Jefford on Monday

The party’s over

[Andrew Jefford] The relationship between rock, soil and wine flavour is as little understood as it is widely celebrated.

[Andrew Jefford] It was hidden away on page 16 of the 32-page proposal. Not in italics; not in red ink either. Perhaps it should have been. “One of the most disturbing trends,” wrote the author, Tony Battaglene of the Winemakers’ Federation of Australi

Hill sages

[Andrew Jefford] ...Obviously the USA’s greatest living ampelographical researcher and a former long-term winemaker for Robert Mondavi weren’t going to stuff up their home brew, but even so I was impressed with the freshness, purity and liveliness of the

A decade on the bench

[Andrew Jefford] What’s a decade? One-fifth of a working lifetime, in most cases: a significant span. I’m now home after the tenth year of sitting in judgment as a panel chair for the Decanter World Wine Awards – for Regional France on this occasion. W

In quest of the missing sixth

[Andrew Jefford] It was gold in colour, though a little deeper than usual: the colour of my grandmother’s wedding ring. The aromas rolled out like a slow wave at the end of a great ocean: sinuous, seamless, grand. There was wax, incense, menthol, crushe