Jonathan Ray is The Spectator’s drinks editor.
We’ve a great selection of regional French wines this week from my old chum Jason Yapp. With carefree al fresco imbibing in mind, during what promises to be a blisteringly hot couple of weeks, I was keen to keep the wines under a tenner and relatively light in alcohol, and we almost succeeded. Only a
According to my colleague Melanie McDonagh (Spectator 21st June), religion makes you happy and churchgoing is good for you. Crikey, you could have fooled me. For sure, an ancient church or cathedral is a peaceful and moving place to visit. Religious music can also be very affecting — I love Haydn’s many masses and adore
It baffles me that German wines are still something of a hard sell in the UK. I imagine that they’re all too readily associated by consumers with that ghastly German export Liebfraumilch, which no self-respecting German will ever have heard of, let alone have drunk. Forgive me if I’m teaching you to suck eggs, but
It is blossom time in Tokyo. An unruly pack of journalists, photographers and TV crews prowls the corridors of the Grand Prince Hotel Takanawa, where a world championship is taking place. Where’s the smart money going? Who’s looking good and who’s out of sorts? Who stayed out last night and who was tucked up in
A lovely, summery offer this, with some great wines chosen especially for outdoor drinking; for barbecues, picnics, lazy afternoons and long evenings idling in the garden and for stashing in the Glyndebourne or Garsington hamper. And just to be fair, the wines — which took an age to whittle down — will also suit perfectly
There are mixed views — to put it mildly — concerning the quality of the 2013 Bordeaux vintage. It’s not a complete write-off by any means, for there are certainly decent wines to be had that will make enjoyable mid-term drinking. But in the main the wines are pricey, they’re not for keeping and it’s
Like many who started their drinking careers in the late Seventies, I grew up – and threw up – on Mateus Rosé. I’ve still got the bottle lamps to prove it (in the attic somewhere, along with my flares and cheesecloth shirts). In those days, rosé was as naff and as cheap as could be
We’re thinking ahead with this offer, with summer firmly in our sights. Think of barbecues, picnics by the river, summer fêtes and lazy days on the beach. And think of red wine. Chilled. I’ve never understood our obsession for serving red wines at room temperature or even warmer. The habit started long before the days
For many years, Languedoc-Roussillon was a byword for lousy wine. The region was infamous for producing vast amounts of grim fare which appealed to nobody except the French army who bought the rough local reds by the container-load, for cleaning their rifles with or running their tanks on or something. Today, though, this vast area
A really tasty selection from The Wine Company this week at very generously discounted prices. There is a theme of sorts: I wonder if you can spot it. Made exclusively for The Wine -Company (Moa Ridge and The Wine Company share an owner in Suffolk-based Johnny Wheeler), the 2011 Moa Ridge Chardonnay (1) from Marlborough,
When I worked at Berry Bros & Rudd 20 years ago, I had a wonderfully eccentric customer who liked to ring up during bathtime. He was a confirmed claret lover and, although he longed to broaden his horizons, he could never quite muster the courage to do so. We would spend 20 minutes or so
We’re half way through our first ever eight-week Spectator Wine School. And since I had no part in the planning of it, I don’t feel in the slightest bit embarrassed saying that it’s been a huge success. Indeed, if there’s a more congenial night-school than ours, learning about wine in the Spectator’s boardroom with some
What I most admire about FromVineyardsDirect (apart from the quality and quirkiness of their wines and the ease of ordering) is the brevity of their list. There’s no messing about with any unnecessary padding; no wines bought simply to fill a gap because a particular grape, region or producer is under-represented. Every bottle stands on
When I first visited the Marche a dozen years ago, folk who knew about such things tapped their noses and confidently predicted that it was to be Italy’s ‘next big thing’. The British would tire of Tuscany and Umbria, they said, and would head in Boden-clad hordes further east. They said exactly the same thing
We’re planning to go seriously upmarket with our briefer offers this year, with each merchant tasked to rootle out exceptional wines that you cannot find elsewhere. This first offer is a cracker. The 2005 Bordeaux vintage was a remarkable one — so sought-after that much has vanished from the market. But Private Cellar has kept two
Corney & Barrow have really pulled out the stops on this one. They presented a couple of dozen wines for me to taste and so delicious were they that it was the Devil’s own job trying to whittle them down to six. In fact, I gave up trying, which is why there are seven wines
I’m honoured — and nervous — to be following in Simon Hoggart’s colossal footsteps in these pages. Simon, God rest his soul, was not just one of our greatest political journalists; he was one of our best wine writers and his Life’s Too Short to Drink Bad Wine is a classic. I know that this column,
I have always longed to get on a plane and command, ‘Take me to Cuba!’ Well, the other week I did just that. Sadly, it fell a little flat, the stewardess’s wintry smile telling me that she got a lot of that on the Gatwick-Havana flight. Still, it kept me chuckling for the next eight
LE RESTAURANT GASTRONOMIQUE Hotel Le Bristol, 112 Faubourg Saint-Honoré, 75008 Paris. +33 (0)1 53 43 43 00 lebristolparis.com by Jonathan Ray Hotel Le Bristol’s Restaurant Gastronomique is a swanky spot and no mistake. It’s all thick-carpeted, wood-panelled splendour, with a regiment of waiters per table and a touch too much one-two-three-and-off-with-the-cloche for my taste, but
I have always really, really hated flying. The first whiff of an airport and I’m scared out of my wits. But not only am I terrified; I also loathe and resent the contempt in which passengers are generally held by the airlines – the way we’re herded like cattle and the way we’re expected to