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rosé -

Rosé

There's been a revolution in rosé over the last ten years or more. Once seen as sweet, simple, drink now, forget tomorrow, the diversity of the styles of wine now produced is greater than ever before. The quality is also far higher. And both these aspects are being more appreciated by both producers and consumers. At the same time, it can be easy to put rosé in a pigeon-hole: it's a summer wine (and I am writing this in August in California); it has to be pale-coloured; it shouldn't be expensive; it should always be the latest vintage; it shouldn't...

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austria, champagne, crémant, england, germany, oregon, prosecco -

sparkling wine — never been better!

I’ve been travelling quite a bit recently, taking in England, Germany, Australia, and the Pacific North-West. As I tasted my way through these different regions, I realised just how much good sparkling wine I had been enjoying, and that many of these wines weren’t simply carbon copies of champagne but entirely their own thing. I was reflecting on all this as I drove to Syncline, a producer in Columbia Gorge, Washington. I had no idea they even made sparkling wine (I was there for their superb Gamay), but as I was enjoying the 2014 Blanc de Noirs owner and winemaker...

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adelaide hills, australia, fiano, grenache, mclaren vale, tasmania -

australia

I'm just back from a two-week trip to Australia, only the second time I've been there. I visited producers I know well, and discovered others I'd never heard of. Some are making wine that's quite traditional to Australia's long wine-producing culture, others are much more experimental, many are somewhere in-between, advancing the quality of Australian wine with lower alcohol, less fruity wines. Here were some highlights. sparkling wine There is some phenomenal sparkling wine being made in Australia. The history of bubbles in the country goes back to the nineteenth century, when wines won awards in Europe. The development of...

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asturias, chile, dão, itata, portugal, slovenia, spain -

always on the look-out for the unexpected

In a wine world dominated by the same grape varieties made in more or less the same way, it’s always exciting to discover something different. More unusual, esoteric varieties are often connected to the history of a region, made by experimental mavericks, and stand out for the individuality of the wines. Take, for instance, Fran Ascencio and his Urogallo winery (named after a spectacular looking local bird) in Asturias in northern Spain. Asturias is a cool, wet, beautiful region, between Basque Country and Galicia, rising from the Atlantic Ocean into the Cantabrian mountains. It’s most famous for its cider as...

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alentejo, field blends, portugal -

field blends

After phylloxera, Prohibition, and the Second World War, California wine was in a sorry state and needed reviving. There were a handful of growers and producers, especially in Napa Valley, determined to make quality wine and get California back on the map. There was also an influential wine writer called Frank Shoonmacker, who was frustrated by the insistence of many producers labeling their wines as "Chablis," "Sauternes," "Champagne," or "Burgundy" (which sadly still happens to a limited extent). Producers did this to make their wines seem more European and higher quality, neither of which was true. So he came up...

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