What's Hot and What's Not in 2015
POSTED ON 27/12/2014A broader palette of wine styles allied to better quality is excellent news for consumers as we peer into the 2015 void. Wines once considered exotic such as albariño, grüner veltliner, picpoul de pinet and grechetto are now a supermarket own-brand must. Every supermarket worth its salt now has its own Aussie chardonnay, Marlborough sauvignon, Cape pinotage, Chilean merlot and Argentinian malbec.
A Fizz by Any Other Name
POSTED ON 13/12/2014To create a luxury product of fun, prestige and celebration from a wine that struggles in the vineyard to reach more than 11 per cent alcohol is the ultimate in vinous alchemy. Faced with the most magical name in wine, it is sometimes easy to forget that champagne has many different levels of quality and that a champagne by any other name might also taste as good.
Every Lidl Bit Helps
POSTED ON 06/12/2014I had to pinch myself when Lidl was crowned best value supermarket for wine last month. True, the 600-strong budget chain (in the UK alone) had made a big PR splash with its Premium French Wine Collection after selling 800,000 bottles in the autumn. As you’d expect, prices for the range of 48 bordeaux and other French classics that made up the lion’s share were noticeably higher than those of its core range of 60-odd wines.
The Latest on Wine Investment
POSTED ON 01/12/2014Having just completed the auction and investment sections for the 6th edition of Jancis Robinson’s Oxford Companion to Wine (due out 2015), I think it would be fair to say that this is one area of wine in which Jancis Robinson MW, the Queen Bee of wine writing, finds herself holding her nose to avoid the stink. She doesn’t like the idea of wine investment, because it’s divorced from the pleasure principle behind wine drinking, but she reluctantly acknowledges that it’s part of the fine wine scene.
