Being the great city that it is, a dinner party I went to in London brought together three Italians, two Australians and a Brazilian of Italian parentage. All of us were in the wine trade. While enough English was spoken to hold jobs in London any conversation that moved into more abstract areas of wine or other matters soon caused problems. The Italians turned out to be very proud of their wines and I'm not sure why this surprised me. more...

We began with a Hungerford Hill Tumbarrumba Chardonnay 2006 and this was so good we went back to the local for another. The wine maker is Philip John who I think has been making chardonnay's since he could walk. These cool climate areas with the coolness coming from elevation are producing some knock-out wines. Delicious. All too soon we were into reds with a Georges Duboeuf Merlot 2005, from I suppose Southern France and it was just a basic quaffer. more...

A Nielsen presentation to Wine Communicators of Australia on the 28th March highlighted the declining market share of our Tier One wine companies which are Fosters, Pernod Ricard (Orlando), and Hardy's and showed a slow but possibly accelerating decline from 53% in 2003 to 46% in 2007 which is about 1.5% per year. My guess is that most of this has been shaved from the vast portfolio of Fosters which is beyond any marketing team to manage. more...

You may have read that an Asian wine lover recently paid U.S. $500,000 for 27 bottles of the fabled Burgundy, Domaine de la Romanee Conti-Romanee Conti and for the record Reuters reported the purchase as "12 bottles of Romanee Conti 1978, two bottles of the 1961, 1966, 1996 and 2003 and single bottles of the 1981, 1990, 1992, 1995, 1999, 2001 and 2002." more...

As they gain more knowledge about wine, the emphasis for enthusiasts seems to swing to seeing if they can detect the grape variety and the district of origin of a masked bottle. That is good fun but I tend to think that what is essential when given a glass of wine, of which you have no knowledge, is to decide its quality and then place a price on it which you would be happy to pay. more...

Years ago the restaurant reviews in the Gault-Millau welcomed a new wave of French cooking and shook up the performance of the Michelin which some saw as lacking daring and innovation. The move from one to three stars in the Michelin could take so long that the chef was in a wheelchair by the time of the promotion. The Gault-Millau moved very quickly in recognising talent and re-invigorated the French restaurant scene. Upon arrival in France you would buy a copy, flick to the front pages, examine the ratings table, and get on the phone to see if you could get a booking at the best, particularly those that had been pushed quickly up the ratings as these were the innovative chefs. more...

I was startled by a comment by Bryony Gordon, Daily Telegraph (London) April 11th, who began her non wine column with "It's often said that bad wine tastes like cat's urine." As we know she has got this a bit mixed up but Oh how the term has spread. more...

When dining out in Sydney or Melbourne I will peruse the wine list out of general interest but in most cases will then ask the sommelier for his or her recommendation for a white and red with my only input being the price range I am happy to pay. I do this because the wine talent in our better restaurants is very high and they know far better than I where the 'real' value in the list lies. After all they have probably created the wine list. In this way I have been well entertained over the last few years and my interest has been pricked in white varieties like arneis and pinot gris and odd new red varieties. more...

The two big brewers Fosters and Lion Nathan have decided to stop making alcohol-energy drinks and will keep the alcohol content of other RTD’s (ready to drink beverages) below seven percent. Since neither company has much at stake in the RTD energy sector it cannot have been a difficult decision. Indeed both companies have been caught flat footed in the general RTD market as this old and small market segment exploded in size over the last decade. more...

The liquor industry attempts to impart the message ‘drink responsibly’ and on industry matters covering such things as advertising, acceptable liquor products and the like prefers to self regulate its members. To date Governments have allowed this. They may shortly find out that many observers do not think their self regulation is working. These thoughts were prompted by recent mail from a Queensland reader, Dr. Peter Bevan. more...