The Winery Hospices Saint-Francois d'Amont of Rhône septentrional of Rhone Valley

You don’t need a state-of-the-art winery to make wine. You don’t need rows of pristine oak barrels. One thing you do need to make good wine is good vines. Have you ever asked yourself where all these vines come from? How do they find their way into the ground? It used to be easy. In the past, winemakers simply took cuttings from their vineyards, propagated them, and planted them in the ground. But phylloxera put a stop to that. What was a simple process acquired layers of complexity: winemakers ...

A total of £72,600 was raised from 79 lots at the sixteenth DWWA wine auction hosted by Christie’s on 2 December – beating a record set in 2018. This total excludes Christie’s buyer’s premium. All proceeds will be added to funds raised by Decanter throughout the DWWA this year. Charities supported include The Drinks Trust, WaterAid, Cancer Research UK, Change Please, Decanter Apprenticeships and more. Over the past 12 months, Decanter has donated in excess of £100,000 to these charities. T ...

When asked which is the most exciting appellation in the Rhône, there’s one that currently springs to mind before all others: Tavel. I have to be honest with you: I don’t buy much rosé. So, given that Tavel is, according to The Oxford Companion to Wine, ‘one of France’s few all-rosé appellations,’ my response might be unexpected. The Oxford Companion is technically correct, of course – the wines made here are paler than a typical red wine. But compared to other rosés, that’s where the comparison ...