Lockdown started with good intentions. I wrote a list of jobs. Painting various parts of the house, build those planters that have been sitting in their box since they arrived a few months ago, build that shelving unit for the cellar, sort out the filing cabinet. Ooh, I’ll have time to some wine articles too.

I came across the list the other day and was able to tick off none of them.

I tried to come up with excuses in my head to explain why I had failed to deliver my home improvement plans. Home...

This article was originally published in Issue 22 of Root + Bone magazine in January 2020.

Technology in wine? Now that’s a tough brief. Many winemakers avoid technology at all costs. In the age of minimal intervention, technology’s impact on wine is a thorny topic. But as with most things, there are degrees of acceptance. More interested in passing the winemaking methods of their forefathers on to their children than benefitting themselves from modern technology, many winemakers are actively wo...

Another family holiday, another vineyard trip craftily sneaked in.

I am the booker of holidays in our family, a role which allows me to strategically map my way around Europe’s wine regions under the guise of family time. As long as I can spin a story that there is something the kids really want to do in the general vicinity, I can usually create a gap in the family schedule to get my fix of talking to winemakers and tasting fermented grape juice from barrels.

Last year we went camping in the Ard...

An edited version of this article was originally published in issue 20 of Root + Bone magazine. 

I find the concept of biodynamics a bit weird. The belief that burying manure filled cow horns over the winter, digging it up in spring and then spraying it on the vines will somehow work with spiritual enlightenment to improve the performance of the vineyard sounds to me like some sort of voodoo shit. 

But what do I know? Some of my favourite wines have been made following the biodynamic methods of a...

This article was originally published in Issue 19 of Root + Bone magazine. 

There is a view that wine geeks like me are little more than socially-acceptable train spotters. Speaking from a personal point of view, I think there probably an unhealthy level of obsession to my interest in wine. I am not talking about alcoholism here, although my wife has banned me posting wine bottles on Instagram on Mondays and Tuesdays to at least pretend that we don’t drink wine every day.

I’m talking about my obs...

Wine is the essence of life. In the countries where there is wine, they did not need to reform the church and they have the best kitchens.

I don’t know if this is exactly what Luigi Tecce said when he and I shared a salami and tasted his life-changing Aglianicos in his kitchen earlier this year. But I don’t really care. It is just one of the nuggets I scribbled down as I listened to him talk.

When you meet someone as passionate as Luigi it doesn’t really matter that he can’t speak a word of Engli...

Hello. Yes, I am still here. Apologies if the content on this site has dried up somewhat, but I've been busy creating a new wine magazine. Yes, a proper magazine, made of paper and everything. Its called Root + Vine and has been published by the lovely folks at Root + Bone.

Fed up buying wine magazines and not reading them, I decided to create one that I wanted to read. Most of the wine writing I enjoy is stories about wine. Not the formulaic; I visited a wine region, I met some winemakers, it...

A little over a year ago I moved jobs. My old job was based in central London and although I like to think I was just very good at managing my time, if I am completely honest it was a little bit dossy. 

This meant that, in what I know look back upon all misty-eyed as "the good old days", I was a regular lunch break visitor to London trade tastings.

I didn't take the piss. It wasn't like I spent three hours every lunchtime swirling a glass and staining my teeth in some posh old buil...

I recently tasted through the latest set of wines from Tenute Sella, a family owned estate in Biella, Alto Piemonte. I first discovered the estate when I met owner Marco Rizzetti on a press trip in Biella and visited Tenute Sella's beautiful vineyards in Biella a couple of years ago.

Their wines are generally released under the Lessona and Bramaterra DOCs or the more generic Coste della Sesia DOC. The wines are typically Nebbiolo based blends, with varying amounts of Vespolina and Croatina....