The Morning Claret

Simon J Woolf & Friends on Wild and Wonderful Wines

rant

avaline with angry mob
5 minute read

Sour grapes over clean wine

Hannah Fuellenkemper takes a look at the somewhat murky world of clean wine, and why it’s caused such a stir in natural wine circles

food wine matching photo by Simon J Woolf
10 minute read

Is food and wine pairing irrelevant?

Simon gets grumpy about the state of food and wine pairing in restaurants, outlines some of the most deadly sins and ponders if this fussed over topic is even still relevant.

Pét-nat illustration No 1, by Zebediah Keneally. (C) Noble Rot, reproduced with permission.
8 minute read

Auf Wiedersehen Pét

Simon gets ranty about pét nat, natural wine’s ubiquitous fizz. This article was originally published in Noble Rot Magazine, issue 27.

7 minute read

Glass Half Empty

Simon hates bad glassware, and does not understand why it’s so prevalent at natural wine venues.

4 minute read

Natural wine is no longer enough

Hannah argues that the new natural wine charter is a missed opportunity to make a radical statement – about how natural wine can push forward to the next frontier

Skull lying in the grass
4 minute read

The earth is burning, this is not a drill

Today we ran out of water which is just as well because it provided the first line to a piece I’ve been putting off since since the mercury overdosed on too many degrees. Call it procrastination, meltdown or depression, but Read more

WSET student tasting an orange wine
7 minute read

Orange wine on the WSET Diploma syllabus, but…

Simon celebrates the news that the Wine & Spirit Education Trust (WSET) has finally added orange wine to the Diploma syllabus in 2019. But he has misgivings about the course material.

DT-Montage-SJW
7 minute read

Are nuances an endangered species?

Ever felt fatigued and deflated after reading an article about the current state of the wine world? I did after reading Are Great Sommeliers an Endangered Species?, a conversation between two highly-respected American sommeliers, Jordan Salcito (the interviewer, who notably Read more

Overnoy - Pupillin (Photo courtesy Georges Le Gastronome)
4 minute read

Hashtag unicorn wines

Hannah rails against the dislikeable trend of bragging about #unicorn wines on social media

5 minute read

Natural wine, acid punk and all that jazz

  In November The Guardian published an 1800-odd word article about natural wine of which approximately zero said anything new. Not that it had to. A piece called “The cult of natural wine – ‘this is like punk or acid Read more