The flavor of black currant in wine of Rioja

How’s the weather been this year? Awful. ‘La nature m’écoeure’, one of my wine-growing friends posted on Facebook on 8 April, having been out to look at the frost-crippled shoots on his vines that morning: ‘Nature disgusts me’. It takes a lot to make a wine-grower feel that. He wasn’t alone. Jeremiads echo around the northern hemisphere as 2021 closes. It’s been the year of all the miseries. None suffered more horribly than the growers of Germany’s Ahr valley, where floodwaters caused by the fou ...

When you have an idea that, in your first flush of inspiration, you think deserves to get beyond the breakfast table, you run straight into the modern dilemma. Is it a Tweet? Is it one for Facebook or Instagram? Should you just try it out on your nearest and dearest, or is there a book in it? A slim volume, or does it need several tomes to expound its profundity? My trade being what it is, and royalties being as modest as they are these days, I’ve rather given up on books. Writing new ones, that ...

It’s easy to forget that the southern Rhône’s four most prevalent red varieties aren’t indigenous. Grenache, Carignan and Mourvèdre all appear to originate from Spain; Syrah made its way down the river from the northern Rhône. Of the long tail of other grapes, most have their roots closer to home. Plantings have dwindled in recent years, but today local varieties are experiencing renewed interest. One that’s finding a lot of fans – both in the Rhône and further afield – is Counoise. Scroll down ...