Jefford on Monday

A sexennial treat

[Andrew Jefford] One harvest every six years deserves a little comment, especially when the crop is the most useful single volume on wine ever published - The World Atlas of Wine.

[Andrew Jefford] Wine is perhaps the good drug, but it’s hard to prove with any kind of scientific rigour. Respect for ‘wine exceptionalism’, thus, must always rely on the common sense of legislating politicians.

Yellow River drinking (and eating)

Five days in Ningxia and Wuhai was all it took to make me realise the total irrelevance of ‘wine-and-food matching’ to the Chinese gastronomic experience.

Pinot politics

[Andrew Jefford] Why can't Alsace produce high quality Pinot Noir as Baden does, althouth it certainly has good terroir for this grape variety?

The 104-point second wine

Without the peer group, scores for wines are not the scores.

The grape that dare not speak its name

[Andrew Jefford] One Alsace grape spends its life under a gagging order. If you’ve ever drunk a Pinot Blanc from Alsace, you’ve unwittingly enjoyed it.

Screen truths

[Andrew Jefford] I’ve recently seen a beautiful, moving, truthful wine documentary.

A walk on the wild side

[Andrew Jefford] Over the course of a single weekend, 3,200 people are dispatched on a 6-km vineyard walk.

Up the steep hill

Revisit some of Jefford's most read columns - Every time you drink a European cooperative-produced wine, it will brim, silently enough, with stories like Margarete’s

Modest grandeur

[Andrew Jefford] It was one of the least articulate wines I have tried this year – its greatness lay in its modesty.