Margaret Rand

3 weeks ago | worldoffinewine.com | Margaret Rand

Fred Peterson tells Margaret Rand about his path from the US Navy to being a part-time fireman and Dry Creek Valley fine winemaker. Would it be terribly rude, Fred, to describe you as the poor man’s Ridge? The thing about Fred Peterson is that even if you’ve only met him briefly before, you can ask him things like this. Some people are full of amour-propre; Fred doesn’t seem to be. “That’s not terribly unfair,” he replied.

3 weeks ago | timatkin.com | Margaret Rand

How, today, can a wine surprise us? And does that element of surprise come by accident, while both we and the wine are, as it were, looking elsewhere, or can it be intentional? Can a wine set out to shock? A wine can certainly set out to be different, and a lot do. It often involves doing the opposite of what is normally done. If it’s normally fortified, you make it unfortified. If it wasn’t oxidised, you oxidise it, and vice versa. If it’s a red grape, you vinify it without the skins, as a white.

1 month ago | worldoffinewine.com | Margaret Rand

It is,” I said to my friend Clare, with whom I had a coffee after visiting Gutter & Stars, “about from here to that wall.” She burst out laughing; I was quite close to the wall. “It” is Gutter & Stars’ urban winery, all 38 square yards (32 sq m) of it—though they should probably be octagonal yards. Yes, the winery is octagonal. It’s in the basement of a windmill; the ceiling is 6ft (2m) high, give or take a bit, and the walls slope gently inward.

2 months ago | worldoffinewine.com | Margaret Rand

Margaret Rand meets Herbert Hall owner Nick Hall and winemaker Kirsty Smith. Kent, in southeast England, has always been beautiful—and it still is. But it used to look rather different: There were hop fields everywhere, and what wasn’t given over to hops grew apples and pears and cherries. Nicholas Hall, owner of sparkling-wine maker Herbert Hall, remembers road signs in the spring pointing motorists toward the blossom tours. People came to Kent to see the fruit blossom.

2 months ago | timatkin.com | Margaret Rand

When did winemakers become philosophers? Is it that if you charge more than a certain amount for a bottle of wine you have to justify it by some intellectual heft, because – as we know – flavour is, above a certain level, not the major determinant of price? Or do some producers feel that if people are prepared to pay that much for what they produce from the land, then what they produce from their heads must have some value too, and should be shared with the world?