News from Jancis Robinson

A beautiful Cabernet Franc at a beautiful price. From €12.40, £13.50, $17.99, 257.20 Brazilian reais Find this wine I think I could honestly say that I approach every Cabernet Franc, in theory one of my favourite red wine grapes, in search of a replica of a couple of the finest red Loires I can remember. I fell in love with their

Tam goes on a food and English wine matching mission. Our 19th wedding anniversary was supposed to be spent overlooking the blue waters of the Indian Ocean on the beautiful south coast of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa – miles of white sands, the scent of fynbos, warm sunshine, Swartland bush-vine Chenin and a plenitude of fresh seafood. Lockdow

John Barker is a New Zealand-based lawyer and consultant. He has a long involvement in international wine law and policy, including as the first New World candidate for the role of OIV Director General. Here he puts natural wine in historical context. What is wine? By and large, we take it for granted that wine is made from the fermentation of

Tomorrow night a big celebration is planned. Tam hopes you’ve already got your bottle of English wine chilling in the fridge in anticipation. If you’re wondering what on earth I’m on about, it’s #theBIGenglishwinegoodfriday, an idea started by the energetic Jacob Leadley, winemaker and co-founder of Black Chalk Winery, when he tweeted, ‘If every

The first showcase of an ambitious new wine trader reviewed. Oeno boldly claims to be 'more than just a group. It’s a dynamic and innovative entity that sets trends and reshapes the way investors enjoy the fine wine market.' There is certainly no shortage of wine merchants’ ‘portfolio’ tastings in London, where the aim is to showcase their

A guide to some of the many online opportunities to commune with wine that have emerged recently. Without sharing, a large part of wine’s appeal is lost. We are social creatures, and wine has always been a way of bringing people together. When, thanks to the current pandemic, sharing in person becomes impossible – something that would have

Nearly 150 red wines reviewed here, all from one of the most exciting wine-producing countries in the world. Paul Symington took this picture in the Douro Valley. I find it hard to bridle my enthusiasm for Portuguese wines, white as well as red, and have no intention of doing so, as you will see from my notes below. The impetus for tasting

Matthew Hayes follows up his report on the effects of climate change on the Côte d'Or with interviews at Domaines de Villaine, J-F Mugnier and Mongeard-Mugneret as well as with new négociant Laurent Ponsot. This portrait of Freddy Mugnier was taken by Steen Öhman of www.winehog.org. Update on frost risk at the bottom of this article. For any

Derek Mossman Knapp of Garage Wines reports on how his agricultural community in Maule, southern Chile, has been coping with the pandemic. Well, is his conclusion. The mammoth earthquake on the eve of the 2010 harvest left our vineyards unscathed and we simply got on with the vintage. Such a catastrophe was supposed to be a once-a-century event

Somehow, Samantha Cole-Johnson has managed to produce this, the final instalment of her vintage diary, even though she must be exhausted and jetlagged after a 63-hour journey back to the Pacific Northwest from South Australia. She ends by comparing her first-hand experience of winemaking in Oregon and Australia. I realise that in my last journal

This review appears as a matter of record only. The restaurants described are, sadly, closed until further notice. On our return to London, at the end of every trip that has included some good eating, I am always asked by Jancis, ‘Which of all our meals was your most enjoyable?’ In this particular case, I was stumped for an accurate answer

A shorter version of this article is published by the Financial Times. Wine collections have a habit of getting out of hand, as I outlined last week in The collecting instinct. Those who wanted to sell surplus wine in the old days had little choice. It pretty much had to be via an auction run by either Sotheby’s or Christie’s, first in London

Amid all the excitement about new-wave South Africa, we should not overlook its classic wines. From 409 rand, €23.80, 259 Swedish kronor, £23.50, $29.99, AU$49.95, HK$245 Find this wine My wine of the week is a South African classic, which is something of a feat given how South Africa’s vibrant, exciting wine industry has evolved in the

Contrasting views on a new movie with a wine-related theme, from wine writer Maggie Rosen and from Jancis. Maggie Rosen writes Uncorked (a Netflix feature film, written and directed by Prentice Penny) is a clever and engaging take on the trope of the domineering old-school father, Louis (Courtney B Vance), who expects his son to take over the

A tannic assault: 90 left-bank reds from the 2010 vintage. See this guide to all our previous coverage of the vintage. Following on from yesterday’s Bordeaux 2010 tasted blind – right-bank reds and sweet whites, below are my reviews of the left-bank reds tasted in London in February, an annual event brilliantly organised by Farr Vintners in

Ali got better, and then got worse. And muses on the anosmia that seems to affect so many sufferers. I last wrote an update on day nine of my suspected COVID-19 infection. I had recently totally lost my sense of smell and taste, yet it was slowly returning. It is now 1 April (I can’t think of any prank that can come close to what we are living

A second helping of bordeaux 2010s, this time tasted blind. See also BI's 2010 bordeaux showcase. As Jancis wrote in Bordeaux – better at ageing than selling, ‘Tradition has it that superior red bordeaux starts to be ready to drink at around 10 years of age’. This was certainly true of some of the 146 bordeaux 2010 reds I tasted blind during a

In her final diary entry from San Polino in Montalcino, Katia Nussbaum asks if we are willing to change. Click on the Katia's diary tag for days 1–18. See also this thread about the diary in our Members' forum. Day 19: 28 March 2020 This is the last day of my coronadiary. 19 days to mark COVID-19. Everyone has come in to work. Tini in the

London retailer Lea & Sandeman, who had to cancel their major summer tasting, submitted these 12 wines for tasting in a lockdown situation. I was happy to co-operate, and feel confident that most of these wines will be available in other countries. The coronavirus-related restrictions robbed London wine shop group Lea & Sandeman of their usual

In which Katia Nussbaum's son manages to track down face masks, everyone feels paranoid, and she and her husband meet in the vineyard. Click on the Katia's diary tag for earlier entries. Last entry tomorrow. Day 17: 26 March 2020 So this morning I wake up to snow! Not much, but patchily white over the fields. I don’t think enough to damage