the wine thinker

In response to a few requests, here are a few brief thoughts about – and images of – last week’s Vinexpo.Before doing that, however, maybe it’s worth my providing a little personal background – and some context (please do feel free to skip this bit). I’ve been going to Vinexpo for so long that I […]

1)  There is a one in 253 likelihood that the hotel bed you are going to sleep in tonight still has the sheets that were slept in by the previous occupant. Astonishingly, the chances of this happening are far higher in 3* and 4* hotels than in motel chains. 2) There is a one in […]

Slurp’s current listing on Google A couple of years ago, I carried out a little research among UK independent wine retailers asking them what concerned them most in terms of competition. The most widespread fear at the time seemed to lie in the form of one company: Slurp.com. A pure-online business with ambitions to offer […]

(in which there is an Empress of Wine.) A column that previously appeared on timatkin.com . The most influential voice in the parallel wine world is Roberta Parker who regularly appears on television demonstrating how to choose wines to go with particular dishes, how to serve them, how to prepare wine cocktails, what to do […]

. Professeur Reynaud trying to hold back the waves of social media These are busy times for the lunatic fringes of the French wine industry. First, there is the revival of the 2009 plan to ban the blending of red and white to make rosé anywhere in Europe. (Apart from Champagne, presumably). Then there was […]

Is this the worst wine ad you’ve seen in a while – from a June 2013 Portuguese wine magazine? Or can you offer something worse?

If you haven’t seen it, you might be interested to see this brief presentation on how to use Twitter’s new baby – Vine – to market wine. The hashtag #wineonvine was too good to miss

. Okay… Today’s tricky wine question is: What does Robert Parker have in common with the “natural” wine movement? Until about five minutes ago, I’d have found this a really tough one to handle, but now I have an answer whose implications have begun to rattle around in my brain.Over the last three decades, the sage […]

My two posts on “natural” wine have sparked some responses, so I thought it might be worth posting my – deliberately provocative: it was a “debate” after all – presentation at last November’s EWBC, together with comments from my fellow panelists Virgile Joly, Jamie Goode and Maurizio Ugliano and from audience members like Alder Yarrow, Blake Gray […]