From Claret to Clarity
POSTED ON 21/03/2015It was inevitable that Robert Parker, the world’s most influential wine critic, would bow out of reviewing the new bordeaux vintage. Last month’s announcement in London that he was hanging up his spittoon in favour of Neal Martin, a younger British member of his team at The Wine Advocate, had the Bordelais chewing their fingernails. Not least because after three average-quality vintages, this is a crunch year for bordeaux.
Seafood & I
POSTED ON 14/03/2015Why in the bleakish mid-winter am I about to bang on about appetite-whetting white wines? Well, firstly because there is life after meat and it’s called fish, glorious fish, and this and next month promise fish and shellfish heaven. Secondly, because we’re within a wine writer’s spitting distance of the vernal equinox on Friday. Since there’s so much more to dry white than chardonnay and sauvignon blanc, what better way to whet the appetite for oysters, moules marinières and dressed crab than with a deliciously crisp dry white or three.
A Fellowship of Riesling
POSTED ON 07/03/2015I tasted the wines but missed the speeches at The Riesling Fellowship last month; a shame because the Wines of Germany initiative turned out to be rather more controversial than expected. Asked to give their thoughts on a riesling that inspired them, Jancis Robinson MW and Hugh Johnson duly obliged. When it came to Stuart Pigott, author of The Riesling Story, The Best White Wine on Earth (£15.99, Stewart Tabori & Chang), he looked beyond his chosen 2012 Kupfergrube Gut Hermannsberg Riesling to ‘the raids that targeted the urban civilian population of Germany…It caused quite a stink’.
