The invitation read: “I’ve got a lot of old Burgundies and don’t know whether they are still drinkable, so can you come to dinner and we will see”. This was from Roy Richards, partner in Richards Walford, one of the key importers and wholesalers of wine in the UK, dealing only in the best family-owned estates, where wines ...

In early October I turned 70, and this milestone birthday was the subject of three celebrations, one in Singapore, and two at our home in Dorset. They could not have been better and provided great compensation for being born in such a rotten year. The first celebration was organised prebirthday by Australian Michael Hill-Smith, MW in late September...

Having had the quote “the best vintage of my lifetime” splashed across the cover of last June’s Decanter Magazine, I agree with this title from Bill Blatch’s highly regarded Vintage Report and I am happy that most of the chateaux owners are of the same opinion. While none of them committed themselves in the weeks preceding...

This October, I headed up a wine tour under the title Master Class in Southern Burgundy.First stop was L’Hameau du Vin in Villefranche-sur-Saone, Georges Duboeuf’s magnificent creation that can rival any wine museum in the world, with its stunning collection of artifacts and the dedication to explaining this historic and under-valued re...

I was in Argentina in early October, along with the Decanter team to wave the flag for the Decanter World Wine Awards that I wrote about last month and to congratulate the wine producers for getting 4 International Trophies – the same as the whole of France!Argentina as a wine country is the world’s 5th largest wine producer, the 7th la...

On September 1st at London’s Royal Opera House, Decanter held the Presentation Dinner for the Decanter World Wine Awards. From 4,500 entries in the 2004, exactly 10,983 wines were judged this year, making the DWWA the largest wine competition on the planet. 66% received a Commended, Bronze or Silver Medal and 208 (2%) a Gold, 99 Regional ...

When choosing the wines for the WSI offer, it was natural to choose those that I had particularly liked during the “en primeur” tastings, wines that had not only impressed me for their intrinsic quality, but what had also stood out amongst their peers. In making the selection there were, of course, some choices and I tended to choose t...

Buying “en primeur” is buying forward, buying wines when they are first on the market, but before they are bottled and will be sold for general commercialisation. This is a practice that dates back to the 1960s, when the estates who produced Bordeaux wines, known as “chateaux”, began to offer their wines to the powerful wine...

“The best in my lifetime” were the words used by France’s foremost wine critic Michel Bettane to describe the 2009 vintage for Bordeaux red wines. Jacques Thienpont, owner of Pomerol’s Chateau Le Pin said that it was quite rare to be able to say that weather conditions were perfect throughout the growing season, but that it...

July, August and December are the only quiet months for UK wine writers. For the rest of the time, there may well be a wine tasting or wine event every day of the week, sometimes more than one, to the extent that Harpers Wine and Spirit, the trade magazine - contrasted to Decanter, the consumer magazine - along with the Circle of Wine Writers (of ...

The Douro, the wine region in northern Portugal, is named after the river Douro that is known as the Duero (as in Ribera del Duero) in neighbouring Spain, that crosses the hilly border between the two countries and meanders majestically though the steeply terraced vineyards that are famous across the world for the production of Port, before reachin...

During the past month I have attended three in-depth tastings at Decanter magazine, covering wines and vintages that are just now coming onto the market. These tastings are of course blind, but the vintage and appellations are known, so comparisons are fairly tight. The tasters are drawn from specialists in each region, always a smattering of Mas...

Blog: Steven Spurrier "Our vineyards cover only 4% of the whole region, but represent 34% of wines sales and 95% of the estates are family-owned". This statement made at a morning conference at Vinexpo (the world's largest wine trade fair) in Bordeaux last June did not refer to the Haut-Medoc, but to the Napa Valley. Family owner...

Blog: Steven Spurrier My last communication was on The Importance of Comparative Tastings, telling the story of a tasting I organised in Paris in 1976 that compared (blind, of course) California Chardonnays against top white Burgundies and California Cabernet Sauvignons against the finest chateaux from Bordeaux. This tasting, where a California wi...

Blog: Steven Spurrier One of the great joys of wine lies in comparisons. Even if a type of wine can stand on its own - Champagne is the perfect celebration glass for example - there is no reason not to compare the taste of one Champagne to another, or of Champagnes in general to the excellent sparkling wines made all over the world. Another fascina...

Blog: Steven SpurrierThe wine market in Bordeaux, the world's largest fine wine producing region with over 110,000 hectares under vines and a history going back to the Romans, is unique in that its wines are tasted by international professionals only a few months after each vintage and long-ranging decisions are then taken by the estates who ha...

Blog: Steven Spurrier Last time we looked at the principal white grape varieties - grapes that were once identified with specific regions in the traditional vineyards of Europe, but are now seen in wine-producing regions all around the world. This time, it's the turn of the reds. It's worth noting that, with very rare exceptions, the pu...

Blog: Steven SpurrierAlmost all wines today are produced by a type of vine known as vitis vinifera, which has been refined and developed over the centuries for the production of grapes for wine, rather than for the table. Different families of vines have evolved that carry specific names and these are known as grape varieties, or “varietals&r...

Blog: Steven SpurrierBurgundy – the 2007 vintageEach year in January, the UK wine trade holds a series of tastings of the last but one vintage in Burgundy . Over two weeks, literally thousands of wines are tasted by the trade and Press and much of the wine is sold at that time. The most exciting vintage in recent years was far and away ...

Tasting wine is easy: if you can taste food, you can taste wine, for the senses of smell and taste that enable you to capture the aromas, flavours, spices and texture of food are the same as you use for wine. But there is a difference between tasting and drinking, which is Paying Attention. After the first experience or two, you don't need t...

Wine , a popular alcoholic drink across the world, is generally made from fermentation of grape juice. The drink has played an important role in religion throughout history. Used in Christian and Jewish ceremonies such as the Eucharist and Kiddush, the drink is popular in European regions of Greece and Rome since 6000 BC. In fact the Greek God Dio...