Blog

Wine tastings, wine notes, wine columns and winemaker speeches are continuously peppered with phrases such as “New World’, ‘Old World’, ‘cool climate’, ‘altitude’, ‘hot climate’, and such like.  But w...

What is tannin? What does it do to a wine? Is it good or bad? These are questions that are frequently asked. Another question is why tannins sometime enhance a wine and make it taste better, and at ot...

Wine labels are meant to provide all the information you need to understand what you are buying; however, what they often do is just confuse, and add to the dilemma of what to choose. With hundreds of...

In my latest Back to Wine School blog, I'm looking at why, and how, we should taste wine to get the very best of enjoyment out of every bottle that we buy. Wine tasters and writers are often the butt...

Chianti, Chianti Classico, Chianti Classico Riserva, Supertuscan, Tuscan Vino di Tavola… What is the difference? What do they mean? Due to the intricacies of Italian labeling legislation, there is a c...

One of the questions that I get asked most frequently, is whether the type, size and style of glass that is used for wine, matters.  The simple answer is - yes it does.  Having said that, please don’t...