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Harvest Time in the Garden of France
Harvest is well and truly underway in the Loire Valley and things are looking promising. Despite cool and misty mornings, day time temperatures are still approx. 25 degrees with beautiful sunshine,...
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Muscadet – Region in Crisis or Reasons to be Cheerful?
Just back from an early harvest visit to the Pays Nantais where I was struck by the many contradictions in this rather sleepy vinous corner of France. 2007 and 2008 were both short harvests, with...
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A Year To Remember
This year my buying colleagues Mark Buckenham and Sebastian Payne MW notch up their fortieth year as employees of The Wine Society. Sebastian Payne MW and Mark Buckenham Let’s hope they are persuaded...
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Lauding the Loire: A Round-up of Some Recent Press
There?s a lot of good wine out there. Missing out on a great one is understandable ? particularly in the case of the Loire Valley?s wines, boasting as they do an extraordinary array of grapes and...
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Must-Try Muscadet
During a written exercise as part of my job interview for The Society, I was asked to highlight some wines I felt were particularly good value, and why. In what was almost a reflex arc, for it is...
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Spring Arrives In Muscadet
The Muscadet region has enjoyed some fine early spring weather and Laurence and Gérard Vinet (Domaine des Ratelles) report that the vines are in good health, with the embryonic ‘bunches’ well formed....
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Cellar Surprises: 2003 Muscadet
The downside of having a small cellar in another country is that it is generally only topped up once a year with Wine Society wines, and similarly audited, with the odd bottle passing its recommended...
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Harvest 2016: Muscadet – Chinks of Light
One of the Loire regions hardest hit by frost this spring (the worst since 1991, with some growers cropping as little as 5-10 hl/ha, a fraction of an increasingly rare ‘normal’ crop) the Nantais...
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