Lifestyle

Last week Tom and I had the pleasure of meeting up with the other representatives of The Bunch - in the salubrious setting of the Paramount Club on the 25 floor of the Centre Point Tower, London W1. This fabulous locale offers the finest view imaginable of the Capital but is not a venue for […]

A few years ago I had the good fortune to be introduced to the artist Glen Baxter after a rather long lunch (me not him) at the Academy Club in Soho. I am sure I gushed on at length about what a great admirer of his work I am but fortunately Glen has a tolerant […]

Earlier this year there were attempts within the UK wine trade to ‘talk up’ the 2008 Rhône vintage – as noted on our blog entry on March 10th. Although some perfectly decent wines were made in the Rhône valley in 2008 it was not an outstanding vintage. Fortunately as our vineyard visits and tastings to […]

If, like me, you have a penchant for a noir crime novel and are partial to the food and wine of Provence you should make a bee-line for Jean-Claude Izzo's peerless 'Marseilles Trilogy', published (in style and in English) by Europa Editions and excellently translated by Howard Curtis. The dark underbelly of Marseilles is exposed […]

I'm not sure if it was my idea or Rowley's. A bit of both probably. It was certainly hatched over a fine lunch with some good bottles open for inspiration. The concept was pretty simple really - to host a Provençal feast partnering classic dishes with local wines. Obviously, this was to be a summer […]

I'm not sure about the biology or psychology of the weird male collecting gene but I definitely possess it and can't remember a time when I didn't. Interestingly it has very little to do with material value (although that can creep into it) and more to do with bringing order out of chaos and creating […]

Sadly many of France's great wines are beyond the everyday drinking budget of the majority of us domiciled tax paying mortals and there can't even be many M.P.'s left with the chutzpah to put a bottle on expenses. Château Grillet is necessarily costly as it is made on steep hand-tended slopes, in a miniscule (3.8 […]

I don't know at what age specifically you officially become eligible to appear on "Grumpy Old Men" but I suspect that I'm getting near... or at least getting nearer than I would like. I have become increasingly irritated by the way that day-to-day products are packaged, not only the wastefulness  but the simple practicalities like […]

A temporary release (good behaviour, I think) from my normal Saturday shop duties at Yapp Brothers, enabled me to add a couple of extra days holiday, thus making a nice long weekend. During that time, I sampled drinks at two very different venues, so culturally different infact that I decided to write about it. Both […]

I am surprised at the chutzpah of some UK merchants trying to 'talk up' the 2008 Rhône as a 'superior' vintage that merits buying en primeur. The cold facts are that the 2007s (many of which are still available) are better across the board and the keenly anticipated 2009s should (on the basis of our […]