Winery Nein LivesSweet Red No. 1

Do growers make wine – or do markets? Growers, of course. Yet markets define the scope of the grower’s creative efforts by what they reward or sanction. When markets are neglectful and unresponsive, there’s little the grower can do but conform. It’s a problem the world over. Here’s an example. The river Moselle/Mosel rises to the wet west of the Vosges mountains, then curves in a long green arc heading north through Epinal, Metz and (along the left bank) Luxembourg’s Grand Duchy, turning east at ...

We all have different motives in choosing wine. There are those hoping for a journey into unexplored regions of sublime sensation, and those with earthier desires, happy when the first glass has them seeing double. There are wines to accommodate them both: a prickly little Mosel on the one hand and a 15% Barolo on the other. Doesn’t the ideal wine, though, combine the two – inspiration with stimulus, perfume with punch? The three little letters ‘abv’ (alcohol by volume) only tell half the story, ...

Inside the February 2022 issue of Decanter Magazine: FEATURES: Wines of the Year An extraordinary tasting, our best ever, of 126 wines put forward by Decanter’s experts and staff, resulted in these 51 top-scorers Your choice: why you bought that wine But was it really? Rolfe Hanson uncovers a host of decision makers involved in you picking that one bottle Burgundy 2020: vintage report Charles Curtis MW on the standout wines of this exceptional if hot year Producer profile: Château-Grillet Matt ...