Some Christmas treats moderated….. (Part 1)

Introducing 'Modération' – our vinous pet dog...... Nous buvons toujours avec Modération.....Santé Modération ! We spent Christmas and the start of 2019 in Touraine before returning last week to the lunatic asylum located, for the moment, a few miles off the coast of Northern France. Over our Touraine spell we broached a number of bottles …

Wines from Moldavia, a quick look and a disappointing tasting

Production and some context According to the OIV and the year 2017 (which are the latest figures available) the wine production of this small country located on the north-west corner of the Black Sea, surrounded by Romania and Ukraine, place it in 20th place amongst the world's wine producers in volume terms. These figures of …

Bel avenir pour Belargus ?

Ivan Massonnat, owner of the new Domaine Belargus * Initially the domaine was to be called Bel Argus it will now be just one word – Belargus  Last Thursday (3rd January) we had a very useful and interesting journey and visit to meet Ivan Massonnat at the winery of Pithon-Paillé in Saint-Lambert-du-Lattay. During last year …

Who, when and where: a look at our readership

The New Year period is traditionally one used for summing up, taking stock and, maybe, looking forward with some form of resolution. I will leave the last part out of this article as I have always found that New Year's resolutions are a pretty good waste of time. The idea of this article is to …

Le droit de critiquer… les critiques de vin

Voici quelque temps, ici, même, nous abordions le thème du droit à la critique négative dans le vin.  Si ce droit s'applique aux vins, il s'applique bien entendu aussi aux critiques de vin. Tout le monde n'est pas obligé d'apprécier la prose ni les commentaires de Parker, de Bettane, de Robinson, d'Atkin, de Dupont... ou …

Looking back at 2018 & forward to 2019

Three generations of the Boulays – one of the very best Sancerre producers. Left to right: Thibault, Thomas and Gérard picking on the very steep slopes of their Clos de Beaujeu   Time to look back as 2018 slinks away into history. In the UK much time and money has been wasted on the nonsense …

Cornas, the small red one from the Northern Rhône

I fully accept the fact that perhaps only a few of you will be reading this today but I do hope that you had, or will have, a good New Year's party, or at least will be drinking some more than decent wines. Systematic parties on fixed dates are not really my thing, so I'll …