Giovanni Morelli has some tips on wines to drink during the Christmas holidays, and a few wine books you might like to send him as gifts Can’t we just get rid of wine lists? Do we really have to be reminded every time we go out to a nice restaurant that we have no idea [...]

Giovanni Morelli bemoans the move to fast food in France, but reports on some fine wines from Austria that are worthy of experimentation Can you believe that the French are about to open a McDonalds in the Louvre! Yes the country with the greatest gastronomic tradition, excluding Italy, has more McDonalds than any other country [...]

Giovanni Morelli visited châteaux in Bordeaux, read about buried cheese, and discovered that the Luas lines in France connect “We hear of the conversion of water into wine at the marriage in Cana as of a miracle. But this conversion is, through the goodness of God, made every day before our eyes. Behold the rain [...]

Giovanni Morelli voices his wine-related annoyances and looks at some of the best red and white wines coming out of Spain at the moment ‘Men are like wine – some turn to vinegar, but the best improve with age’ – attributed to Pope John XXIII. One thing that really annoys me (my wife says I [...]

Giovanni Morelli writes that Diogenes, who spent his days living in a barrel, reminds him of a novel scheme where customers can buy barrels of their own wine ‘What I like to drink most is wine that belongs to others’ — Diogenes. In these times of despair and depression, perhaps Diogenes (who lived around 400 [...]

St Thomas Aquinas wrote that ‘sorrow can be alleviated by good sleep, a bath and a glass of wine’. In these turbulent times, Giovanni Morelli agrees. In this column, I have always tried to pick wines that are interesting and relatively inexpensive. It seems that with all the talk of recession, depression and general gloom, [...]

Giovanni Morelli writes that even experts can be fooled when it comes to recognising true quality, and this applies to wine as much as other areas Now that the festivities are over and all the New Year’s resolutions have been made (or broken), it’s time to look back at the wines we drank in 2008. [...]

Giovanni Morelli writes that sales of Argentinean wines are growing, as the quality of that country’s wines has greatly improved over the last decade. Probably the most hated word in the English language at present is ‘regulator’. In this instance, it is not because the banks were over-regulated, but precisely the opposite. If the regulator [...]

Giovanni Morelli writes that we may need to reconsider our views on ‘bottling’ wine in cardboard containers and also looks at reasons why Prosecco has grown in popularity in recent years. I suppose we are all creatures of habit, to a greater or lesser degree. Wine bottles have been around for so long that we [...]