The Winery Bois Des Mattes of Grignan-les-Adhémar of Rhone Valley

Onwards, upwards. The roads get narrower, the corners get tighter. I step out of the car when I finally reach the winery and the air is so much fresher here. I go to take a sip from my water bottle and a gust of wind makes it whistle. I stand with Thomas Jullien and we look over the vineyards. It’s not yet spring, and the vines look little more than sticks. ‘It’s a lunar landscape at the moment,’ he says, as a friend’s flock of 300 sheep has just passed through to graze on every scrap of green b ...

In 2001, George W. Bush was sworn in as the 43rd President of the United States. Meanwhile in the UK, Tony Blair led the Labour Party to its second landslide victory. A lot can change over the course of 20 years. According to many Rhône winemakers and wine collectors, this is how long a bottle of Hermitage should lay undisturbed until you open it. Is it really worth the wait? I recently tasted 11 Hermitage 2001s – seven red, two white, two sweet – to test the 20 year hypothesis and see how these ...

The final 11-strong shortlist includes four drink books – Wines of the Rhône by Matt Walls; The South America Wine Guide by Amanda Barnes; Inside Burgundy by Jasper Morris MW and Foot Trodden by Simon J Woolf & Ryan Opaz.    Commenting on the shortlist, Nicholas Lander, chair of the André Simon Memorial Fund, said: ‘A number of this year’s food and drink nominees, including Wines of the Rhône, address the urgent environmental and global issues of today in ways that are original, inspiring an ...