Peter Ranscombe

Dec 12, 2024 | decanter.com | Peter Ranscombe

Eight bottles of 1947 Cheval Blanc billed as ‘the world’s most fabled wine’ failed to sell at Danish auction house Bruun Rasmussen. The St-Emilion lot, which was described by the auctioneer as containing ‘one of the most legendary and coveted wines in the world’, had been valued at between 300,000DKK (£33,198) and 400,000DKK (£44,264). The Danish lot came from a collection assembled over several decades and stored in ‘a natural Scandinavian cellar with high humidity’.

Dec 10, 2024 | decanter.com | Peter Ranscombe

Two of the headline lots featuring The Macallan whisky failed to sell in Bonhams’ online auction in Hong Kong, with Japanese whiskies instead tempting buyers. Neither The Red Collection nor The Reach found new homes during the sale, which began on 15 November and ended on St Andrew’s Day, the national holiday commemorating Scotland’s patron saint, on 30 November.

Oct 3, 2024 | pressandjournal.co.uk | Peter Ranscombe |Rob McLaren

A Huntly hotel which has been closed since 2021 will create 80 jobs when it reopens next year after an extensive renovation. Work is underway to turn the Castle Hotel in Huntly into a luxury destination for whisky fans and other tourists. The hotel was bought in 2020 by family-owned merchant Duncan Taylor Scotch Whisky (DTSW) and closed the following year. It’s expected to reopen next spring with special offers planned for people living within the local AB54 postcode.

Aug 30, 2024 | decanter.com | Peter Ranscombe

For so many years, it was a case of ‘blink and miss it’ with The Macallan. Driving south on the main road from Elgin, the distillery was just another one of the dozens of Speyside single malt whisky makers lining the tourist trail. How times have changed. With its £140 million building, record-breaking auction prices and celebrity partnerships, The Macallan has arguably become the world’s most-famous single malt. And the origins of that success can be traced right back to its earliest days.

Aug 7, 2024 | decanter.com | Peter Ranscombe

Let’s face it – we wine fans don’t do ourselves any favours. With our long-winded descriptions of aromas and flavours, cult-like obsessions with individual producers, and complicated explanations of weird words like ‘tannin’ and ‘terroir’, it’s little wonder that phrases like ‘wine bore’ are hissed at dinner parties.