“When sorrows come…” Poor old Burgundy! As if the battering endured for the last decade – thanks to the scandal of premature oxidation – wasn’t enough, she now finds herself in the headlines again for all the wrong reasons. Read More...

Tags: Burgundy, Fraud

Readers familiar with John B Keane’s play The Field have an advantage when it comes to understanding the wine region that can easily claim to be the world’s most fabled: Burgundy. Burgundy is a state of mind as much as a name on a map and its citizens are characterised by a visceral attachment to the land; you could be forgiven for thinking that if some of them stood still for long enough they would put down roots. Read More...

Tags: Burgundy, UNESCO

With the rain sheeting down outside as I write this, it is hard even to think that there may be some bright days ahead, when a refreshing white or a barbecue-friendly red might need to be pressed into service, preferably outdoors under a blazing sun. A what? Read More...

Tags: Chablis, Rhône, Galicia

Great claret, indeed all great wine, is about balance – a point made oh-so-memorably by Château Mouton-Rothschild 1985 at a gala wine dinner in Dublin last night. The ‘building blocks’ – fruit, tannin, acid and alcohol – were all there in equal and harmonious measure, and as the wine approaches its 30th birthday they are seamlessly blending together into a whole that is far greater than the sum of its parts. Read More...

Tags: Mouton, Bordeaux, Medoc