Wijnnieuws

Jeff Burrows introduces himself as 'WSET Diploma candidate, freelance writer, photographer and videographer. I am the author of a food, wine and wine travel blog at www.foodwineclick.com'. His entry to the old-vines writing competition takes us to California's Central Valley. See our WWC21 guide for more old-vine competition entries.  Old vines

Walter shines a light on an under-appreciated haven of white-wine quality and value in north-east Italy. In a corner tucked away between Lago di Garda to the west and Verona to the east lies Custoza, a hugely promising white-wine area, but one that is still largely flying under the radar. It almost fully overlaps with Bardolino, a denomination

Xeniya Volosnikova's entry to our competition was titled, 'Sleeping vines of the Silk road – a story of one abandoned Soviet vineyard in Kazakhstan'. She writes, 'I originally come from Kazakhstan, but currently I live and work in Europe, I have experience working in the wine sector as a sommelier and marketing manager, and it is my dream to get

Old Merwah vines take their spot in the limelight for our next competition entry by Farrah Berrou. 'I am a wine writer', she explains, 'and the creator/host behind B for Bacchus, a platform and podcast with a focus on wine stories from Lebanon and the neighboring region. I am also Contributing Editor of NY-based The Wine Zine.' See our WWC21 guide

Samantha Cole-Johnson charts the fascinating history of one of Napa Valley's distinguishing features.  Samantha writes This article comprises my view of the way historical events affected the formation of vineyard management companies in the US. My perspective is informed by interviews with industry icons in the Napa Valley, the location of the

Architect Umay Çeviker has written several articles for JancisRobinson.com and is a fount of knowledge when it comes to Turkish wine, past and present. So it's no surprise that his entry to the old-vines writing competition is about a vineyard in Central Anatolia. His email began with the words, 'I have wanted to write this story for a long time

Michael makes a new discovery in the final instalment of his comprehensive, four-part report. See also Mosel 2020s, part 1 – VDP from B to O, Mosel 2020s, part 2 – VDP from P to Z and Mosel 2020s, part 3 – Bernkasteler Ring from B to P. As if I had not tasted enough Mosel wines already for my four reports, on Wednesday 28 July I travelled down

Bart de Vries sent this as his preamble to his entry in our writing competition: 'A geographer by training, Bart's understanding of soil, geomorphology and climate, important factors in winemaking, was kindled at an early age. On a field trip to Germany, a wineloving lecturer introduced him to the pleasures of Mosel Rieslings. For his first

Olga Antoniadou, a Greek-South African psychiatrist and wine lover living in Athens, is one of our writing competition veterans and should probably be awarded a civilian Greek wine ambassadorial title. She takes us to Naoussa, and gives us a whole new perspective. See our WWC21 guide for more old-vine competition entries.  Some beings defy Keres

Andrea Lemieux's entry for our 2021 writing competition is entitled, Ancient Roots of Wine Run Deep in Midin. By way of introduction, she writes, 'A casual wine drinker for years, my "come to wine" moment happened, paradoxically, in Turkey. My journey began when I discovered that Turkey did make wine, that it could make very good wine, and that it

For our second English-vineyard-based entry to the writing competition, Sam Hellyer reports in. 'I'm the head of wine and spirits at Chiswick Auctions in London. I've also worked as an importer and wholesaler of South African and South American wines, a sales manager for a couple of importers, I did a stint for the monopoly in Qatar and I worked

In her competition entry entitled 'Scenes of freedom and survival', Desislava Lyapova, senior writer at Liv-ex and freelance wine-marketing consultant based in Europe, takes us to Bulgaria. See our WWC21 guide for more old-vine competition entries.  ‘The vines know no borders or limits.’ It’s a forced deviation from the main road that

'Dear ladies and gentlemen, my name is Vasilis Mylonas, 33 years old and I'm agronomist at Kir-Yianni Estate, Greece. I'm taking care of Kir-Yianni's and contracted producers' vineyards, mainly at Amyndeon, since 2012, starting under the supervision of Dr Haroula Spinthiropoulou and now on my own. I also grow my own small vineyards of Xinomavro at

…and many of them are underpriced. A version of this article is published by the Financial Times. As Purple Pagers know well, when writing tasting notes on wines whose prices I know (which is not always the case, alas) my practice is to append GV or even VGV for those I think are good value or very good value. I was tasting a wide range of

Many an established name in English sparkling wine, tasted blind – with a few champagnes. See also part 1 in which English blancs de blancs and vintage rosés were reviewed, and All that fizzes is not champagne. Two further blind tastings of English sparkling wines with a handful of champagnes were a bit less conclusive about the superiority of

Technically this certified biodynamic beauty is a Côtes du Rhône but it's from the far north of this massive appellation and is rather different from its southern counterparts. From €9.50, £10.50, $14.99, 175 Swedish kronor, AU$35, SG$46 Find this wine There are just so many things to like about this blend of Grenache with Syrah, not least

Monique Geisen is another Oregon fan, introducing herself as 'an account supervisor at Los Angeles-based PR firm Jarvis Communications. She first entered the wine industry three years ago and has found a deep passion for New World wine. As such, she is currently pursuing her American Wine Expert Certification through the Napa Valley Wine Academy

For her entry to our writing competition, another old-vine vineyard in Oregon, Karen Magner writes, 'Greetings from Denver, Colorado, where I'm thrilled to say that I have joined Jackson Family Wines as a copywriter for their new e-commerce platform, YourWineStore.com (excuse the shameless plug). The inspiration for this essay came while I was

A reminder of this source of great whites – and, now, reds. More on Saturday. Wine regions get their moment in the sun, as I hinted in the Oxford Companion to Wine entry on fashion. Though since that article was written, in 2014, many a region has come and gone, if not from wine lists then from the massive coverage they enjoyed at one point

We're back in the Skurfberg region for Rob MacCulloch MW's entry to our old-vine writing competition. He writes, 'I'm a contract winemaker in Hawke's Bay, New Zealand, where I look after large volume wine production for a range of contract clients.' See our WWC21 guide for more old-vine competition entries.  Why does the idea of old vineyards