It was a scary moment, at least in wine terms. There I was in the cellar at Domaine Leroy in Vosne-Romanée, tasting some of the most expensive reds on the planet. Meetings with Madame Bize are never relaxing. She combines hauteur with the ability to freeze a glass of Pinot Noir at 10 paces. People who have earned her displeasure are never granted access to her presence again.
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Jo Gilbert catches up with Stef Holt on her new role as the first curator of world whisky for Mangrove Global.
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Emiliana, the world’s largest organic winery, has sustainability woven into its soul, with wines to match the winemaker’s passion. Andrew Catchpole dropped by.
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Izzy is a twenty-year-old student at York University. Many decades ago I was one there too. In my time students received grants for living costs and tuition fees were paid by the Government. Today those are dealt with by repayable loans. But the loans may not be enough to allow access to all. Like Izzy, for example.
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Jason Millar makes the case for an under-represented Italian region, the wines of which he says rival those of Sicily.
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Under new leadership Jascots Wine Merchants marches on, strengthening its on-trade reach while making inroads with indies, as Andrew Catchpole discovers.
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I spent Christmas in South Carolina, to where my wife’s parents have just moved after three decades in Colorado. What with the new home and the festive season, there was much to celebrate. All of which, naturally, called for a special bottle.
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Andrew Catchpole catches up with Guillermo Calderón, Casas del Bosque’s sales director and a Casablanca Sauvignon and Pinot specialist, to discuss the trends shaping Chile.
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The launch of a smartly-packaged £395 English sparkling wine may show quite some chutzpah, but as James Lawrence reports, it’s not alone in helping nudge the category into triple figure pricing.
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With a great story behind it, Cargo Cult Spiced Rum looks set to raise the premium for the category. Andrew Catchpole meets the man behind the mission.
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In his final column of 2023, Harpers regular Jerry Lockspeiser looks back over the year, before mulling over some lessons for the one ahead.
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The Wine Society CEO Steve Finlan calls out the government’s lack of engagement with the hard-pressed UK drinks trade.
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Jo Gilbert catches up with Berry Bros & Rudd’s newest head of buying, to discover what’s next for Britain’s oldest wine merchant.
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My late friend Michael Cox, who ran Wines of Chile’s UK office for more than a decade, had a great line about so-called “icon” wines. “Is that one word or two?” he would ask with a raised eyebrow. The pun works best in English, but the marketing strategy it points fun at is pretty much universal. Wines promoted as “iconic”, especially
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Embracing regenerative viticulture, lightweight bottles and with an Offshoot label to appeal to a different demographic, this family winery stands out from the Marlborough crowd. Andrew Catchpole catches up with Ed Macdonald GM of Hunter’s Wines.
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As he rolls out a new series of wine dinners with group head chef and brother Jack across their restaurants, Charlie Stein, director, Rick Stein Group, talks Andrew Catchpole through his approach to wine and food pairing.
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In partnership with Champagne Castelnau.
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In last month’s article for Harpers, I considered the potential for huge disruption in the UK wine trade from new rules that will allow the blending and processing of wines imported in bulk. They raise the possibility of making drinks that have all the taste and packaging characteristics of established wines while not being subject to the historic restrictions for making them.
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With international sherry week upon us, sherry educator and self-confessed Jerez ‘anorak’ Paul Morgan explains to Andrew Catchpole how his passion has translated into a month-long event at Hove’s Fourth & Church.
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Aulis’s Charles Carron Brown irons out the mistakes commonly made in approaching a somm, helping to bag the wine a diner wants, rather than the one the somm wants them to drink.
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