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Site last updated: 23/05/2006 Welcome to the Wine Inspector site I invite you to browse through the tasting notes and tales of trips to wine-producing regions. There is also a list of books I have found useful in my research into the world of wine. If you find anything that interests you and would like to correspond, contact me at And if you are feeling a little jaded describing your Cabernets in terms of green peppers and Sauvignons cat pee, then why not check out my wine / rock music pairings. Being a keen fan of vintage rock music I thought it appropriate to associate certain wines with certain artists. Enjoy! |
What makes a wine expensive? 28 January 2006 Towards the end of last year I made a brief trip to the Cape and did the (now obligatory!) round of old and new estates, tasting the wines and scribbling in my notebook. More than ever before, I started to see the wines from each farm as a whole: a carefully crafted range of products. I suppose I had known for a while that South African producers offer a broader selection of wines than most old-world estates, but I had not teased out the implications of this: that the winemaker must make each in the range different from the others and fix its price point most carefully. There are several tools at his or her disposal in doing this, such as the value of the grapes, the importance of the region, whether they have used a barrel and for how long, the get up of the bottle, etc. There is a real cost associated with these factors: Chenin Blanc grapes are more widespread and cheaper than Viognier; and at 500 euros a pop, a European oak barrel is a very expensive commodity. Once these things have been factored in, it seems that most South African winemakers end up with the following scale of wines and prices: the cheap end is predominantly white and the expensive end red, although they overlap. Within each spread the cheaper wines will be unoaked and the more expensive ones oaked - the more expensive the wine, the greater the amount of oak. Concerning varieties: the cheapest white wine will be made with the (decreasingly) ubiquitous Chenin Blanc, or increasingly, Sauvignon Blanc; Chardonnay tends to be at the top end. For the reds, the most expensive is usually a Cabernet or Bordeaux blend, or perhaps these days, a Rhone-style red. Certain costs... |
Old and new: Paris, South Africa and Burgundy 28 March 2006 Towards the end of last year we were fortunate to make both a short visit to the Cape, via Paris, and one to Burgundy. Part 1: Paris
The size of the fair was staggering: over 1000 producers under one roof, in a vast, double-storey convention centre; row after row of tasting tables running away into the distance. I spent about 4 hours downstairs tasting wines of the Loire, Rhone, Provence and Champagne, and I felt I was doing pretty well. But then I ventured upstairs... For tasting notes, see top right of page |
The stop-over in Paris was not unplanned: it allowed me to take in the Independent Wine Producer's (