More depressing than the sight of Coco the Clown being elected London mayor has been the latest indication that the middlemen in the UK wine industry are finding life very tough indeed.
Read more...In the current economic climate, supermarkets are battling for market share. Despite their efforts to help curb binge-drinking, in practice they will continue to implement very aggressive promotional programmes which will have a far greater impact on consumption.
Read more...Another week, another swingeing tax hike on drink to deter young people from alcohol abuse.
Read more...If you think that it is the job of trade bodies alone to fight the anti-alcohol lobby then you are brain-dead with ghastliness.
Read more...Debate on Scotch whisky is healthy:?our industry is full of people who are passionate about their products.
Read more...Bordeaux 2007 was about as good as it could be, given the dreadful growing season. It was never going to be as good as 2005 and, for once, no one has pretended otherwise.
Read more...Lots to talk about this week in Harpers' YouTube and quirkies round-up
Read more... Having just delivered my 37th and final book on wine to my publisher - and earlier this year resigned from the Circle of Wine Writers on the grounds, firstly, of boredom and, secondly, that the raising of the annual membership fee to 50 was outrageous - I am luxuriating in that wicked feeling one experienced, as a schoolboy, when the end of the academic year came and with it that sense, not just of release, but that the world would never be the same again.
Last month the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) outlined new guidelines for alcohol consumption during pregnancy.
A wine list is like a penis. The consensus is the longer the better.
Read more...New laws on the future of Scotch whisky, proposed by DEFRA and the Scotch Whisky Association (SWA), will have far-reaching effects.
Read more...There was plenty of bad news for the industry in last week's Budget and you know the really worrying thing? It could get worse.
Read more...Lots to talk about this week in Harpers' YouTube and quirkies round-up
Read more...Alcohol-induced liver disease develops silently, but often presents with an acute fatal illness. Where I work in the clinical hepatology at Southampton General Hospital, half our customers die.
Read more...Lots to talk about this week in Harpers' YouTube and quirkies round-up
Read more...Let's start with the bad news - nearly everyone involved in supplying wine to the UK market is confronting constrained supply, rising energy costs, hardening currencies against sterling, attacks by the media against binge drinking and an economic downturn.
Read more...I swear the following anecdote is true; only certain personal details have been changed.
Read more...Lots to talk about this week in Harpers' YouTube and quirkies round-up
Read more...While so much industry talk in the last few weeks has focused on how much the Government will add on wine this budget - will it be 15p, will it be 50p? - the emphasis on this one issue and this one day rather misses the point.
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