Jonathan Ray is The Spectator’s drinks editor.
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I have a particular fondness for the Chapel Down Winery near Tenterden, Kent. I was brought up just down the road in Rolvenden, although in those days it was of course all hop gardens and orchards rather than vineyards. The landscape of southern England is certainly changing. Chapel Down is the UK’s largest producer of
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There is rosé and there is rosé. By which I mean there is the ghastly, teeth-rattling, vinous bubblegum that is Blossom Hill White (actually pink) Zinfandel from California, which you can pick up in Tesco for a fiver a bottle (plus £3.69 for the subsequent essential Alka-Seltzer), and there is the subtle, herbal, spicy, salmon
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Jonathan Ray reckons size matters and finds himself wrong footed by the supermarkets. So there I was at my birthday supper. Marina, bless her, had done all the grub and I’d done the wine. We had 20 folk round the table, some keen on their wine and some keen on, well, just drinking. Indeed, the
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Mark Pardoe MW, the wine-buying director of Berry Bros. & Rudd, has a touching fondness for The Spectator. Either that or his maths is terrible. He shows me some excellent wines, all of which I love. I narrow them down to six and ask whether he might see his way to knocking a few quid
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Chateau Musar is an extraordinary wine boasting an almost fanatical following. It’s made in the most unlikely of places – Lebanon’s sun-baked, war-torn Bekaa Valley – and my much-missed predecessor, the great Simon Hoggart, adored it, his enthusiasm doing much to bring it to a wider audience. We at the Spectator Wine Club are fortunate
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To get himself in shape for the forthcoming Spectator St. George’s Day trip to Chapel Down Winery in Kent, Jonathan Ray spends a weekend in the wine-lands of Sussex and Surrey. It’s one of life’s greatest pleasures, taking one’s car across the Channel and pootling about Champagne, say, or the Loire Valley or Alsace, Burgundy,
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Ronnie Corbett was an absolute gent, one of the nicest of men and hilarious company. He was self-deprecating, courteous and genuinely charming with an endless stream of anecdotes and a fine line in dirty limericks. He loved his wine and, although he denied it, was very knowledgeable about it. I met him about ten years
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It’s April at last, my favourite time of the year. The sun is shining, the birds are singing and, if you squint slightly, the sea here in Brighton could almost pass for blue. We’ll be mowing the lawn before you know it. And we’ve some lovely April-appropriate wines, courtesy of Corney & Barrow — well-priced
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Which is worse – to take an expensive wine to a party (“Oh, how sweet of you!”) only for the host to snaffle it away, or to take a lousy one (“Oh, um, thanks….”), and be publicly humiliated as it is placed next to the cooking sherry? Of course, in our parents’ day it was
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Yet again wine drinkers get it straight in the goolies from the Chancellor. Duty on wine will rise with inflation while that on beer, cider and spirits will remain as it is, having been cut last year. We endure almost the highest duty levels in the EU (after yesterday’s announcement, duty has risen to £2.08
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This is being written before the budget and goodness knows what the Chancellor has in store for wine lovers. Yet another bashing, no doubt, hard on the heels of the chief medical officer’s doleful pronouncement in which she slashed the recommended number of units of alcohol per week we should all be consuming. Happily, Esme
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Join us for an intimate and exclusive Spectator lunch at Chapel Down’s vineyards and winery in Kent. On your visit you will be accompanied by Chapel Down’s head winemaker, Josh Donaghay-Spire, and The Spectator’s drinks editor, Jonathan Ray. Chapel Down is England’s leading wine producer, offering a world-class range of sparkling and still wines, together
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Join us in the Spectator boardroom on Tuesday 12 April for the next in this year’s series of Spectator Winemaker lunches with Beltrán Domecq, President of the Consejo Regulador de D.O. Jerez/Sherry. Sherry is undergoing a remarkable resurgence and is as popular in the trendiest of Britain’s cocktail bars as it is in the new Spanish restaurants, tapas bars and
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If the daffs outside my window are anything to go by and the robin busily building its nest in the ivy, spring is almost here. And thanks to Private Cellar, we have the perfect wines with which to greet it. At great prices too, with up to £2 a bottle lopped off. Not only that,
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I’m one of those sad folk who rather likes airline food. On those rare occasions I get to turn left, of course, never when I get to turn right. Don’t be daft. And now that they are finally taking it seriously, I rather like airline wine. Food and drink might only be ninth or tenth
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Q. What does méthode traditionelle mean on a wine label? It is the process (sometimes known as Méthode Champenoise) by which champagne and other top-quality sparkling wines are made, the bubbles being caused by a secondary fermentation in bottle. It distinguishes such wines from those sparklers such as Prosecco made by other cheaper methods. Q. It’s
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We had a fine Spectator Winemaker Dinner just before Christmas, hosted by the inimitable Richard Geoffroy, Chef de Cave at the equally inimitable Dom Pérignon. Richard brought with him ample amounts of his spectacular fizz: the 2005, the 2004 Rosé and the P2 1998. We ate and drank royally and there wasn’t a person there
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Ok, so first things first. Jeremy Clark didn’t fall overboard after all. He did, though, dance all night every night (almost), have everyone in stitches and host a rip-roaring High Life vs Low Life pub quiz. He even wore a fez with unexpected aplomb. Taki forwent the delights of his own High Life to join
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Peter Gago, the exuberant head winemaker at Penfolds, producer of Australia’s most celebrated and garlanded wine, Grange, was in fine form at our recent Spectator Winemaker Dinner held at the Marylebone Hotel. Peter was generosity itself, too, bringing with him a spectacular array of Penfolds wines, including Bin 51 Eden Valley Riesling, Yattarna Chardonnay, Bin
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The disarming thing about Jason Yapp is that he’s always on such good form. I can’t remember meeting anyone who loves his job so much and who brims with quite so much bonhomie. We tasted the wines for this offer a few days before he headed to Vinisud, the vast Languedoc-Roussillon wine fair held each