Peter Ranscombe

Edinburgh

Freelance Journalist and Copywriter at Freelance

Columnist at Scottish Field

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Articles

First vintage from Bhutan fetches $74,250 at auction

1 week ago | decanter.com | Peter Ranscombe

A massive 7.57-litre bottle nicknamed ‘The Himalayan’ sold for $18,750 at the world’s first auction of wine made in the mountainous kingdom of Bhutan. Only two of the giant bottles – the volume of which represents the height in kilometres of Gangkhar Puensum, the world’s highest unclimbed mountain – were filled, with the second due to be given to the King of Bhutan. The grapes used to make The Himalayan were harvested in 2023, with the vintage producing a single barrel.
Tracing the threads of air pollution

2 weeks ago | thelancet.com | Peter Ranscombe

Publication History:Published April 29, 2025DOI: 10.1016/S2213-2600(25)00162-6 External LinkAlso available on ScienceDirect External LinkCopyright: © 2025 Elsevier Ltd. All rights are reserved, including those for text and data mining, AI training, and similar technologies.
No takers for 1947 Cheval Blanc at Danish auction

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’.
Macallan fails to sell in Hong Kong auction

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.
Castle Hotel in Huntly to create 80 jobs after extensive renovation

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.
The Macallan: Toasting 200 years of whisky with personality

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.
Comedians blend wine and jokes at the Edinburgh Fringe

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.
The best whisky bars in Edinburgh: 15 to try

Jul 12, 2024 | decanter.com | Peter Ranscombe

While Speyside or Islay will quite rightly lay claim to being the beating heart of Scotland’s whisky industry, Edinburgh could make a great case for being its soul. Its harbour at Leith once imported the Sherry casks that are so essential to many Scotch whisky labels, and then exported bottle after bottle of Scotland’s national drink to all corners of the globe.
James Chalmers: A maverick making an impact in bronchiectasis

Jul 8, 2024 | thelancet.com | Peter Ranscombe

You can tell a lot about someone from their favourite films. There is definitely a maverick side to Professor James Chalmers, Asthma & Lung UK Chair of Respiratory Research at the University of Dundee, UK, and a self-confessed movie obsessive: The Princess Bride, the humorous tale of a farmhand-turned-pirate; The Godfather, the quintessential story of a Mafia family; and Jaws, which pits a police chief against his town's mayor.
Sotheby’s first wine and spirits auction in Switzerland hits £500,000

Jun 11, 2024 | decanter.com | Peter Ranscombe

Magnums of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti (DRC) from the 1970s were the stars of the show at Sotheby’s inaugural wine and spirits auction in Geneva. DRC dominated the sales board, with eight of the ten highest-selling lots coming from the Côte de Nuits estate, the most famous in Burgundy and – arguably – on the planet. A trio of magnums of 1971 La Tâche topped the bill, selling for 125,000 Swiss francs (£110,000), more than double the lower end of the lot’s pre-sale estimate.