Wine
Stockbridge, Hampshire: an unexpected gastronomical haven
‘The doors clap to, the pane is blind with showers / Pass me the bottle, old lad, there’s an end of summer.’…
My host’s reciprocity was almost embarrassingly generous
Peace came dropping slow. I have never regarded west Flanders as part of la France profonde, but here we were,…
Weak but stable, Theresa May is the opposite of a good claret
It is enough to make a man turn to drink. On a distinctly non-abstemious day, I was sitting in one…
Farewell to a bottle and a half per day – I have finally embarked on a diet
Are there still travelling fairs? In many villages, they used to be part of the annual round. For weeks, the…
Put your trust in Hungarian wine (yes, really)
The wines of Tokaji run like a golden thread through Hungarian history. There are references to their nectar-like quality in…
When it comes to food and wine, there’s no place like Rhône
As often, a good glass stimulated good talk. We were drinking some promising young Rhônes and the discussion ranged wide,…
I’m grateful for my grateful drinking friend
The phone rang. ‘You are the last person in the world I should be talking to’, proclaimed an old friend…
Is the great vintage of 2015 retreating into itself
We were pondering the relationship between military history and wine vintages. It is extraordinary to think that the French managed…
How Christmas lunch became Christmas dinner
It was a culinary triumph. My hosts do not spend much time in the UK, and are determined to entertain…
Found in a friend’s cellar — the wines of a lifetime
In longevity, great wine can march with human life. Creating (better still, maintaining) a fine cellar really is a compact…
Thank Evans for good wine
There was an entirely forgotten leftist called Allen Ginsberg, a so-called beat poet (surely an oxymoron) who once produced a…
Why confront the ugly lie of Islamic State with a tacky fake?
Can the beauty of Palmyra be reproduced by data-driven robots? Stephen Bayley on copies, fakes and forgeries
Dear Mary: Is it OK to ask to drink the wine you brought to a dinner party?
Q. What is the etiquette regarding asking to drink the wine you have brought to a dinner party? The man…
Nicholas Soames’s Twitter account is a miracle (and so is his diet)
Miracles are not ceased. A few years ago, a kindly educational therapist took pity on John Prescott and set out…
The wonders of white Burgundy
I promised a return to Burgundy and the 2014 vintage, which becomes no less impressive when recollected in tranquillity. We…
Dinner with a Grand National winner
Not quite nil humanum a me alienum, but I have always been interested in other people’s trades and worlds. That…
The kindest man in the Bordeaux wine business
There was a moment during the war when De Gaulle was being more than usually impossible. Roosevelt, furious, asked Churchill…
On the trail of a Burgundian Holy Grail
It was a scene evoking the first movement of the Pastoral Symphony. The evening sunshine was caressing the verdant woods…
The perfect wines to toast the end of the hunting season
A few years ago, a distinguished cove in the diplomatic service was made High Commissioner to Australia. To prepare himself…
Charles Moore’s Notes: The demented accusations against Field Marshal Lord Bramall have at last been dropped
Many have rightly attacked the police for their handling of the demented accusations against Field Marshal Lord Bramall, now at…
The lovely Clare Valley, like southern France with added kangaroos
It is a century and a half since The Spectator noted the exceptional qualities of South Australia, a colony of…
Tis the season for disagreeing with your spouse about everything
The older I get, the more Scrooge-like I become. I’m dyspeptic, misanthropic, curmudgeonly, parsimonious and unsentimental. Caroline, by contrast, is…
Even great wine can’t quite give me hope for Lebanon
Housman had a point. If men could be drunk for ever, the human condition would be tolerable. But thought always…