The Death Of Nostalgia
Something was eating away at me; had I written this piece before? Or had somebody else?| Tim Atkin - Master of Wine
Drinking Together| timatkin.com
Patrick McGovern was sometimes described as the Indiana Jones of wine, but this always struck me as wide of the mark. It was hard to imagine him wielding a bullwhip, let alone fighting with ex-Nazis. McGovern’s presence was gentle, modest and avuncular. With his big beard and congenial manner, he was someone I always enjoyed […]| Tim Atkin – Master of Wine
Alain-Fournier’s Le Grand Meaulnes, published the year before the author died in action in 1914, is one of the most haunting and haunted novels ever written. Meaulnes, the restless, rebellious, risk-taking adolescent who is the book’s hero, stumbles quite by chance on a lost domain. He has bunked off school, and purloined a pony and […]| Tim Atkin – Master of Wine
Something was eating away at me; had I written this piece before? Or had somebody else?| Tim Atkin - Master of Wine
Massive hailstones ravaged Chablis last year and fires consumed thousands of hectares in Galicia last month: climate change is accelerating. Grape-growing conditions in classic regions simply aren’t the same as even ten years ago, let alone 30. What we hadn’t yet seen was a major producer turning their backs on the appellation system as a […]| Tim Atkin – Master of Wine
The news came as no surprise, but it is welcome to have confirmation of one’s opinions nonetheless. If you have even a passing interest in the glorious pantomime that is haute cuisine, you must have heard that back in the depths of the pandemic Eleven Madisson Park, a New York City flagbearer for the sector, switched to a vegan-only menu. And now, well, it is changing back. One of the reasons, apparently, is that wine drinkers will only shell out for the really pricey bottles if meat is inv...| Tim Atkin - Master of Wine
I picked up a book the other day which almost everybody knows about but which most, I suspect, have not actually read: Dorothy Hartley’s Food in England. It was published in 1954, which most of us would consider the nadir of English food: rationing, the beginning of industrial production, lack of variety, lack of flavour, lack of interest, awful cooking; the darkness before the dawn of Elizabeth David.| Tim Atkin - Master of Wine
I started writing this as a piece about Bolgheri, and ended up writing about myself, but perhaps you will see that as we go along. As in, we talk about wine, but really, we just talk about ourselves, our taste, our palate and our stories. And this piece, the piece about Bolgheri, wasn’t even supposed […]| Tim Atkin – Master of Wine
If anything teaches you patience, humility and a degree of circumspection, it’s making wine. However much of a hurry you may be in, a vineyard takes three years to produce a useable crop and, once it does, has a habit of undermining your best laid plans. Older, more established vineyards can struggle to cope with the vicissitudes of the seasons, too, especially in a world pummelled by climate change.| Tim Atkin - Master of Wine
Marta Labanda led me up the steep, black slopes of Barranca del Obispo. Here in Lanzarote, growers cultivate vines in hollows dug out of the granular black volcanic ash. It’s an extraordinary lunar landscape, and brutally hard work: everything is done by hand and yields are tiny. On slopes like this one, where Labanda and […]| Tim Atkin – Master of Wine
Climate change, with its pattern of extreme weather, has produced complex chains of events and decisions. One of them has led many producers in British Columbia’s Okanagan Valley, among Canada’s most important wine regions, to source grapes from elsewhere, and that in turn has compelled them to navigate complex commercial and political issues.| Tim Atkin - Master of Wine
‘No, I don’t agree with this Kate’, award-winning wine writer Andrew Jefford replied to my question: are tasting notes a form of poetry? As I write this, cringing, I know my query was a little foolish. Tasting notes, for the most part, are commercial tools: writers are invited to taste a wine (for free) in […]| Tim Atkin – Master of Wine
An old wine professional I occasionally engage with on social media is not very impressed with Greek wine. He claims he has never had one he would describe as world class. Where one draws that particular line might be up for discussion, nevertheless this is not a sentiment I encounter often. If anything, my main […]| Tim Atkin – Master of Wine
Sometimes it seems as if the entire wine industry is braced in a defensive crouch. We have been browbeaten with dire warnings about health risks; we are terrified of Gen Z’s (possibly antithetical) moves towards cocktails and abstinence; in the language of Sellar and Yeatman’s comic classic 1066 and All That, we appear to have accepted that wine is a Bad Thing.| timatkin.com
The times we live in being what they are, I need to start with a few disclaimers. No, I don’t doubt at all that there is a dark side to the wine industry, especially when it overlaps with hospitality. Also no, I have never worked full-time in the wine industry, so you could argue, if you were so inclined, that I do not see the whole picture. And finally, of course my views are based on my experiences, which, unavoidably, are a function of who I am so, sure, for others it might well be quite...| Tim Atkin - Master of Wine
