Wine and Wonder in 2026

A brief reflection plus the year ahead

Happy new year to you all!

Below you can read about what this year holds for The Morning Claret, but first a very brief look back to 2025.

This week marks the two year anniversary of my rebooted site, which is a mild cause for celebration. Moving to a subscription model and committing to a weekly publishing schedule has been a game changer for me. It gave me a much-needed kick up the proverbial and also - through the patronage of my wonderful paid subscribers - justifies spending about half the week purely on researching, writing and editing content for you.

I am immensely proud of the numbers:

• Over 4,200 subscribers

• 51 articles published in 2025 - roughly 75,000 words

• Four wine guides published in 2025 - Collio Orange Wines, Brda Orange Wines, Bordeaux low-intervention reds and New Faces in the Mosel

• An archive that now tops 400 articles - all accessible to paid subscribers

• Subscribers based in 85 different countries - TMC has readers on every continent.

Enough horn tooting.

New for 2026 - TMC Digest

I know that many of you suffer from information overload. Some of you told me you just don’t have time to read a new article every week. I get it.

Here’s the solution: I’ve created TMC Digest for you. You can tweak your subscription so that you only receive a monthly email summarising everything I published that month. No more weekly messages or articles you won’t read clogging up your inbox.

Detailed instructions on how to access the TMC Digest here.

The first TMC Digest will be published on Friday 30th January. You won’t receive this as a regular subscriber unless you specifically opt-in - check the instructions above.

More Wine Guides

My God they’re a lot of work, but readers enjoyed the guides last year. Those of you in the US told me you really appreciate stateside sourcing info so I’ve tried to up my game there.

More guides are on the way. I’m open to suggestions but the first in 2026 will probably be budget natural wines from Burgundy. Perhaps it sounds like an oxymoron, but because it’s Burgundy I will take ‘budget’ to mean any bottle under €50 retail. Your thoughts are welcome - should I go lower?

There will also be plenty of new opinion pieces, ranty stuff and occasional satire. All things that you told me you also appreciate.

Residential Writing Course

I’ll be hosting and teaching a four day/five night course on non-fiction writing and editing in late May 2026. Full details coming soon but it will be somewhere gorgeous in Slovenia and will include at least one visit to a favourite winery (natural/organic of course).

If you’re a budding writer - or a seasoned one who wants to hone their craft some more - this is for you. Let me know ASAP if you’re interested. There will only be seven places available.

A Subscription Offer

It wouldn’t be January without an unbeatable offer to those of you yet to upgrade to a paid subscription. For the next few days only, take advantage of a 50% discount for the year (so €25 instead of €50) by using this link.

Talk to me

Tell me what you’d like to see on The Morning Claret this year. Or just say hi! I love to hear from my readers. My DMs are open to paying subscribers for any wine-related enquiry you might have.