When Diesel – the ultra trendy purveyor of $300 (₤160) jeans – decided to get into the wine business this year with equally expensive wines, they got the grape varieties all wrong. Sorry but Chardonnay, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Pinot Noir simply aren’t the vinous equivalent of denim. That honor would go to Carignan, which [...]

This article appearded in the June/July 2006 edition of Connections Magazine (Ireland) Well priced, massively fruit-forward, quaffable Australian wines seem fairly ubiquitous these days, and why not? Who hasn’t picked up a bottle of Jacob’s Creek, Rosemount, Hardy’s, Banrock Station or [yellowtail] lately? They’re the cheap, cheerful, user friendly wines that rescued us all from [...]

Last month, faster than Boris Yeltsin could say tough shitzki y’all, the Russian government pulled the plug on Georgian wine, banning all imports. Since Georgia exports 89% of its wine to Russia, it’s been devastating to the Georgian wine industry. The ban continues and has generated a good deal of press but they’re still in [...]

If you’ve caught the wine bug hard, the need to purchase a Laguiole corkscrew may have set in. You may already own one. Simply put, they’re the most elegant (and expensive) way to open a bottle of wine. And now that the reality-based wine community is clamoring for the end of cork in favor of [...]