Sometimes a wine catches you off guard. Not because it’s rare or expensive, but because it quietly overdelivers in a way that is quite unbelievable given how much the producers are making on the wine to be able to produce. That’s exactly what’s happened here with a 2022 Pebble Lane Pinot Noir I picked up…
I set myself a bit of a mad challenge the other day. Find a red wine under £35 that ticks all three boxes. A 17+ from Jancis Robinson, a 95+ from Robert Parker and a 93+ from Wine Spectator. In my head, this was going to be one of those nice idea, doesn’t really happen…
There are some wines you analyse, and there are some wines you just drink. This falls firmly into the second category. I came across the Mark West Pinot Noir when I fancied a bit of a change. I’d been leaning towards fuller, more structured reds recently, so dropping into Pinot Noir territory felt like a…
There are some wines you drink and forget about. And then there are the ones where you stop mid sip and just thinkyep this is class. That’s exactly what happened when I opened Château Musar 2018. I’ve been chasing something for a while now, and I didn’t fully know how to describe it until this…
There’s a moment when wine starts to click a bit. Not in a big, dramatic way, but more like you suddenly realise what you actually enjoy… and what you don’t. That’s exactly what happened to me this week. I opened two bottles, and they couldn’t have been more different. The Côtes du Rhône That Lost…
From Carvery Merlot to Bordeaux: Finding My Sweet Spot A very unexpected start This wasn’t meant to be a “wine night”. We ended up in Toby Carvery, and I ordered a glass of Casillero del Diablo Merlot without thinking too much about it. And do you know what it was actually really good. Straight away…
If you’ve ever had Tignanello, you’ll know the problem. It sets the bar. Not just in terms of quality, but in how it feels in the glass. There’s that balance, that polish, that sense everything is exactly where it should be. And once you’ve had it, going back to normal wines can feel a bit…