Harpers Wine & Spirit Trade News

Island wines: Gaining attention

Published: 13 August, 2026

What do Hokkaido, Essex, Pico, Gorgona and Tinos have in common? That’s right – they are all islands that produce wine. But Essex? Yes, it earns its place here too. Just why, I’ll explain further down. The fact is, island wines have become a thing just as Matt Damon’s epic return to Ithaca in Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey has got us all thinking about Greek islands. Greece, of course, epitomises island wines (though I would not put Odysseus’s Ithaca quite at the top of the list).

Tim Atkin MW: The highs of Tenerife

Published: 07 February, 2025

Where are the highest vineyards in Europe? Switzerland? The Alto Adige perhaps? Both have sites that are vertiginous when you compare them to most of the continent’s classic wine regions. But the correct answer is Spain. Not Gredos or Ribera del Duero, both of which are pretty elevated, but Tenerife. Piedra Fluida’s Los Frontones vineyard in Vilaflor sits at a lofty 1,687m.

Amathus Drinks invites consumers to Taste Together online

Published: 29 May, 2020

Wine and Spirit importer, distributor and retailer Amathus Drinks is forging head with a range of interactive online tastings to help customers explore far flung corners of the wine world.