Wine

Advent is the season for revelling in fine wine

7 December 2024 9:00 am

Crime. Fear not: none of us was planning to break the law, with the possible exception of hate speech. Where…

Chilean wine is hard to beat

23 November 2024 9:00 am

We were assembled to taste Chilean wines assisted by magnificent Scottish food, courtesy of the Scottish embassy in London, otherwise…

How Maggie took her whisky

9 November 2024 9:00 am

The whirligig of time brings in his… astonishments. Who would have thought it? Even a couple of decades ago, the…

From public bar to cocktail bar: books for the discerning drinker

2 November 2024 9:00 am

There’s something for all tastes this year, whether poetic meditations on the pub, advice on wines for extended cellaring or recipes for new-wave martinis

The finest Rhône I have ever tasted

26 October 2024 9:00 am

The medics would have one believe that alcohol is a depressant. That may be their conclusion drawn from test tubes…

Alan Clark’s wines were as remarkable as he was

12 October 2024 9:00 am

Où sont les bouteilles d’antan? For that matter, où sont les amis with whom one consumed them? These autumnally melancholic…

Nick Elliott and a life worth drinking to

28 September 2024 9:00 am

The English language has immense resources, but the odd weakness. What, for instance, is the translation for ‘Auld lang syne’?…

The wonder of wine from the Mosel

14 September 2024 9:00 am

Conservatives used to be good at inspiring a mass membership, underpinned by organisations. Before the first world war, the Primrose…

The treasures of sherry

31 August 2024 9:00 am

We were talking Spain and drinking Spanish. The UK and Spain are very different societies, but we did find points…

Letters: the courts are not trying to subvert parliament

29 June 2024 9:00 am

Judge not Sir: The claim by Ross Clark (‘Keir’s law’, 22 June) that the left can achieve what it wants…

The best bottle to come from the Gigondas

25 May 2024 9:00 am

One needs wine more than ever, yet when imbibing, it can be hard to concentrate. So much is going on.…

How to become an old soak

11 May 2024 9:00 am

Drink and longevity: there seems to have been a successful counter-attack against the puritans, prohibitionists and other health faddists. Indeed,…

The case for Churchillian drinking

27 April 2024 9:00 am

Churchill. No disrespect to Andrew Roberts’s more recent work, but I set out to look up a point about drink…

The glory of German wines

13 April 2024 9:00 am

I have had three recent conversations, all lively if unrelated – and all well lubricated. The first concerned Anglo-Saxon England…

I’m a rosé convert

17 February 2024 9:00 am

The miracle of limoncello

3 February 2024 9:00 am

My adventures in rosé

6 January 2024 9:00 am

The world is a mess. Why not find escapism through wine?

4 November 2023 9:00 am

In most children’s stories, the good characters live happily ever after. Works suitable for older readers tend to greater realism.…