Chile or not Chile: the place of growth question

Liz Sagues, along with a bevy of other experienced communicators and sommeliers, participates in a fascinating tasting hosted by fellow CWW member Tim Atkin MW and Ventisquero winemaker Felipe Tosso, with a scientist also on hand, to explore whether Chilean terroir can in fact be tasted.  Is terroir tosh? That, essentially, was the question at 67 Pall Mall in London on 21st November. More specifi...
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The tricentennial Bolgheri birthday bash

Sitting at a one-kilometer long Super Tuscan table, Filippo Magnani celebrates three decades of the daring DOC, which shook up the wine world for ever, and continues to set the highest of standards. He also gets in a sneak preview of the 2022 vintage. On September 4, 2024, Bolgheri, the small yet iconic wine region on the Tuscan coast, commemorated a significant milestone: 30 years of the Bolgher...
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From the Chair: Why keep writing about about wine?

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 ...
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Natural Trailblazers should stop us in our tracks

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...
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Go Turkiye go

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The time is nigh for Tardif et al

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...
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From the Chair: Ask three questions

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, ...
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Golden Slavonia and its gorgeous Graševina 

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...
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Down dramatic Dalmatia way

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From the Chair: What’s in a name?

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...
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