You will find almost two decades of posts on my website, the last in October 2022, so it is now primarily an archive.  However, I continue to update my ‘Published Elsewhere’ page, where you can find my features on Portugal and Australia.  Additionally, to publish a (more or less) monthly newsletter, to which you can subscribe here.    Some of my published elsewhere features are free to read.  Others require a subscription or purchase (print magazines and books) to view.  The World of Fine Wine has very kindly permitted me to provide downloadable pdfs of long ..read more

The new Madeira Wine Company releases from Blandys and Cossart Gordon include some real gems.  The younger wines were more expressive several days after first opening, whilst the remains of the 1977 Listrão from last year’s releases looked positively tropical.   The bottles may be mini, but the wines pack a punch! What a testament to Madeira wines’ staying power (and the warmer, drier climate of Porto Santo island – the source of the Listrão).  Here are my notes on my 2022 release highlights; Madeira Wine Company’s portfolio is imported into the UK by Fells. Cossart Gordon ..read more

Quinta do Noval Vintage Port vertical; photo credit Sarah Ahmed Not many Port houses could present a vertical of top tier Vintage Ports from 2011 to 2020 featuring every year.  Quinta do Noval can and did.  This superlative tasting provided a terrific insight on the last decade of Douro vintages. Back-to-back vintages used to be an anathema, but Noval’s thick and fast declarations of consecutive vintages are now hardly novel.  Although they’re not ‘serial offenders’ like Noval, other top houses have gone back-to-back and even back-to-back-to-back this last decade. Noval does g ..read more

Boom, boom – holiday magnums to share – not the ice lolly variety! August has been a torrid month weather-wise and in the metaphorical sense for one reason and another, so these vinous tonics went down particularly well (as did the spectacular magnum of Druida 2015 from Nuno Miro d’O).  Pure-fruited, detailed and juicy, Ochota Barrels Price of Silence Gamay 2021 and Bekkers Syrah 2020 represent the best of Australian contemporary reds.   I bought the magnum of Ochota Barrels (and a magnum of Ochota Barrels The Slint Chardonnay) in a fund raising appeal for Ukraine.  It se ..read more

The latest releases from Sogrape’s winemaker-led Série Ímpar label Série Ímpar translates as odd series.  Odd in the sense of individual or unusual.  It’s not unusual for an artisanal producer to make only a few thousand bottles.  All credit to Sogrape, Portugal’s biggest wine producer, for its limited edition winemaker-led out-of-the-box label.  Highly individual and powerfully structured, yet with incisive acidity and relatively low alcohol, the latest Série Ímpar releases from Bairrada and Portalegre impressed.  A little bird told me Sogrape are dabbling in Colare ..read more

v Venerating age is all the rage with the Platinum Jubilee celebrations of this last week.  And in Oporto where three new categories were authorised by the IVDP last July: 50-year-old Tawny and White Port and Very Very Old Tawny Port for wines exceeding 80 years old.  Here I review a flurry of new releases from Taylor’s and Kopke alongside some relative babies from Wine & Soul & C. da Silva (Dalva). The oldies Taylor’s Platinum Jubilee Very Very Old Tawny Port Fit for a Queen, this exceptionally refined Very Very Old Tawny Port commemorates the Platinum Jubilee of H.M. Queen ..read more

Caracol dos Profetas Vinho do P. Santo 2021 & lapas at Restaurante Torres, Porto Santo (highly recommended); photo credit Sarah Ahmed I am just back from hectic but highly productive travels to Bairrada to celebrate International Baga Day (21st May), Porto Santo in the Madeira archipelago and Pico in the Azores.  Right off the bat, let me share two exciting new finds I cannot keep to myself.  Both bring a broad smile to my face. Caracol.  Never heard of it?  Neither had I until last week.  It is the other grape from Porto Santo being interrogated by  António ..read more

Blue sky thinking – FESTA by Bar Douro founder Max Graham & me in the Douro; photo credit Bar Douro You can take the man out of Portugal, but you can’t take Portugal out of the man.  And so it is for Max Graham.  His desire to recreate a slice of the country where he was raised saw the entrepreneur found Bar Douro wine bars, now FESTA by Bar Douro – an ambitious ‘meet the maker’ festival of wine at Tobacco Dock on 24th & 25th June. And SO much more. Tickets can be purchased here for three separate sessions – Friday 24th June 5-9pm and Saturday 25th June 12-4pm and 5-9pm, co ..read more

Original Baga Friends Filipa Pato, Luis Pato, William Wouters, Dirk Niepoort, Mário Sérgio Nuno, François Chasans, Paulo Sousa Has there been a better excuse than this Saturday to dust down a bottle of Baga, the Bairrada region’s iconic single varietal red?  It marks the launch of International Baga Day – a Baga Friends’ initiative to celebrate their 10th anniversary, additionally the official inauguration of new Baga Friends, Luis Patrão and Eduarda Dias of Vadio. Baga is such a unique grape because of its plasticity Yet as Patrão would be the first to tell you, contemporary Baga is ..read more

It has been a while since I’ve posted, being flat out working on FESTA, the meet the maker Portuguese wine festival with a difference.  And I’m about to disappear for seven days’ Chairing Portugal judging for Decanter World Wine Awards.   I’m breaking cover to celebrate Aphros Ouranus 2019, a superlative wine that aligns perfectly with World Earth Day’s ‘Invest in our Planet’ call to action. Not for the first time, this innovative whole bunch Alvarelhão from the pioneering biodynamic Vinho Verde producer plucked at my heart strings (I included the maiden 2018 release in my top ..read more