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Tom presents the three with four courses, each featuring the same dish but presented in distinct ways, the first being a simple rendition focusing on a main ingredient, the second featuring additional elements that echo flavours of certain classic wines. He explains the rationale behind this, and we taste two wines per course, noting how the food affects the wine, and how the wine may affect the food.

Opening a bottle of rarely-seen Dard & Ribo’s Crozes-Hermitage Blanc “K” 2023, an energetic mineral-edged Marsanne and an Au Bon Climat Santa Barbara Chardonnay 2021 (Tom’s suggestion), we assess how these wines...

Doug and Jamie quiz Emily on her various wine buying roles. Firstly, they ask as an importer, whether all her buying choices governed purely by passion and aesthetic appreciation and how important the commercial imperative is in her wine buyer role. They discuss the significance of positive relationships between grower and buyer, ethical sourcing, the importance of mutual respect, good communication and honest feedback, and about what happens when a wine that has been shipped does not measure up for some reason.

The three then talk about her role as a consultant wine buyer for a hotel group and how...

Emily, Jamie and Doug discuss the commonly held perception that ageing a wine necessarily makes it more complex.

Rummaging around in Tom Fahey’s wine room at The Terrace in Ventnor, Doug, Jamie and Emily come across a treasure trove of exceptional rosé wines. These are highly-reputed vinous wines that transcend our notion of what rosé is and has become synonymous with: light, pale, filtered wines that barely detain our attention, the triumph almost of marketing style over substance (although they have place, of course).

Emily, Jamie and Doug discuss the implications of climate catastrophe and assess what strategies producers can use to make balanced, drinkable wines such as replanting vineyards in different locations and changing the mix of grapes. They look at the research into disease-resistant hybrid varieties and PiWis and ask whether planting more of these might assist growers dedicated to low-impact sustainable farming.

To illustrate the nobility of a hybrid variety the trio crack open a bottle of La Garagista’s Vinu Jancu Reserve 2018, a profound amber wine made by Deirdre Heekin and Caleb Barber in Vermont from the La Crescent grape...

Emily, Jamie, and Doug ask how critics approach the process of judging the quality of an individual wine. The three talk about ratings and marking systems and question their validity. Are they a useful shorthand or a distraction from the real thing (the taste of the wine)? We question what happens when critics taste prestigious cuvées and rare wines and whether feel confident enough to give these low marks when they truly disappoint.They talk about collective tasting and the dynamic of the tasting panel, where a group comes together to calibrate their taste.

Finally, they discuss the language we use...

Wine experts Emily Harman, Jamie Goode, and Doug Wregg talk about the very nature of perception itself, how we may be influenced (and deceived) by the colour of wine, how ambient sound and even our feelings at a given time can alter our sensitivity and receptivity towards a given wine.

They remark on the different approaches to (blind) tasting according to whether you’re a relative novice or a full-fledged wine professional. The trio explore the relative notions of subjective and objective assessment and ask whether it is right for appellation boards and judging panels to set a standard for taste...

Join Emily Harman, Jamie Goode, and Doug Wregg as they talk about why wines are becoming more expensive and ask what constitutes value-for-money these days.

The trio examine wine margins in restaurants, question why they are (undoubtedly) increasing and explain some of the reasons why this may be the case. We mention some of our favourite places to drink good value wine and why progressive mark-ups encourage customers to drink more interesting wines. Conversely, fixed gross-profit margins are pushing more and more wines out of the pocket of the average consumer. They observe that emerging regions and lesser-heralded grape varieties...

Jamie, Doug and Emily look at different types of wine “vessels” ranging from stainless tanks to various types of wooden barrels and finally concrete vats and terracotta pots (amphorae, qvevri and so forth). They talk about the art of the cooper and suggest that (used sympathetically) oak barrels can both shape the wine as well as being the conduit to transmit a sense of terroir, whereas clumsy use of wood will obfuscate the true nature of the wine.

The gang taste three examples of wines fermented and aged in different vessels. Firstly, a clay-fermented-and aged 2013 Muscat from the De...

Join Doug Wregg, Emily Harman and Jamie Goode as they discuss wine icons, wine unicorns, and the secondary market.