The flavor of perfume in wine of Vayots Dzor

Last year, there was much mirth on wine Twitter about a particularly excruciating tasting note. You’re right. The wine trade needs to get out more. But still… this one was a beauty. It began well enough – really quite beautiful, in fact. But before long the imaginative descriptions were getting more ornate and strained. It moved from poetic to meaningless before finishing with a reference to Burnt Norton – the first of TS Eliot’s Four Quartets – that put it firmly in Private Eye magazine’s ...

There’s no doubt that 2021 was a challenging vintage. Most explanatory statements or technical sheets handed out over the past few weeks have mentioned the unfavourable, oft disastrous weather conditions, the sometimes very low and disheartening yields and the slightly varied or unusual blends on offer in 2021. Difficulties faced by vignerons both inside and outside of the cellar have been explained in detail as has the raft of highly important decisions needed be made throughout the year, ...

The first tranche of the range, drawn from the stocks of the Gordon family, owner of Glenfiddich and Balvenie distiller William Grant & Sons, sold out within weeks of its release in May this year. The second batch again comprises eight whiskies – four each in The Charles Gordon Collection and The Legacy Collection – priced from £950 to £4,900 per bottle. All are exclusively available to pre-order online. The rarest of the autumn releases is ‘A Singular Blend’, a combination of grain and malt ...