Writing about wine that’s good to think
If you ever see “Dry Furmint” on a restaurant wine list, buy it. There are three reasons why.
Furmint is a grape, and is a sort of mix of aromatic Riesling, and versatile Chardonnay. It goes with almost anything.
Hungary (where it comes from) only exports decent Dry Furmint. So it’ll always be good.
It’s a Hungarian white wine. Seriously, who goes to a restaurant and orders “the Hungarian white”? Well now you do. And you’ll look like a total hero when everyone agrees that it’s lovely and they’d have never had the confidence to order it themselves.
That’s the spirit of this Substack. A subtle blend of wine, history, and behavioural science. Like a combination of Mary Beard and Daniel Kahneman. But squiffy.
What am I?
A good question. I used to be a wine merchant. And then received an email that led to a meeting that ended up with me presenting The Wine Show. It’s on in over 100 countries, so you may well be able to find it near you.
Today I run a small winery in Ronda, in Andalucia, Spain. This is what it looks like. We’re making a TV show about it. And I’m making an online course (For Substack) that you’ll hear about soon. Mostly because I’ll be banging on about it.
What do I write about?
Another excellent question (you are a prescient interviewer). On Fridays I publish a chapter of “On Claret”. It was a rather silly book I wrote during lockdown. Each chapter is designed to be read in one trip to the lavatory (seriously) and gives you a story about red wine from Bordeaux that you can tell someone over the weekend.
On Wednesdays I publish a story from the wider world of wine. The very much wider. This will try to be interesting, funny, and will often contain some rather far fetched analogy. Your job - like figure skating judges - is to decide how well I do. You can hold up a number score if you like. I won’t be offended*.
Sign up. It’s almost all for free. The paid stuff comes soon. And it’s SERIOUSLY worth paying for.
*I will.
