The Morning Claret

Simon J Woolf & Friends on Wild and Wonderful Wines

France

Oronce de Beler with his Percheron draft horse in 2009 (he ceased this activity in 2015). Photo courtesy La Maison Romane.
26 minute read

Uncomfortable bedfellows? Burgundy and natural wine

Why is it so difficult to talk about natural wine in Burgundy? Simon explores the increasingly blurred line between classical and natural techniques in the region.

Originally published February 2023 in Issue 3 of Fondata magazine.

How to survive La Dive Bouteille - Par Ici Sign - Photo (C) Simon J Woolf
6 minute read

How to survive La Dive

Hannah has the essential tips for you if you’re a wine professional and you want to keep body and soul together at La Dive Bouteille and its spin-off wine fairs in the Loire this winter.

Van and grape disaster - Photo (C) Hannah Fuellenkemper
5 minute read

Amazing opportunity, cellar hand wanted

Want a job working for an up-and-coming winery located somewhere in France? Hannah Fuellenkemper has the most amazing opportunity for you…. possibly.

5 minute read

Four wines and a wormhole

Hannah thinks she’s opened some kind of portal by calling up memories of 2020’s four most momentous wines. And we’re not going argue!

4 minute read

Society is dead, long live conviviality

Tonight I will be late for my first drinking-with-someone-on-FaceTime-date which I know because even though it seems like everything is different, some things will never change. Other things are not so the same.

3 minute read

Le Saint Eutrope (my perfect little bistro)

Some kids get the itch to become astronauts but when I’m grown up I want to be Harry Lester. Once I am I’ll open my perfect little bistro. A tear-the-paper-off-the-table, stoneware carafe and colourful brocante-deco affair, doesn’t matter where so Read more

5 minute read

Fear and pruning in Beaujolais

Hannah continues her winemaking adventures, but as she enters the 8th week of pruning in Beaujoalis, starts to suffer from increasing doubt about whether she’s made the right choice in life.

The press
5 minute read

Cellar hygiene über alles

The latest instalment of Hannah’s adventures in the Ardeche finds her developing a strange relationship with a pneumatic press. And realising that the hardest work at harvest was not in the vineyard, after all.