Highlights Archives - Circle of Wine Writers

From the Chair: Why keep writing about about wine?

Posted on October 29, 2024 by Meg Maker

Circle Chair Meg Maker ponders on what it means to be a 'wine writer' today, in an increasingly challenging professional environment. The Circle is a guild of professionals who’ve earned the moniker ‘wine writer.’ That writing may appear in the form of article, blog, or book, or may be in service of podcast, broadcast, social post, lecture, or curriculum. (And yes, we do have photographers; they ...

Natural Trailblazers should stop us in our tracks

Posted on October 29, 2024October 30, 2024 by Valerie Kathawala

Valerie Kathawala is inspired by Natural Trailblazers, a recently-published book that profiles European winegrowers who are pioneering ways of reducing wine’s environmental impact. She argues that there are implicit lessons about how we wine journalists might rethink approaches to our own work. ‘What guides me is the idea of less,’ says Alsatian winegrower Yannick Meckert. “Less, less, less.” M...

Go Turkiye go

Posted on October 29, 2024 by Lindsay Oram

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The time is nigh for Tardif et al

Posted on October 1, 2024 by Liz Sagues

Liz Sagues discovers once-abandoned grape varieties from south-west France and sees their new and growing importance in mitigating the climate crisis. For too long, south-west France has been in the shadows when there's discussion on indigenous grape varieties. But with ever-increasing recognition of the effects of the climate crisis, there is new focus on a region with a unique vine heritage. An...

From the Chair: Ask three questions

Posted on October 1, 2024 by Meg Maker

Circle Chair Meg Maker shares a simple technique to prompt good storytelling for her column this month. Readers want stories. But how do we, as interviewers and interpreters, tease stories from people who aren’t natural storytellers? Before speaking with a producer, we arm ourselves with facts, the essentials of their biography. We pore over their website for details about family, place, wines, ...

Golden Slavonia and its gorgeous Graševina

Posted on October 1, 2024 by Dijana Grgić

Dijana Grgić calls in on Kutjevo, the Croatian heartland of the grape variety that has nothing to do with Riesling, as well as the neighbouring strongholds of Pakrac and Požega-Pleternica, and also takes the Rose and Wine Road. Požega-Slavonia County is home to three notable sub-regions and is the home of Croatia's most important white wine variety, Graševina. The vineyards of Kutjevo, Po...

Down dramatic Dalmatia way

Posted on October 1, 2024October 1, 2024 by Jolanta Smičienė

From the Chair: What’s in a name?

Posted on August 28, 2024August 30, 2024 by Meg Maker

Circle Chair Meg Maker explores the extremely diverse composition of the Circle of Wine Writers' membership base, which has reached far beyond the realms of both wine and writing, as well as geographically, from its initial UK base. In 1960, journalist, social historian, and wine commentator Cyril Ray convened a handful of British wine writing colleagues to form a new association. At the time, t...

Quality perception concerns from the Cape

Posted on August 28, 2024 by Michael Fridjhon

Komarna breaks through

Posted on August 28, 2024 by Dijana Grgić

Dijana Grgić reports from the sun- and sea-kissed, rocky region that represents a remarkable coming together of man and machine, and is the only exclusively organic growing area in Croatia. Komarna is the youngest wine growing area in Croatia, located in an extremely rocky area, with a plethora of sunny days in the year. It was here, in the early 2000s, that machines ground down through the ston...