Winery Joseph ChevreauBlanc de Blancs Brut Champagne

What’s your perfect summer paring? For us, its afternoon picnics, late night outdoor dinners, casual BBQs and backyard catch-ups with a delicious bottle of wine. With results recently announced from Decanter World Wine Awards 2023 (where more than 18,200 wines were evaluated by some of the world’s top wine experts), and a particularly bright spring leading into a promising summer, we can think of a few top-rated wines to beat the heat. Whether you’re a lover of the classics, an ...

Severe drought and heatwaves have provided challenges for wine producers across Europe in 2022, from maintaining vine health to concerns about – and the impact of – wildfires. Early harvests have been a feature of the vintage and reports emerged this week of records being broken at some white wine-producing estates in Bordeaux. Spain’s Caserío de Dueñas estate in DO Rueda said it began a record early harvest on 16 August this year. While drought and heat have put pressure on yields in some regio ...

Any discussion of the relative merits of Cognac and Armagnac can all too easily descend into trite generalisations. Cognac is invariably described as ‘refined’ and ‘elegant’, Armagnac as ‘rustic’ and ‘earthy’. Luckily for us, the truth is altogether less reductive, and more interesting to explore. There are obvious contrasts between these two great French spirits that transcend mere geography, encompassing history, culture, terroir, grape variety, distillation and maturation. But there are commo ...