Articles by Andrew Jefford

Tea and Wine - dispersing a lifetime's troubles

Andrew — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 18:37:26 +0000

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One Bottle: Mollydooker the Boxer Shiraz 2006

Andrew — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 18:36:39 +0000

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One Bottle: Clos de Tart 2003

Andrew — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 18:34:03 +0000

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One bottle: La Pèira en Damaisèla

Andrew — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 18:32:14 +0000

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Sonoma Terroir

Andrew — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 09:49:15 +0000

There are many ways of understanding wine, but you’ve never really finished the job until you lace up a pair of boots and leave the car behind.

Sonoma Vineyard Walking

Andrew — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 09:46:35 +0000

Visitors to the USA arrive clutching driving licences as tightly as passports, since viewing the land of the free usually means handcuffing oneself to a steering wheel first.

One Bottle 3: 1994 Hermitage Blanc Jean-Louis Chave

Andrew — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 16:09:12 +0000

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One Bottle 2: Riesling Kabinett , Bernkasteler Badstube, Dr H Thanisch

Andrew — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 16:07:05 +0000

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Tokaj Renascent

Andrew — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 16:03:26 +0000

With some of its greatest vineyards still to be discovered and replanted, it is unclear whether Tokaj will develop more like Bordeaux or Burgundy.

Chile: the quest for fine wine

Andrew — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 15:41:11 +0000

Is it possible for Chile to produce fine wine now or in the future?

The Languedoc

Andrew — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 15:52:12 +0000

Stones, wind, silence.

How To Visit Vineyards

Andrew — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 15:40:50 +0000

A cultural encounter, a bargain, a souvenir, a canny piece of housekeeping: however you look at it, returning from a summer holiday with the car packed with wine satisfies deep instincts.

Eating in China

Andrew — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 15:32:48 +0000

Day one On Chinese soil at last. For the last 35 years, I’ve revered Chinese food: what will the real thing be like?

Pastis

Andrew — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 14:57:48 +0000

Foot-pounded figs on a path, pine resin drifting from the forest margins, wild thyme scuffed into pungency: all evoke the Mediterranean, but none of these aromas is quite as culturally evocative of li

Investing in Burgundy

Andrew — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 14:50:06 +0000

Fancy investing in burgundy?

Speyside's Top Ten

Andrew — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 14:28:59 +0000

Speyside, a rumpled, salmon-splashed patch of hill country midway between Inverness and Aberdeen, is the engine of Scotch malt whisky production.

Bring on the Labelling Revolution

Andrew — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 08:53:50 +0000

As a Europhile, euro-enthusiast republican living on a Eurosceptic island devoted to its monarchy and its national currency, there are a number of revolutions which I accept may never come to pass.

Are the palates of critics and buyers too refined?

Andrew — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 10:36:10 +0000

Wine tastes nice. This will, I know, be the most banal sentence ever to appear in Decanter magazine, but it’s an important starting point for what follows.

The Tasting Vocation

Andrew — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 10:31:13 +0000

Every reader of this magazine has something in common. We all enjoy analysing, thinking and talking about aroma and flavour.

Grand vin, single vineyard, super-cuvée: which is it to be?

Andrew — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 10:29:16 +0000

Well, what would you do?

Doing Drugs

Andrew — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 10:23:42 +0000

A specialised cultural commentator? A trainspotter with snob appeal? A doughty consumer champion in a world of manipulation and pretence? Or a drug user writing for other drug users?

Oz Clarke

Andrew — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 10:17:46 +0000

Who is Oz Clarke?

Viognier

Andrew — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 10:14:19 +0000

I know I ought not to do this, but I just can’t help it.

Schist

Andrew — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 10:12:45 +0000

It had an obscure, muddy birth. In middle age, the pressure piled up (at least 1500 bars’ worth). The heat was on, too: over 150°C, to be precise.

Assyrtico

Andrew — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 10:10:48 +0000

Every grape vine has, in my eyes, something heroic about it. They’re all in carbon credit. They all thrive on dirt-seasoned water and plenty of fresh air.

Billy Stitchell

Andrew — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 10:07:17 +0000

I regard all of those living on the Isle of Islay with a kind of awe.

Bill Blatch

Andrew — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 10:03:58 +0000

You won’t have heard of Bill Blatch: he’s one of the wine world’s secret agents.

Endangered Species: Aromatised Wines

Andrew — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 10:02:10 +0000

Do you drink vermouth?

Wine: A Wealth Redistribution Scheme

Andrew — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 09:55:09 +0000

Would you like some of the world’s richest individuals to redistribute their wealth in your direction, and invest in your personal wine-drinking pleasure? Here’s how.

Dinner with the Schusters

Andrew — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 09:47:40 +0000

The winter darkness slipped around the house like a greatcoat. We sipped Blandy’s 1964 Malmsey, and ate Monika’s home-made Madeira cake.

Johnnie Walker: Family, Friends and Rivals

Andrew — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 16:00:21 +0000

The world's thirst for Scotch tends to rise and fall like the mercury in a Clydeside barometer.

Appellations: A Call to Arms

Andrew — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 15:51:09 +0000

In a corner of the labyrinthine European Union website (though offered in a mere 12 languages as opposed to the official 23) lurks a page of sprightly optimism.

Drowning your sorrows

Andrew — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 15:47:22 +0000

The Last Toast

I drink to our ruined house
to the dolor of my life
to our loneliness together;
and to you I raise my glass,
to lying lips that have betrayed us,

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Brett: Beauty and The Beasts

Andrew — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 15:44:30 +0000

Heard of the brett police?

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A Tale of Two Fungi

Andrew — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 15:42:34 +0000

It looked good to me; indeed I felt a kind of paternal pride in it. There, in the dampest corner of the cellar, flourished my very own colony of Cladosporum cellare.

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Bill Baker: Wine Merchant with Bottle

Andrew — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 15:40:30 +0000

Every profession needs its heroes. Those, in other words, who follow the path as far as it leads. Those who sacrifice everything to the cause.

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Philosophy and Wine

Andrew — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 15:37:33 +0000

Wine writing in English has, over the last decade, become almost violently pragmatic.

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Supermarkets: The Price of a Bargain

Andrew — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 15:35:30 +0000

Here's a true story, though in deference to its teller I have changed all names and locations. David helped run Watson and Holmes, a company importing wines to the UK market from Italy.

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Simply Stupid

Andrew — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 15:33:21 +0000

Can I interest you in my imaginary publishing programme?

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Refreshment in Wine

Andrew — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 15:31:34 +0000

If a little wine is good for you - and the consensus, from Saint Paul to today's cardiac medicine research teams, is thumbs up - then the reason is surely simple enough. It refreshes body and soul.

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Latour: Talking To Frédéric Engerer

Andrew — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 15:29:40 +0000

There's a fresh-air feel about Latour in 2006.

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Harry Gill: Portrait of a Wine Investor

Andrew — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 15:25:50 +0000

The Arches Wine Bar in London's Swiss Cottage would not normally attract a second glance.

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Elian Da Ros: A Question of Confidence

Andrew — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 15:08:53 +0000

What is winemaking talent? What makes one winemaker better than another?

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Alcohol : Up, Up and Away

Andrew — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 15:07:20 +0000

Good wine is born amid the rasp of cicadas and the burble of bees. It tastes best, by contrast, when the vineyard tracks and paths have fallen silent.

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Boring Wine

Andrew — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 15:05:35 +0000

The germ of the idea was planted when I interviewed Jancis Robinson on the TGV train back from Burgundy one gloomy day last October.

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Wine and Global Warming

Andrew — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 15:03:24 +0000

Ah yes, global warming: our grandchildren's greatest challenge. Where shall we begin?

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Wine and Cheese

Andrew — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 14:59:07 +0000

I grew up thinking that cheese was the purpose and destiny of wine. It wasn't hard to see why.

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Wine Allocations: The Great Game

Andrew — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 14:56:43 +0000

The opening principle of all wine investment is a simple one: buy only the best wines in the best vintages.

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The benefits of speculation

Andrew — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 14:54:07 +0000

There's usually a gap of around two months between the keyboard clattering which brings this column into the world and the readers of Decanter casting an eye on it.

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The Joy of Tannin

Andrew — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 14:52:38 +0000

What's your favourite wine?

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Why You Don't Want To Be A Wine Merchant

Andrew — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 14:50:46 +0000

Grass, as we all know, is at its greenest when an insurmountable fence has been positioned between the observer and the field in question.

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It's the Label, Stupid

Andrew — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 14:48:09 +0000

Wine labels suck. Like British domestic architecture, they're a wasted opportunity; both routinely fail to do justice to the potential of what's slopping about inside.

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Hugh Johnson: Caped Crusader

Andrew — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 14:45:25 +0000

Any idea, I asked, how many wine books you've sold?

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In Praise of Garage Wines

Andrew — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 14:42:32 +0000

Meet an odd couple: the two words 'garage' and 'wine'. They seem to have as much in common as 'battlefield' and 'lace', say, or 'nightclub' and 'hymnal'.

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In Praise of Retsina

Andrew — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 14:40:26 +0000

It was almost fifteen years ago that I sat, eating soft-fleshed olives and briny feta, with Christos and Lambrini Lagelou. Midday was drawing on; it was the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross.

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Chianti: Walking by Moonlight

Andrew — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 14:38:16 +0000

The scene was a large London trade tasting at the Merchant Taylor's Hall: Bordeaux '88s, so far as I remember.

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Château Faugères and the new Bordeaux

Andrew — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 14:35:57 +0000

Bordeaux has changed more in the last twenty years than in the previous hundred, yet it still tends to be considered conservative, brahmin-ridden and sclerotic by comparison with the fast-moving south

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Champagne: Twisting the Tiger's Tail

Andrew — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 14:33:49 +0000

The bar in the Hotel Meurice was full of weighty African diplomats sinking whisky and muttering into mobile phones.

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Bulgaria: Europe's Chile

Andrew — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 14:32:03 +0000

The Bulgarians are justly proud that Dionysus, the god of wine, is ascribed Thracian origins.

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In Praise of Burgundy

Andrew — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 14:29:31 +0000

There, in the dock, stands the troublesome recidivist. Indicted, yet again, on a dozen counts. Arraigned before those who love her most.

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Against All Odds: The Wines of Virginia

Andrew — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 14:25:35 +0000

There are three reasons for planting a vineyard.

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Malta for Time Travellers

Andrew — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 14:22:57 +0000

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Travels on the China tea trail

Andrew — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 14:14:02 +0000

China is an education. Will the world's most populous country become for the next generation what the world's richest country has been for ours?

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See St Emilion and Die

Andrew — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 14:09:45 +0000

The pleasures of wine travel are seldom scenic.

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Reaching Ithaca

Andrew — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 14:05:19 +0000

Greece is a country of water and sky as much as rock and soil. This elemental interfingering - bay, mountain, cape, isthmus - always leaves the traveller with a sense of elation.

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On being an Older Dad

Andrew — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 17:57:18 +0000

It's the eyes I think of first. Limitlessly open, almost vacant, deep as a well - because, at 18 months, the world hasn't yet filled them up.

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Tea - mugged: the gagging of the world's favourite drink

Andrew — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 17:54:55 +0000

The blooms come pushing through the clenched teeth of late winter, vivid with the colours of a concubine's wardrobe: no wonder gardeners treasure the camellia. Floral bravery, though, is the least of its gifts to us. Another strain of camellia can claim, from humanity's point of view, to be the friendliest plant in nature. It has duller flowers, but we love it for its leaves, for they give us the most widely consumed drink on earth after water itself. That plant is Camellia sinensis: the tea bush.

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Under A Glowering Sun: Bordeaux 2003

Andrew — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 17:49:47 +0000

If, as Jean-Luc Thunevin of Château Valandraud once explained to me, the definition of a great Bordeaux vintage is that "even the little wines are good", then 2003 isn't a great vintage. Unlike 2005 (about which Thunevin was talking), the little wines are wildly heterogenous. It's hardly a middling vintage, though, since the successes have a monumental quality which suggests enduring, Stonehenge-like grandeur. Bad vintages in Bordeaux are the product of clouds and rain; in 2003, there was little of either. So what is it?

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2004 Burgundies: the vintage of Tracey Emin's bed

Andrew — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 17:47:01 +0000

Imagine the scene. The year is 2010; London the city; and the dry-mouthed individuals filing in to the former theatre on Blackfriars under the shy June sunshine are this year's candidates for the Master of Wine exams. They tremblingly turn over their theory papers, and scan the questions. And there, at the top of the sheet, is a deceptively simple one. "Août fait le moût," it reads. "Discuss."

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Santorini: watching the birth of a terroir

Andrew — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 17:45:02 +0000

Few wines taste of disaster and catastrophe. I can think of only three. Two come from Savoie, where heavy rains in November 1248 dislocated half a mountainside. Millions of tons of rock sheered from Mont Granier, thundering down onto the village of St André and its neighbouring hamlets, turning them into a human and animal necropolis. The place was left to its ghosts for centuries, but eventually vines found their way there. Out of this terroir of the dead comes a pair of light, brisk, nettley whites: new life qualified by tart history.

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Wine from Titan's playground

Andrew — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 17:40:45 +0000

I write this hidden in darkness; the sun, reflected on white paper, hurts the eyes. The heavy green door is half-open, though, and from time to time I walk over and gaze out.

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Venice in Fog

Andrew — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 17:38:41 +0000

There, next to the shuttered kiosk, was the first bridge: stepped, balustraded, the black night water slopping beneath it, a rakish police launch moored to one side. Beyond, half-visible through the thick fog, lay a stone path, a portico, another bridge.

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Dionysiac Madness

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 17:26:17 +0000

Portugal's Upper Douro Valley is a hot attic room in the rambling mansion of Iberia. I first visited 18 years ago. Tractors had, by then, replaced the squeaking bullock carts remembered by old Douro hands, but in other respects it remained a journey to wallow in for those prone to agricultural nostalgia.

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