Navel gazing isn’t my style, but today I’ll make an exception. Three months ago, I made a life changing decision. No, it wasn’t to get married, change my pronouns or start putting milk in my coffee. I decided to start charging for my work. Maybe that sounds a bit fatuous. After all, I’ve been working as a writer or journalist for a decade. And of course I get paid, sometimes handsomely, mostly not. But my personal website or blog, where it all started, was always free to read. When I launched The Morning Claret in 2011, it was just a plaything. It developed into an amateur blog, then gradua ..read more

Many of the world’s best-loved actors are also the most typecast. Think Tom Cruise, Morgan Freeman or Keira Knightley. They’ve spent their entire careers repeating the same roles - hot action star, wise old man, period totty - to continued critical and popular acclaim. It’s not always so straightforward though. Daniel Radcliffe will be forever known as the child actor who played Harry Potter, despite success in adult roles. And wither Macaulay Culkin, aside from his abortive attempts at a musical career in adulthood? Wine regions can suffer the same fate. Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Italy’s gate ..read more

If you’re reading this and you’re a free subscriber, I can understand it might be annoying to be confronted with a paywall. About 25% of the content on my site is free for everyone to read, but my paying subscribers are the ones who make it possible for me to keep providing you with independent reporting and quality journalism. You can start a 7-day free trial and read all of this post. Or for just €7 a month or the price of two good bottles of wine a year (€50), you can become one of those wonderful people who help keep The Morning Claret running. If you read my little rant against fine wi ..read more

This post collects together the tasting notes from an event that I wrote about here. Here are brief notes on some of the highlights and other points of interest, with my very approximate rating system of 1 star = excellent, 2 stars = brilliant. SLOVENIA Vino Greif - Modra Frankinja 2019 (Štajerska) Fresh and fruity, attractively stalky. Simple but varietall… Read more ..read more

Last December, I sat in the conference room of an extremely expensive hotel located in Austria’s most exclusive ski resort town, Lech, with about 30 wine professionals. Four important people sat on stage and discussed the question ‘What is fine wine?’ In an era when the wine industry goes into apoplexy at the mere suggestion that wine might be a teeny bit elitist, this is a provocative topic. If you’re British like me, ‘faan waan’ conjures up images of the old school tie, besuited (male) wine critics and obsequious sommeliers wearing that ridiculous little metal trinket around their necks ..read more

I’m on the road again, this time in northerly Croatia. Sometimes you can learn a lot from visiting the lesser known corners of a wine country. Visiting the Uplands gave me some valuable context for the surrounding area, and ticked off a bucket list item. Croatia’s coastline always hogs the limelight, as much with wine as it does with tourism. Istria is the favourite child, famed for its sophisticated Italian influence - it’s right next to Trieste - and its oceans of ‘fresh’ Malvazija. Dalmatia is the Adriatic paradise, drawing in the crowds for sun, sea and island idylls. The reds tend towards ..read more

My annual visit to Porto in February is always filled with tasty delights. Sometimes I rediscover winemakers who I neglected for a year or two - easy to do when there are over 100 exhibitors at Simplesmente Vinho. And sometimes there’s the joy of a brand new discovery. This year in the Alfândega was no exception. Don’t forget to check my rundown of all the exciting activity in the Lisbon wine region (free to read). But here are six highlights from other parts of Portugal. Read more ..read more

Twelve years ago it took place in a cramped, mouldy set of arches on the Largo do Terreiro, with mice running around the floor and 16 winemakers crammed in a space where you could barely stand up straight. Now, Portugal’s most dynamic wine fair Simplesmente Vinho occupies the spacious Alfândega (Porto’s historic customs house). The venue might be less gritty and underground these days, but the artisan wine scene has expanded exponentially in the last decade. It’s become an annual pilgrimage, with one burning question uppermost in my mind: who is this year’s most exciting new discovery? T ..read more

Welcome to the first of these newsletters sent on the road. I’ve just got back to mainland Portugal after two inspiring and eye-opening days on Pico island. My paid subscribers motivate me to publish these reports and support my work in general. You can become one today! Subscribe now I’m surrounded by an almost metre-high pile of volcanic rubble, standing in the hollowed out crater formed in its centre. To get here, we clambered for 15 or 20 minutes across centuries old lava-stone walls in various states of repair. Winemaker André Ribeiro gently touches a single wizened vine that spreads i ..read more

I keep meeting winemakers who go all Groucho Marx on me. They don’t want to be part of the club that, as far as I can see, they obviously belong to. The latest was Dominika Černohorská, who I met in a beautiful old cellar in the village of Pavlov. No, I didn’t spot any hungry dogs while I was there. The winery is named Plenér and you’ll find Dominika pouring her wines at fairs such as Karakterre or Bottled Alive. So it doesn’t take long before the N word crops up. And Dominika reacts strongly to that, as we talk in the atmospheric gloom of her barrel cellar. “I don’t think of myself as a na ..read more