• How did 2025 taste for you? US wine professionals name year-defining styles

    Taste is as personal as it is poetic. It’s mired in nostalgia; lived experience. For me, certain salty Sicilian whites taste like Rockaway Beach, while Roussillon muscats recall an old perfume of my grandmother’s.
    I know of one Champagne that tastes like turning 30, and another, like East Coast oyster shells. For you, however, the same bottle may conjure a wedding, a funeral, or buttered toast. Either way, the association stands.
    With that in mind – amidst our requisite end-of-
  • Younger generations: The fresh faces taking charge at family wineries

    Peter Barry with sons Sam (L) and Tom Barry in their Spring Farm Vineyard, Clare Valley. Picture Matt Turner.How would you like to work with your mum and dad? And then take over after they’ve stepped back? Five minutes spent thinking about this prospect will reveal, I suspect, the shock of the challenge. (I loved my mum and dad – but I’d have flunked.)
    Not many of us, though, are born into small family businesses, where every nuance of our parents’ working lives provides
  • Best alcohol-free spirits for Dry January 2026: 10 to try

    Dry January It’s now a decade since the first alcohol-free spirit launched in the UK. Seedlip went on sale in Selfridges, London on 4 November 2015 – and sold out in three weeks. There was clearly a thirst for drinks with no alcohol…
    In the past 10 years this drinks category has blossomed. Not only are there more products, but there’s been huge innovation.
    Alongside the drinks – like Seedlip or Tanqueray 0.0 – that mimic existing spirits, there’s b

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