The other day I received an email from Waitrose Cellar offering 25% discount on all wines provided you ordered at least 6 bottles (not all of the same wine either)   They do list a number of wines which rate as value for money on our Value for Money Wines Pro App, but I wondered how many wines would drop into the category of Exceptional Value for Money with this 25% discount?   So I went through their list with my app and have picked out some wines which I

John Shafer passed away on Monday at the ripe old age of 94. My first meeting with John was in the mid ‘nineties when he appoint me and my company, The Wine Treasury, to be his agent and distributor in the UK for Shafer Vineyards. We were just beginning to make a name for ourselves as Californian wine specialists and John’s support for us was fantastic, coming over to London each year to help in the marketing of his wines until I sold The Wine Treasury in 2002. He was

This is a report from the ISWR, who track total beverage alcohol trends through granular volume, value and forecast data and insights spanning over 150 countries. 37% of Alcohol Drinkers in Legal Cannabis States Also Consume Cannabis, Expected to Grow as Marijuana Acceptance Expands   New York, NY – Though legal cannabis is currently only a fraction of comparable alcohol sales, a newly published study shows that the risk to beverage alcohol is expected to expand as cannabis acceptance and consumption grows, particularly among beer and spirits drinkers. The report

One of the most controversial of Brunello’s wine producers, Gianfranco Soldera has just died at the age of 82. His estate of just 8ha produced wines sourced from some of Montalcino’s best slopes (next to Gaja’s PIEVE SANTA RESTITUTA), the grapes are grown organically with great effort going into not only maximising the fruit quality but also enriching the ecosystem. The winemaking was natural with no temperature control, and a long and rigorous maceration precedes a stay of (often) more than five years in large oak botti. The resulting wines

Auguste Clape was a true legend of not only the appellation of Cornas but of the whole northern Rhône Valley. He passed away this month at the age of 93. Terraced Cornas vines key to the quality of the Clape wines Clape made traditional Cornas of remarkable quality, complexity and the ability to evolve with long ageing in bottle. His son Pierre-Marie and grandson Olivier continue to do so. The wines, particularly the reds of the Rhône region have become both trendy and increasingly pricey in recent years. This wasn’t

A significant auction of old DRC wines are coming up for auction by Sotheby’s in New York on October 13th This October, Sotheby’s will present rare Domaine de la Romanée-Conti wines from the personal cellar of Robert Drouhin in a dedicated auction of 100 lots.  This exceptionally-rare selection was acquired by Mr. Drouhin and his father, Maurice, directly from DRC, mostly during their time as the Domaine’s exclusive distributors in France and Belgium – a highly-covetable attribute that amplifies the collection’s pristine provenance. In addition to legendary vintages from the world’s most

I couldn’t help but chortle when I read an article in decanter.com about the DGCCRF (the French wine police) finding that some retailers and restaurants are passing off Spanish wine as French. You can read the whole article on https://www.decanter.com/wine-news/spanish-wine-france-fraud-dgccrf-396795/?utm_campaign=20180710_XDC-X_NWL_NW_dailynewsalert&utm_medium=email&utm_source=ET What was particularly funny to me was the reporting that “results of the latest investigation could provoke a sense of vindication among wine unions in Languedoc-Roussillon, which have complained in recent years about the flow of cheap Spanish wine into France; also claiming that some of it was not being labelled