It was difficult to chose just ten of the many great bottles I’ve enjoyed this year, but these are some of the best, listen in no particular order. Reviewing thousands of young wines, I generally gravitate towards mature specimens when drinking for pleasure, and 2017 was gave me abundant opportunity to gratify that preference. What’s … More The best bottles of 2017
This year, I was delighted to be invited to the famous Southwold Tasting for the first time. For over two decades, a group of the UK’s leading wine buyers and writers have convened in Southwold to taste the most recently released Bordeaux vintage from bottle. This year’s venue was different, the tasting in fact taking … More 2013 Bordeaux: the Southwold Tasting
2016 has been a truly wonderful year, replete with great wines. Exploring the 2015 vintage in Burgundy and Germany in particular has left indelible memories—after all, who could forget tasting 2015s with the likes of Klaus-Peter Keller and Marie-André Mugneret? And I’ve been reminded time and again of the kindness and humanity that abound among … More The best bottles of 2016
A visit to François Mitjavile is inevitably memorable. At Tertre Rotebœuf, contemporary Bordeaux—in reality just over the horizon—feels a world away. That’s partly because its proprietor is so uncommon: it would be easy to imagine this ‘charming genius’ at home among the Enlightenment philosophes; an impression only intensified by his elegant eighteenth-century farmhouse and the … More Inimitable Mitjavile: the wines of Tertre Rotebœuf
Over the years Château Montrose has become one of my very favourite estates in the Médoc, a wine I appreciate more and more for its uncompromising personality. I suppose this reflects an increasing taste for the austere; for wines that make no concessions to the impatient, only revealing their true quality in the fullness of … More Château Montrose: 1895-2010
William Kelley 