Opinionated Master of Wine, journalist and photographer. Also tweet about politics, books + music. Citizen of the world. Humanist. Liberal. Catador de auroras.
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We live in a country where the opposition is @JolyonMaugham, @ByDonkeys and @Coldwar_Steve. Any chance that @UKLabour and the @LibDems could join them? Please call out Brexit for the disaster it is. Forget the focus groups. Tell the truth.
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“Johnson set the law. He promoted the law. And then he broke the law. He must go. Or else our entire system of government is a farce.” Bravo, @IanDunt inews.co.uk/opinion/columnis…
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Good to see France sending corrupt politicians to jail. Our time will come @JolyonMaugham. reuters.com/article/us-franc…
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I’m an Englishman sitting in a French bar drinking a Belgian beer cheering for an Italian to win a golf tournament. This is the Europe I love.
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“One day, our children and grandchildren will look back in astonishment that Britain’s governing class managed to fail the country so comprehensively. One day, politicians will feel embarrassed to admit their association with the tawdry politics of Brexit” theguardian.com/commentisfre…
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Weird sense of priorities @BBCNews. Harry and Megan - who cares? - are your lead story. Can we hear more about the @GoodLawProject’s victory in the courts? Or doesn’t government corruption matter any more? bbc.co.uk/news
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Could @IanDunt do a blow by blow analysis of the Cummings interview, please? Saves me having to watch the twat.
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Celebrating my dad’s 90th birthday with a bottle of 1948 Vega Sicilia. Thank you to my friend @vino_prodigo for the present.
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In heaven, all wine bars will be like this. The wonderful Cantina Isola in Milan. On this of all days, I feel proudly European.
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“This was supposed to be Brexit day. That's not the way it turned out. Remainers and Soft Brexiters now have the advantage. “ Yipppppeeeee. Via @IanDunt politics.co.uk/blogs/2019/03…
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Drinking 1957 Lanzerac Cabernet and 2014 Murrieta Dalmau with my dad Ron @lobostapas. #winewithmydad
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Dinner with @JolyonMaugham, @IanDunt and @seanjonesqc. These are slipping down very nicely.
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“The longer that show goes on, the harder it gets to remember what good government ever felt like. The deeper we go into this emergency, the more it shades into absurdity and the absurdity starts to feel like normality.” Via @rafaelbehr theguardian.com/commentisfre…
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“Johnson was a failure and a disgrace. Now, as he finally falls apart, the Tory party must pick up the pieces and decide what it wants to be: a respectable party of the centre-right, or a deranged populist power fantasy.” Excellent from @IanDunt. inews.co.uk/opinion/apparent…
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"What we need to ask is whether a man closely allied to people like Bannon and supportive of Viktor Orbán should be allowed to amplify his propaganda unchallenged on our broadcast media." Excellent piece on Nigel Farage by @carolecadwalla
theguardian.com/politics/201…
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“The right does not want Britain to “take back control”. It wants to control Britain, and anyone who gets in its way is a fake, a grandstander, an enemy or saboteur.” theguardian.com/commentisfre…
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Christmas lunch wines. Some fun stuff to enjoy, most with special memories attached. The best kind of wines. #happychristmas
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Excellent and damning thread by @JolyonMaugham about the BBC’s piss poor coverage of Vote Leave’s cheating.
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An open letter to the BBC. Why have, say, @JolyonMaugham and @IanDunt never been on @bbcquestiontime? yorkshirebylines.co.uk/polit…
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“The most dispiriting thing about reading the book is that dawning sense that all your worst imaginings about the conduct of that government were, it seems, played out in real time.” theguardian.com/books/2023/a…
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Slightly sore head this morning. But what memories of these wines last night. All delicious.
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The referendum was won by lies and cheating. We need a public inquiry into this, as @carolecadwalla says.
This is extraordinary. Electoral Commission says it can't go after DUP because it already found Vote Leave guilty of same offence. I can't emphasise this enough or say it too many times: it stinks. The whole thing. And we desperately need a proper inquiry
opendemocracy.net/en/dark-mo…
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I don’t often taste wines that make move me like this. Dinner with dear friends. Celebrating an 80th birthday. #burgundy
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Great wine is about nuance, surprise, subtlety, expression, qualities that keep you coming back for another taste. Rejecting a wine because it is not big enough is like rejecting a book because it is not long enough, or a piece of music because it is not loud enough. Kermit Lynch
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Delighted to be joining @Decanter as their Burgundy correspondent. decanter.com/wine/wine-regio…
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BBC sources tell me that John Humphrys will be retiring from the Today Programme on September 20th. Anyone else up for a party to celebrate his departure?
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Eben Sadie’s wall of wine. Great winemakers make great wines because they know what great wines taste like.
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If Labour is looking for a three-word slogan with which to fight the next election, it could do worse than “Mend This Country”. theguardian.com/commentisfre…
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My father’s obituary has almost a whole page in the print edition of The Guardian today. He would have been proud. We’re going to remember him and celebrate his life on Friday with a service and what South Africans call an after tears party. Shout in the week, as he would say.
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You know you’ve made it when you’re on the door of the ladies’ loo in a wine bar in Madrid. Not sure what @JancisRobinson would make of this. Robert Parker is on the door of the gents.
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“This isn’t just an attempt to silence me. It’s an attempt to silence the story.” Keep going, @carolecadwalla theguardian.com/commentisfre…
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Speaking at the Spanish Embassy in front of the UK, Spanish and EU flags. As I said on Tuesday, I hope we'll still be in the EU when I present the Wines from Spain Awards next year. Our future is in Europe. #StopBrexit
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I rather miss the days when wine merchants sought out great wines and told their customers about them. Too many these days talk about “investment” opportunities and have next to no interest in, or knowledge of, wine. A fine wine market crash might not be a bad thing.
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Just bonkers. A 1959 Semillon with 12.3% alcohol. Argentina’s best white grape. Like an old Tondonia.
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Boxing Day with my dad and family. Opening a 1968 Tarapacá in his honour that was given to me in Chile to share with him. #preciousmoments
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This is the first SA white I ever gave 98 points to. It really is a world class Chenin Blanc from @DavidandNadia. #lockdownwine
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The best Champagne I’ve had this year. Every bit as good as the 2006. Just stunning. #drinkbetterwine
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These are the Chilean wines I talked about for tonight’s tasting with #67pallmall. I’m now going to drink at least two of them for tonight’s #lockdownwine.
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Congratulations to @alevigilmalbec, seen celebrating his winemaker of the year award in my 2019 Argentina Report here.
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What an unbelievable wine from the highest vineyard in the world. Genius winemaking. Please, someone import this wine.
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South Africa takes the top six spots in world Sauvignon Blanc tasting at Lismore. Amazing result.
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I’ll be drinking French, Spanish and Italian wines and laughing at the stupidity of Brexit.
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In 2013, I published my first South African report. It was 81 pages long and reviewed 710 wines. Tomorrow, I will publish my #2019saport, which runs to 281 pages and reviews 2,118 wines. It's my biggest ever overview of the SA industry. #labouroflove
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Tonight’s #lockdownwine is a lip smacking Greek Assyrtiko. Just what I need after a day at the computer. Cheers everyone. Stay safe and well distanced.
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Yipppeeee!
Congratulations to @timatkin, winner of the Ramos Pinto Online Communicator of the Year Award 2018! #ramospinto @LouisRoederer_ #LRIWWA18 #theroederers #winewriters
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“Today, the government did not even try to justify what it was doing. Tory MPs barely pretended to have read the bill, let alone understand its contents, let alone challenge them. The great champions of English liberties didn’t say a word.” @IanDunt politics.co.uk/comment/2021/…
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Really feel like drinking a Beaujolais tonight. This is the 2017 from one of my favourite estates. #lockdownwine
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Tonight’s #lockdownwine is a 2004 Chapoutier white Hermitage. Honeyed, waxy, complex. Still full of life.
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A long read, but well worth your time to learn a little more about the Murdoch family. Hold your nose. nytimes.com/interactive/2019…
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Emotional day for me. Preparing to taste top Chenins from South Africa and the rest of the world with the amazing Samantha O’Keefe of @lismorewine and other friends. Two years ago, Sam’s winery and house were destroyed by fire. Now we’re back here, a testament to Sam’s spirit.
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Powerful piece by @Freedland. “Above all, to reflect that, but for the lottery of fate, it would not be them on those boats – it would be us.” theguardian.com/commentisfre…
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Amazing dry English Chardonnay. This is mind blowingly good. Best non sparkling English white I’ve tasted.
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Settling down to watch the final round of the Masters with @ozclarke. We should see these off by midnight.
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A delicious Rioja Reserva from the cooler “Atlantic” 2014 vintage is tonight’s #lockdownwine. What’s yours?
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This was the railway network in Argentina in 1946. It was the sixth largest in the world. Now mostly abandoned.
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Theresa May’s political obituary via @IanDunt. “She has no achievements, she conducted herself without grace or principle, and she governed the country as it was humiliated on the world stage. politics.co.uk/blogs/2019/05…
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Celebrating finishing my #2021riojareport with these amazing wines. Going live on my website very soon.
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And it’s a wrap. After three weeks, 3000 kilometres, 1492 wines tasted from 291 bodegas, 133 of which I visited in person, it’s time to head home. Thanks to @mgrapesland and the amazing team @santamariabrioneshotel, my home from home. #rioja #riojawine #riojareport
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I was going to have a night off the booze, but stuff it. Feel like a glass of Madeira for this evening’s #lockdownwine.
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Belated Burns’ Night dinner with friends yesterday. We drank these Spanish wines to toast Rafa Nadal. Let’s hope he can win this amazing final. #spanishlegends
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“Britain is now, it is clear to the world, not a serious country. The way it is behaving is simply not rational. Any reputation it had for credibility or sound judgement is gone. It is a basketcase.” Depressing but true from @IanDunt politics.co.uk/blogs/2019/01…
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