Wine Blog

There is something about the beginning of autumn that brings truffles back into our imagination. In Piedmont, anticipation is already building for the prized white truffles hidden beneath the soil. The 2026 International Alba White Truffle Fair begins on 10 October and runs until 6 December, just as one of the world’s most celebrated truffle […]

Few ingredients are as closely tied to Piedmont as the truffle. In autumn, the region’s food and wine culture comes together particularly clearly: fresh truffles arrive in restaurants and markets just as visitors are exploring the vineyards and cellars of the Langhe, Roero and Monferrato. For wine lovers, truffle season creates an interesting pairing question. […]

A glass tips over. For about three seconds, everyone at the table stares at the spreading red patch in horror. Then the advice begins. “Salt!” “White wine!” “Club soda!” “Put it under the tap!” Suddenly, everyone is a stain-removal expert. But when red wine lands on your favourite shirt, dress or trousers, the first few […]

Order a Vinho Verde (Green Wine) in Portugal and you might reasonably expect something green to arrive in your glass. It won’t. It may be pale gold, almost colourless, pink, or even red — but green? Almost certainly not.(Curiously, genuinely blue wine is another matter entirely.) So why does Portugal call an entire family of […]

You are browsing Australian wines online when one bottle proudly announces: 95 Halliday points. Excellent. Presumably. But if you live outside Australia — or have simply managed to enjoy wine without first studying the international hierarchy of wine critics — you might reasonably have two questions: Who is Halliday? And what happened to the other […]

Sometimes the most enjoyable wine discoveries are the ones you are not expecting. A friend recently brought me a bottle of Quinta do Boição Colheita Tardia from Bucelas, Portugal. I saw Arinto on the label and assumed I was about to open a fairly typical Portuguese white wine. What I hadn’t paid much attention to […]

There is a small problem with discovering Portuguese wine: the more you learn, the less you seem to know. At first, things appear manageable. There is Port. There is Vinho Verde. Perhaps you know a few wines from the Douro or Alentejo. You learn to recognise Touriga Nacional and Alvarinho and begin to feel reasonably […]

A few years ago, while visiting the Bairrada region, I was shown an old vine growing on an abandoned property that had once belonged to a distant relative of the family. The owner had passed away years earlier, and nobody seemed entirely sure how old the vine was. What I remember most are the grapes. […]

There is something undeniably romantic about the idea of a little cellar. Not the kind hidden beneath a French château with walls covered in dust and old Bordeaux worth more than your car. Most of us are not living that life. Most of us are simply trying to keep a few decent bottles somewhere cooler […]

Crossword puzzles have a wonderful habit of making people feel both highly intelligent and deeply confused within the same five-minute period. One moment you are confidently filling in answers with dramatic speed.The next, you are staring at a clue involving fermented tree sap and wondering whether you accidentally enrolled in a botany course. One clue […]