Three less well-known European wines to stretch your palateTesco Finest Gavi, Piedmont, Italy 2011 (£7.98, Tesco) Forced to choose an own-label Italian white, I’d almost always go for Piedmont’s Gavi, which most supermarkets now stock, over a run…
Kanye West and Drake have a point. The Piedmont white is definitely on the upFor years the drinks most associated with hip-hop were distinctly aspirational. Busta Rhymes rapped about Courvoisier, Jay-Z about Louis Roederer Cristal and later, after fall…
Three wines, including a cava, to toast the warmer weatherCamillo de Lellis Biferno Rosso Riserva, Molise, Italy 2007 (from £7.25, thewinesociety.com; greatwesternwine.co.uk; butlers-winecellar.co.uk) A bottle of this longstanding favourite of mine ad…
A generation of winemakers with a cosmopolitan outlook are transforming the Spanish vineyardsPatience is a virtue in the slow-moving world of wine, but few take the principle as far as the R López de Heredia bodega in Rioja. When the López de Heredia…
The Mayfair wine merchant, family run since 1698, is a venerable model for ‘non-predatory’ capitalism to followSquint through the elegant arched windows of Berry Bros & Rudd’s famous store in London and you half-expect to see sombre clerks using quills…
Historic collection includes ports and cognacs dating back to the French Revolution and Napoleon BonaparteIt is the most valuable and fascinating drinks cabinet in the world. In a locked and chilled store room in what was once a cowshed, Bay van der Bu…
Expect to hear more from Swartland and natural wine producers – as well as rising pricesAn American friend of mine is fond of paraphrasing an old hippie slogan about marijuana. “Wine,” he says, “will get you through times of no money better than mone…
