Champagne is a delightful enigma; seen by some as a stand-alone category which bears scant resemblance to the rest of the wine trade, and by others as a bell-weather, providing early warning when choppy seas lie ahead but when the waters are calm, luxuriating in the hazy trappings of  indulgence and success. Whichever interpretation is […]

How does one gauge the success of an evening’s dinner, at Berrys’ in this case? By the level of decibels or (business) cards swapped at its close?  The number of empty glasses or perhaps more crudely, by the amount of orders taken? At Andre Ostertag‘s mercurial tasting recently, for example, I measured it by the time […]

Does Castello di Ama’s owner Lorenza Sebasti Pallanti (left) really model herself on Madame Mentzelopoulos, Ch. Margaux’s glamorous owner?  Or perhaps she just fashions her wines on the famed Bordeaux First Growth, a taste of whose 1961 back in 1989 changed her appreciation of wine forever… But surely her family’s fine Castello di Ama property had […]

Back in early October I was treated to a visit from one of South Africa’s bright young gems, Mullineux Wines, Swartland: Chris, Andrea and their first born John (‘JZ’). This is their account.   After a somewhat long and difficult trip from Amsterdam (visa issues- it’s not easy travelling as a South African sometimes!), my […]