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📝 Building Allure: The Changing Faces of Winery Architecture
An article about winery architecture which includes notes on the Cité du Vin, Antinori's Tuscan winery and Bodegas Ysios in Rioja.
Wine writer, merchant, entrepreneur and creative strategist. I love sharing my passion for wine with the world.
Articles
An article about winery architecture which includes notes on the Cité du Vin, Antinori's Tuscan winery and Bodegas Ysios in Rioja.
Photo diary
In February 2020 I flew in to Caglairi for a few days in order to judge at the relatively new Concorso di Vermentino, a competition designed to showcase Sardinia's top expressions of the Vermentino grape, a variety blessed with massive potential for fine, mineral rich white wines. The
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You can also read this article on Vinorandum, where it won the Millesima Blog Award for Wine Reporter. Pantelleria is one of the most interesting terroirs in Italy. Known as the black pearl of the Mediterranean, this secluded Sicilian island is entirely volcanic, formed through a series of eruptions that
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You can also read this article on vinorandum.com > here The Gavi denomination knocks out around six million bottles a year. The bulk of this output is undertaken by large bottlers, many of them focussed on interests elsewhere in Piedmont - Asti in particular. This approach has done much
Travel
Guagnano is one of the key winemaking villages of Salento. More specificially it's home to some of the best vineyards in Puglia's classic DOC of Salice Salentino. Here, bush vines of Negroamaro planted up to a century ago provide premium quality grapes capable of making stunning
Photo diary
The Dolcetto grape has two capitals - Ovada and Dogliani. The small village of Castelleto d'Orba is a stone's throw from Ovada, and here, the Tacchino family cultivate the variety in order to create a wine capable of ageing. You can see my profile of Azienda
Photo diary
I spent a few days seeing Liguria for the first time. Starting off in La Spezia and heading west along the coast, virtually as far as San Remo, I was able to get a feel for the terrain that characterises appellations such as Cinque Terre DOC, Ormeasco di Pornassio DOC
Photo diary
Here are a few notes from my recent four day study tour to Hungary, courtesy of HungarianWines.eu, the PR and marketing arm of the brilliant Ágnes Németh and Tamás Dobos. The format was a whistle-stop tour of Hungary by bus that incorporated the awards ceremony of the Hungarian Wine
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You can also read this article on vinorandum.com > here [https://www.vinorandum.com/blog/old-soave-the-gift-that-keeps-on-giving] --- Something has happened to Soave in the last decade. It seems to have gone from being one of the most uninspiring names in wine to one of the most spectacularly under valued
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Cantine Pupillo @ the fiefdom of TargiaTomasi di Lampedusa's colourful and evocative portrayal of the creeping, sleepy decline of the Sicilian aristocracy offers a romantic backdrop from which to consider one of the island's more sluggish DOCs. His acclaimed novel tells the story of the Prince of
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Durello is Italy’s coolest sparkling wine. Made from the Durella grape, it offers austere, steely, mineral characteristics.
Knowledge
The 1855 Bordeaux classification is one of the most famous and influential wine rankings in the world. It was created by the Bordeaux Chamber of Commerce for the Exposition Universelle de Paris in 1855, which was an international exhibition that aimed to showcase the best products from around the world.
Last week I flew to Bucharest to take part in IWCB for the second time. I first attended the Bucharest International Wine Contest back in 2017, and having missed the event last year when it was held in Iasi, I was delighted to return to look into developments across the
I woke up one day in early May to find two, presumably unrelated, emails waiting for me. The first alerted me to a UK trade campaign intended to highlight one of the Veneto's most misunderstood wines under the rather fun banner of Summer of Soave. The second was
Here are a few moments from a fabulous lunch in the village of Gigondas. Michelin starred L’Oustalet (awarded earlier this year) is a collaboration between the Perrin family of Chateau Beaucastel (Chateaneuf-du-Pape fame) and highly acclaimed chef Laurent Deconinck who has been expressing his interpretation of Provençal cuisine for
A big thank you to Michel Blanc and the syndicate of Châteauneuf-du-Pape for facilitating a few days in the appellation and an opportunity to engage with both the terroir and the wines. Despite tasting, drinking, selling and writing about these stony vineyards and full-bodied blends for years it was my