni Rosso). This year I struggled up the hill to talk to Ferdinando Principiano in his vertical Barolo Ravera vineyard, Luca Roagna in the gem of a Barbaresco site: Montefico, ‘newboy’ Pier Bovone at Cornarea […]

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, […]