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Did you know that Beaujolais Nouveau is not the first wine of the season? Weeks before those familiar bottles arrive in November, across parts of Europe the new vintage is already being poured - cloudy, fizzy, slightly sweet and still actively fermenting. It is wine caught somewhere between freshly pressed grape juice and the finished vintage, and you have only a brief window to drink it. In Germany, it is called Federweißer; in Austria, Sturm; in the Czech Republic, burčák

Harvest 2026 is nearly here. For Europe, this year has felt different from the very beginning. The first images that caught my attention in March were rows of frost candles glowing through the darkness in Burgundy as growers fought to protect tender new buds. Weeks later came photographs of hail-damaged vines from the Côte de Beaune. Then came the fires - not just in one region, but across Europe. Somewhere along the way, the growing season stopped being the story; humanity,

The 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence has arrived. As historians will rightly spend the time examining the events, ideas, and personalities that shaped the nation, wine lovers have another way to trace the American story - by looking at what was in the glass. Over the last two and a half centuries, the wines Americans celebrated, collected, imported, and eventually produced themselves have reflected the country's changing fortunes, ambitions, and identity.

Few stories in wine combine ambition and risk quite like suitcase clones - vine cuttings carried across borders by growers convinced they had found material capable of improving their vineyards. Wine is built on lineage, and in places like Burgundy, certain vineyards - Montrachet, Romanée-Conti, La Tâche - are spoken of as though greatness can be traced through generations of vines, farming, and careful replanting. The reputation of these vineyards extended well beyond their

In front of me lies the remains of once immaculately plated dishes from Chef’s tasting menu launch for Spring - now mangled from tasting and lying amongst bottles of possible pairings. The very real role of the sommelier is to create the perfect pairings, and the utter delight of finding those; the reminder of how food and wine, when dancing in a harmonious pairing - can become something greater than the sum of the parts, or can very much not be . . . trial and error. Sometim