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Month: October 2018

  • Château Sharot part 3 – En primeur tasting

    Part 1 of this blog post described my tiny six-vine vineyard in London, and Part 2 the start of winemaking. But after six days the fermentation stuck; this third part picks up the story there. What to do? First I waited to see if the fermentation would restart spontaneously, even if slowly. No such luck,…

  • How much drink is too much drink?

    While drinking alcohol provides pleasure in several ways, no-one disputes that it is a drug, potentially both addictive and dangerous, so there can be too much of a good thing. But how much is too much? This is a question on which the jury is still out. I have written about it twice before, in…

  • Irish wine

    Well here’s a subject that doesn’t get many column inches. It is true that the Irish are so good at making beer and spirits (and even lethal cocktails such as the Gaelic Grasshopper), that they have neither the inclination, time nor sobriety to bother much with viticulture and winemaking. Not that the weather provides much…

  • Château Sharot – The World’s Rarest and Most Unusual Wine – Part 2

    Part 1 of this blog post described my tiny garden vineyard in London and the first harvest from all of five vines, of different varieties. The idea of making wine from so few vines, and of such inharmonious varieties, is of course preposterous. No good could come of it, but neither are wine grapes much…