What does ‘corked’ really mean?

What does ‘corked’ really mean?

Hope you’ve enjoyed some good bottles recently. Last time, I explored that strange ritual in restaurants where you, the guest, are asked to taste the wine – NOT to see if you like it, but so that you can check whether or not it’s faulty. I promised I’d talk more...
A fine balance

A fine balance

Wine writers use the word ‘balance’ a lot. ‘A beautifully balanced example of a Pinot Noir, with silky tannins and a fragrant finish’…or ‘this Chardonnay, wearing its oak lightly, has the most exquisite balance’. The...
Show me some skin

Show me some skin

Today we’re talking about skin. Grape skin, to be precise. And more specifically, something IN the grape skin – tannin. It’s another one of those wine terms you hear bandied around all the time. ‘Oh, this Cabernet is so tannic’, or...
But it just smells of wine!

But it just smells of wine!

In another post, we talked about Jilly Goolden and the seemingly impossible task of emulating the experts’ litany of descriptive words, when all we can smell is in fact ‘wine’. We also looked at why, when wine is simply made from grapes, it smells of...
But isn’t all wine vegan?

But isn’t all wine vegan?

The above is a question I get asked a lot, especially now that we are seeing the term ‘vegan’ more and more on wine labels and on restaurant wine lists. Why, wine-lovers ask me, is it necessary to specify that a wine is vegan? Isn’t it made from...