When my name first started appearing at the top of this page each month, I promised myself there was one topic that I would strenuously avoid. Eighteen months in, I'm about to break that promise...
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"Soil is dirt." I'm sure the Californian producer Bill Jekel was being deliberately provocative when he entered into a well-publicised debate about terroir with Bruno Prats of Château Cos d'Estournel at the end of the 1980s, but he was also articulating a position that was widely held in the New World at the time.
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Christopher Cooper has worked in the restaurant scene for over a decade, but it all prepared him to launch his own drinks start-up. Here are some of the lessons he learned along the way.
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Jerry Lockspeiser on why mission-driven businesses are appealing to consumers
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Tim Atkin MW weighs in on the battle over inheritance in Burgundy and how it is tough for families where some want to sell and others want to carry on the family tradition.
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Before 2008, just about the only Indian wine you could find was Omar Khayyam, a gassy sparkling wine particularly popular in Indian restaurants - until the global recession knocked its producer Chateau Indage, out of business. Today things are very different
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Tim Atkin asks whether Alberto Antonini has decided to break away from more traditional styles of wine defined by the likes of Michel Rolland and to forge his own path.
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Along, it seemed, with half the UK's wine press, I was at the launch of Les 110 de Taillevent in London's Cavendish Square last week. My verdict? Go - and be sure to order the crab ravioli. What was most notable about the night, though, was not the guest list or the menu, but that here was a major restaurant being launched off the back of its wine offering.
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While the 2006 vintage of Veuve Clicquot's La Grande Dame does not sing quite like its much lauded 2002 counterpart, which had better structure and more depth, the latest release is another very impressive offering from the celebrated Champagne house
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Justin Keay takes a deep look at the Puglia wine region and investigates whether it should be considered the 'new' Tuscany.
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James Lawrence examines the background to Chianti's continuing struggle for recognition in the premium wine category.
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In recent years, Chile's winemakers have started to show greater ingenuity and initiative in the vineyard and the winery. That sense of risk and personality needs to carry over to the way the wines are promoted.
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When was the last time you entered a wine tasting through a record shop?
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Mike Veseth appears to be on a mission. Money, Taste and Wine: It's Complicated! follows his Wine Wars and Extreme Wine (reviewed here in May 2014) in discussing aspects of the wine world in a language ordinary mortals can understand.
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It happened again last week. I was on a flight from Mallorca to London City airport. It was one of those small planes with just two seats either side of the gangway. She was in an aisle seat and I was bolted in next to the window. I was trapped and I wanted to lie.
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Dhalluin has been overseeing the winemaking at Mouton Rothschild and several of its estates since 2003. He talks about the joys, as well as the pressures, of leading arguably one of the most iconic wine labels in the world.
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Tim Atkin MW takes a look at the current battle brewing in Rioja over regionality label regulations.
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Guy Woodward asks whether the wine trade needs to loosen up a bit.
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Mark Fiddes weighs in on the link between drink rituals and the power of marketing spirit brands.
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Darren A. Smith is the founder of Making Business Matter which provides training on category management for suppliers and buyers for supermarkets.
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