Simon J Woolf & Friends on Wild and Wonderful Wines
For the introduction to this tasting, please see Part 1. Orange Interlude Austria shares borders with Northern Italy and Slovenia – both parts of the world with a long tradition of using extended skin maceration in white wine. So it’s Read more
A year living in the small Austrian town of Eisenstadt developed my considerable love not just for one of its natives, but also for the restrained and elegant wines. The issue? Availability of many of the greatest wines is pretty sparse, Read more
SUMMER 2003, CRETE. I’m staying in a self-catering apartment hidden away on one of Chania’s many labyrinthine alleys. Almost right opposite is a local shop where I stock up on pasta, vegetables and olive oil. The owner is super friendly and 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
“Our wines are made in the vineyard”. If I had a penny for every producer I’ve heard trot out this clichéd phrase, I’d be rich enough to buy a hectare of vines in Burgundy. This statement is safely out of scope Read more
Gamay, you are a charmer. That deceptively simple yet elegant perfume, your lightness of touch, and supple texture. Yes, you went a bit girly during your “nouveau” phase (circa 1980s), but that’s all water under the bridge now. Now you’re Read more
Ask most Austrian winemakers about their country’s “Appellation Controlée”-like DAC regulations and you’ll be lucky if you get so much as a luke-warm response. Few are comfortable with the fragmentation, label confusion and lack of consumer recognition that the nine Read more
For Father Gerasim, whether to treat his wines with sulphur or any other additive isn’t a matter of choice. The imperative is simple. Any impurities in the finished product would render it unworthy in the eyes of God. Gerasim is Read more
Following a hugely inspiring trip to Sicily’s Mount Etna region back in September, here are links to a couple of articles that I wrote on the subject: Exploding onto the Scene: Realising the potential of Etna wines When Ciro Biondi announced that Read more