Winery Paradis de l'IlleVin Pays L' Aude Chardonnay

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, ...

The dark days began when I learned from a visiting Canadian friend about the death of one of the kindest, most gentle and most skilful Pinot winemakers I’ve known, Paul Pender of Tawse Winery. He died in a senseless and tragic act of violence on the evening of 3 February, outside his Lake Erie cottage. A stranger, subsequently charged with his murder, had (it seems) knocked on his door, asking for help. Paul’s sudden, untimely loss has left his family, and the broader Canadian wine community, di ...

You’re miked up. The audience hears every short breath you take, every gulp, every stumble, every mispronunciation. You’ve been handed two anonymous glasses of red wine (which just happen to be Petrus 2012 and 2003). Is the former, you wonder, a top Ribera del Duero? Could the latter, um, be a Hermitage from the 1990s? Well, probably not – if you’ve got this far. Welcome to the sole moment in the wine calendar (and this one only happens every three years) when wine truly becomes a spectator spor ...