The flavor of bramble in wine of French Polynesia

Bordeaux 2021 en primeur releases really picked up speed this week, and the launch of Ausone, Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande, Canon, Montrose, Léoville Poyferré, Beychevelle and La Gaffelière in recent days – to name just a few – has given prospective buyers plenty to look at. Let’s not forget the debut for Lafite Rothschild 2021, too. Ausone, Canon and Pichon Comtesse 2021 Ausone is St-Emilion wine royalty, of course, and UK merchant Bordeaux Index quoted a release price of £6,000 (12x7 ...

An electronic dart was tossed at us recently by Decanter reader Tim Frances from Kent. It landed on the screen of our magazine editor Amy Wislocki; Amy lobbed it across the virtual room to me, suggesting a column-length reply. ‘Here’s a poser,’ Tim began. ‘How do your experts grade a wine that they find intellectually well made, but that they truly madly deeply dislike? I’ve tasted wines I can admire dispassionately, but would stab my feet with forks rather than drink them. Must be a conundrum f ...

According to lifestyle and happiness guru Gretchen Rubin, you ‘bring your own weather to a picnic’. Ms Rubin, I’d suggest, has never shivered under a tree watching raindrops turn her fish-paste sandwich to mush because the weather forecast was wrong. There are, it’s safe to say, picnics and Picnics. It’s a term that takes in everything from a rubber baguette in a French ‘Aire’ off the Autoroute du Soleil to a four-course spread while listening to opera at Glyndebourne. What’s definitely true is ...