When I first visited Lisbon in 2014, I was able to get an Airbnb in Bairro Alto for €20 a night and there was only one cool wine spot in town. Now there’s an official Wines of Portugal tasting room on the waterfront, a decade of tourism has transformed the country and contemporary wine bars are as easy to find as bacalhau.
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Mark Lansley, CEO at Broadland Drinks, argues that concentrates can be good for carbon, cost and consumer choice and thus, ultimately, the wine trade.
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Fells’ new MD catches up with Jo Gilbert on the company’s past, present and future, including its secret weapon.
As one of the longest-standing agent importers in the UK, Fells has a history that is almost very nearly unique. Like Mentzendorff, its biggest competitor, Fells happens to have been founded in 1858, before going on to represent the interests of a leading Port house.
Prompted by a brilliant series on The Rest Is History podcast, I’ve been reading Richard Davenport-Hines’ Titanic Lives. It’s a fascinating tale of class, wealth, emigration and, of course, hubris. “The boat is unsinkable,” declared Philip Franklin, vice-president of White Star Line, the ill-fated ship’s owner, on the very night of the tragedy.
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Andrew Catchpole caught up with the film director and Luberon Estate owner at Wine Paris following the UK launch of his wines.
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Someone once told me that you know what your ideal job is when you enjoy it so much, are so motivated to get up and crack on every morning, that you’d do it even if you weren’t paid. That’s perhaps a bit unrealistic for most people whose primary motivation is to earn money to live, but the point is clear. It helps a lot if you love what you do.
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As head of the BIVB, with leading wineries in Burgundy and Languedoc, Laurent Delauney talks to Andrew Catchpole about adaptability, evolution and climate change.
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Jason Millar takes stock of Bolgheri, which offers so much more than its starriest names.
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Andew Catchpole heads underground to meet Octavian’s Vincent O’Brien in this extraordinary West Country storage facility.
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In 1980, Neil and Lorraine Ashmead were looking to move back to their native Australia after several years spent working in Saudi Arabia. Keen for a rural enclave to raise their two sons, they found a homestead in the Barossa Valley, surrounded by a derelict vineyard of old Shiraz and Cabernet vines.
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Andrew Catchpole caught up with Thibault Lavergne of Wine Story at Vin, London’s leading French tasting, to find out what makes this specialist importer tick
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With India now slaking over half the globe’s thirst for whisky, Andrew Catchpole asks winemaker-turned-leading distiller Michael d’Souza for the inside track.
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Back in the good old days when my life involved selling millions of bottles of Hungarian wine to the UK’s major retailers, I made an appointment with the buyer at Sainsbury’s. They bought from one of our competitors and were proving a hard nut for me to crack. Buyers often kept suppliers waiting beyond the appointed time, so I settled down with my copy of The Guardian in anticipation.
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Miles Corish MW, MD of Milestone Wines, takes issue with ‘a classic case of smoke and mirrors’.
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Dipping into the Burgundy tasting season, Jason Millar says there is value to be found.
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From five years of “looking into the abyss”, Hallgarten’s future has been assured by a serious, if somewhat mysterious, new player in the form of Coterie Holdings. Jo Gilbert caught up with Andrew Bewes, MD of the former, and Michael Saunders, CEO of the latter, to peer beneath the surface of this major new deal.
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It was a scary moment, at least in wine terms. There I was in the cellar at Domaine Leroy in Vosne-Romanée, tasting some of the most expensive reds on the planet. Meetings with Madame Bize are never relaxing. She combines hauteur with the ability to freeze a glass of Pinot Noir at 10 paces. People who have earned her displeasure are never granted access to her presence again.
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Jo Gilbert catches up with Stef Holt on her new role as the first curator of world whisky for Mangrove Global.
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Emiliana, the world’s largest organic winery, has sustainability woven into its soul, with wines to match the winemaker’s passion. Andrew Catchpole dropped by.
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Izzy is a twenty-year-old student at York University. Many decades ago I was one there too. In my time students received grants for living costs and tuition fees were paid by the Government. Today those are dealt with by repayable loans. But the loans may not be enough to allow access to all. Like Izzy, for example.
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