Winery HibiscusL'Isola Rosato

Many wine styles can seem perplexing at first: imagine the first bottle of Barolo if you only know Barossa Shiraz, or the first bottle of Jura Savagnin if you were brought up on California Chardonnay. With time, thought and repeated tasting, though, comes understanding. You learn each wine’s syntax and lexicon, its hints and inferences. You grasp the ways in which each style communicates. Its beauty dawns, then grows. Rosé wine sales grew 23% worldwide between 2002 and 2019. Its fuel has come fr ...

Think of Colombia, think of balmy evenings dancing to salsa, fuelled by shots of aguardiente and arepas. But there’s plenty more than the anise-based spirit and cornmeal cakes to sample in the South American country. Chefs have stepped up their game to put gastronomy on the map, with sommeliers and bartenders following suit. Not just appreciating local ingredients and distilling spirits, they also seek out wines from around the world to accompany fine-dining experiences. Their endeavours have pa ...

I started to write my thoughts on the vintage as the dust settled from the annual primeur’s week (or month in my case) and when my teeth and lips had finally lost their purple hue – an unsightly image I documented once on Instagram. This year more than 7,000 eager wine tasters were welcomed onto the red carpets of various historic châteaux buildings, past manicured gardens and into beautifully decorated tasting rooms to taste the new batch of baby wines before tucking into lavish spreads, often ...