France

I’ve been fortunate enough to visit Champagne many times, but the Champagne Academy is an entirely different proposition. Over the course of one very full week in June 2025, our group of Academicians followed a program involving sixteen Grandes Marques, with lectures, exams, cellar tours, vineyard visits, tastings, lunches and dinners packed in from morning until late at night. It was intense, occasionally excessive and absolutely brilliant. The week began on the terrace of t

Founded in 1810 by Nicolas Schlumberger, the eponymous Domaines Schlumberger is now run by the sixth and seventh generations of the family. With 130 hectares of land under vine, 70 of which are qualified as Grand Cru, this makes them not only the largest owner of vineyards in Alsace, but also the largest owner of Grand Cru sites in the region. Their Riesling Saering has long been a favourite of mine (especially with a fondue!) and I was very excited to be able to visit them t

There are definitely some perks to working in the wine industry and I was thrilled to have been able to combine a visit to one of our producers, Champagne Gosset in Épernay, as part of a holiday road trip to Lake Como for a wedding. Gosset prides itself on being the oldest "Wine House in Champagne" having started out in 1584 making still (and predominantly red) wines before the advent of Champagne itself. In fact, it wasn't until the 18th century that Gosset began to make spa

Sitting on Bordeaux’s Left Bank, the Médoc covers just over 16,500 hectares of prime wine real estate. The region covers eight named appellations: the Médoc and Haut-Médoc, as well as the more famous Saint-Éstephe, Pauillac, Saint-Julien, Margaux, Listrac-Médoc and Moulis. Interestingly, although the wines from these appellations come at a variety of different price and quality levels, they are appellations for red wine only. I was lucky enough to spend last summer between lo