Simon J Woolf & Friends on Wild and Wonderful Wines
It took a while before I “got” Chasselas – it was a short trip to Valais this October that sealed the deal… I wrote about the experience for US online wine magazine Palate Press: When Michel Chapoutier mentioned in 2011 Read more
Here’s my latest column for US online wine magazine Palate Press – focusing mostly on organic producers in Graves. Last week, the New Zealand Organic Focus Project gave a public presentation on three medium to large NZ wineries who participated in Read more
I visited Graves & Pessac-Léognan during harvest this year, and was really struck by the relative (for Bordeaux) good value that some wines represent – and by how invisible the white wines are in the UK – a great shame. Read more
The Languedoc-Roussillon still has a bit of a name for being cheap – it’s France’s most important wine region in terms of quantity, with an extraordinary 299,000 hectares under vine (that’s three times the size of Bordeaux, also not exactly Read more
I’m quite proud of this short hymn to artisan wine producers, written for Palate Press after returning from holidays in Slovenia and a wine conference in Switzerland – even if I realised later that “commodity” would be a better word to use than Read more
Many of us have had this experience – while holidaying in a hot sunny paradise, you taste a fantastic wine (let’s say it’s a rosé) and decide to fill up the suitcase. Uncorking the same wine back at home, it’s utterly disappointing – Read more
“When I taste this wine, I imagine I’m walking up the dry river bed next to the Tatou vineyard, just after the rain. The smell of the wet stones is utterly distinctive.” This is the way that Colin Ross, vineyard manager at Seresin, likes Read more
How about this? A boutique festival set in beautiful woodlands, a sunny day, bands, DJs… and a massive choice of top quality wines served in a real wine glass. It almost sounds too good to be true – but this Read more
Decanter magazine’s September 2014 issue features my regional profile of Istria, arguably Croatia’s finest wine region – an area deserving a lot more attention than it currently gets. The wines and producers recommended in that article were necessarily constrained by what Read more
There are some things in life that cause me to come over all opinionated. Battery chicken farming and Montsanto spring to mind. Add to that climate change deniers … and Welschriesling. Maybe I just need to get out more. Be that as it Read more