Think of the Golden State and you imagine sunshine, orange trees and top-tier surf. But this past week, I’ve seen crazy winds, dramatic (and welcome) rainstorms, below-zero temperatures and more snow than anyone in Napa has seen for 50 years. In a similar way, it’s all too easy to shoehorn the region’s wines. Big Cabernet. Buttery Chardonnay. Those, like the sunshine and surf, are the clichés. But there’s much more than cliché to California, an area as large as many countries, and the wines made here. Over 1,000 miles from north to south, with vineyards sitting at altitudes of 50 to over 2,000 feet, cooling influences from the Pacific and San Pablo Bay, complex ancient soils (up to 140 million years old)… California is far from simple. And you’ll find everything from Arneis to Pinot, Grüner Veltliner to Schioppettino. This week, we’ve been on the road, exploring Napa and Sonoma, talking to just a handful of the producers that have made California such a special place for wine-lovers. The scale of this landscape is grander, with a sense of space to breathe, the parcels of vines tucked in amongst hills and mountains, with the expanse of coastline just a short drive away. You can see why it was – and is – a land of promise.
 While Napa and Sonoma are firmly established as fine wine regions today, their history is comparatively short. George Yount (who gives his name to Yountville) is thought to be the first person to plant grapes for wine in Napa in the 19th century, while Charles Krug was the valley’s first commercial winery, founded in 1861 – closely followed by names such as Schramsberg, Beringer and Inglenook. By 1889 there were over 140 wineries in the area. But phylloxera struck, then Prohibition, and the thriving industry’s expansion was sharply curbed. Producers that survived that difficult period found loopholes in the law, such as unofficial home-winemaking kits and sacramental wine. After Prohibition’s repeal in 1933, it took time for the industry to find its feet. The Mondavi family – who bought Charles Krug – was integral to its development, but the focus wasn’t immediately on fine wine. Figures such as Georges de Latour, Louis M. Martini and André Tschelischeff started changing the story, but it was arguably Robert Mondavi – who struck out on his own to found the eponymous winery – who led Napa into a new era, championing it as a region that could compete with the Old World. Of course, the now legendary 1976 Judgement of Paris was the turning point. When California came out on top in Steven Spurrier’s blind tasting, the world took note. Soon the cult of Napa Cabernet was born, and as Parker’s scores swayed palates, prices soared. 
But it’s unfair to think of that as the region’s story – for there is much more to uncover beyond the sheen of those 100-pointers. While of course some producers come with the polish you might associate with Napa, almost every winery we’ve visited has been fast to focus on the vineyard, whisking us out to walk or drive through the vines. As an agricultural state (grapes – both wine and table – are only the second biggest crop here, following the dairy industry, and with almonds only just behind), farming is at the heart of its culture.
 And it’s ever more relevant, with the region at the forefront of climate change – as this week’s extraordinary weather conditions show. Drought is an ongoing challenge (although recent rains have replenished groundwater), and wildfires have stolen headlines – especially in the 2017 and 2020 vintages (expect much more from us on this soon) – ravaging vast swathes of land, the flames and the associated smoke taking both lives and livelihoods. Despite these challenges, there’s such excitement here – with an electric vitality to the industry. Land prices in Napa are enormous – over half a million dollars per acre for the best sites, and planting any additional land is almost impossible. But that isn’t stopping its evolution, with shifting farming, winemaking, varieties and styles as producers look to redefine modern Napa. Head west towards the Sonoma Coast, where the ocean breezes and fog are bone-chilling, and new frontiers are being forged. The skies here are moody, thick fog cloaking the view of this exposed area, but fields of sheep and cows are being replaced with vineyards as people push limits to create restrained styles, especially of Pinot and Chardonnay. 
We can’t thank producers who have swung open their doors to us enough. We’ve already had so many fascinating conversations about the trends and challenges in the region, about what people are doing in the vineyard and winery and why, and tasted some remarkable wines. Hundreds of thousands of people headed west in the 19th century, drawn to this corner of the land of opportunity. Many didn’t find their fortune in the Gold Rush, but this is still a place that holds such promise.  Reinvention and revolution is the Californian way, powered by a uniquely American entrepreneurship. Forget the scramble for treasure, today the bold and the brave are creating their own destiny – and it’s filled with hope.
 Read more Editorial


After a week spent touring some of Napa and Sonoma’s best wineries, exploring the Golden State and what makes it so special. Sophie Thorpe considers why – three centuries after the Gold Rush – California remains a land of opportunity

After a week of touring Napa and Sonoma, we consider how California wine producers are creating their own destiny – and exceptional wines

Wine’s land of promise – California

Land of promise: California

Touching down in Burgundy last week was a shock. Coming from London’s autumnal hues, the hit of hot air as the plane doors opened was surprising – indeed, it’s abnormally balmy across much of Europe at the moment. It’s another reminder of climate change and the very real impact it is having – especially on viticulture and other agriculture. While the cool and rainy 2021 vintage felt like a return to the old Burgundy (with all its challenges), 2022 and 2023 were both modern vintages that speak of global warming. The region’s vignerons were in a good mood, with the 2023 vintage harvested weeks ago and the wines safely in the cellar. For once, they have had not one but two consecutive vintages offering decent volumes, helping to make up for a run of tiny crops. The cellars are – at last – looking a little less barren. Indeed, the regional body Vins de Bourgogne reported that 2022 represents a 75% increase on the measly volumes of 2021. The 2022 vintage, however, was the reason for and focus of our visit – getting our first taste of the wines that will be dominating the calendar for the next few months. As I’ve mentioned, this was a modern vintage, a year that is very much the new normal. The winter was cold, however warmer temperatures in February and March saw an early start to the season. Once again the mercury dropped in April with the threat of frost, however it didn’t seem to have major ramifications. The summer was warm and dry – with heavy rain in late June breaking the drought, providing essential refreshment for the vines in the year’s arid conditions. At Louis Jadot, Thibault Gagey explained how there were two weeks in August with temperatures over 35˚C, during which the vines shut down. Alvina Pernot explained how plots with richer soils – those with more clay and better water retention – fared better, pointing to Clos des Folatières as a site that thrived in the year, as well as older vines with deeper roots, those that could reach and draw upon water reserves. Picking started at the very end of August, with another contracted harvest during which the ability to pick what you wanted when you wanted key to quality. The good news was that the crop was plentiful, with most managing to achieve a full crop, with a maximum of up to 15-20% less for some of the Chardonnay. Looking at the season on paper, it’s easy to imagine the resulting wines might be dominated by their ripeness – but that’s simply not the case. We need to taste and talk much more into exactly why, however it seems that the generous yield was the year’s saviour. With so much fruit for the vine to ripen, sugar levels remained moderate. As in 2020, the grapes retained high levels of tartaric acid, bringing surprising freshness to the wines. The malic acid was degraded, but this meant that the malolactic fermentation had less impact on the final wines and their balance (although we anticipate that some may still have chosen to block it). From what we’ve tasted so far, the reds show particular promise – offering juicy, concentrated fruit without drifting into over-ripe or jammy, vibrant acidity and fine-textured yet very present tannins. Those we’ve tasted are amazingly open even though few have yet finished élevage – the ripe fruit shining through, but there’s a gravitas beneath that appealing, mouth-watering fruit. The whites, meanwhile, are classical in their fruit expression, with more traditional white peach, melon, pear and citrus. There’s good dry extract and density here, with balance too. They have natural tension, and there seems to be a pleasing bitterness that adds to their freshness, something we found consistent across producers so far. In general alcohols are modest, sitting mainly between 12.5 and 13.5%, for both reds and whites. This is only the beginning of our deep dive into the 2022 vintage, however we left the sunny streets of Beaune filled with excitement about the year. There is still much to discover and explore, and much, much more to taste to inform our full vintage report – but it’s clear already that this is a year with great potential, and one that you’ll want in your cellar. We’ll be publishing more on Burgundy 2022 in due course; in the meantime, browse all current Burgundy 2022 listings.

Fresh from our first trip to Burgundy to taste the 2022s, we offer some early thoughts on the vintage – a year that is showing great promise

Fresh from our initial trip to the region, we dig into Burgundy 2022 – a warm year that has produced some surprisingly fresh wines

Our first thoughts on Burgundy 2022 en primeur

Burgundy 2022 at first glance

Xiao-Li Meng, Whipple V. N. Jones Professor of Statistics at Harvard and Founding Editor-in-Chief of Harvard Data Science Review, was inspired by a student to combine wine and statistics—leading to insights far beyond what they ever expected.

From wine tastings to data science, Xiao-Li Meng explores how statistics reveals simplicity in complexity – one glass, experiment, and insight at a time.

Wine, statistics & serendipity: A Harvard journey

Seeking simplicity in statistics, complexity in wine, and everything else in fortune cookies 

I. Distractions In 1987, when I was 18 and a dollar was worth more than twice as much as it is today, I started reading magazines: M, Esquire, GQ. Nearby, in our somewhat cultured Texas town, a new bookstore opened in a cavernous space that had formerly housed the shag-carpeted roller skating rink of our childhood. Through the front windows, which had before been darkly tinted to give the place an alluring den-of-prepubescent-iniquity vibe, now streamed bright, clean light, showcasing a look and layout that would become the interior design gestalt of today’s national-chain, big-box book superstore. The rows upon rows of open, dustless shelving bearing a veritable warehouse of volumes; the ceiling hung with its industrial innards on display; the enfilade of check-out cubicles; and the wall – the great wall – that displayed a preposterous-to-behold assortment of glossies, quarterlies, journals, newsweeklies, fanzines, tabloids, almanacs, and all other flora and fauna of magazines arrayed upon a rack perhaps 50 feet long.  I went in there to look for a book. I liked books, and, one day, I was sure I wanted to write one. But I got distracted and bought a magazine instead – that August’s issue of GQ, which still stands out in my mind as a thing of formative significance. At that time, the zeitgeist was defined by a Walkman-wearing version of the American Renaissance Man – the highly-ambitious, status-obsessed, money-motivated, health-nut known as a Yuppie. No magazine positioned itself more authoritatively in defining this new sociological creature’s lifestyle than GQ, and it did it with whiter teeth, snappier suspenders, better accessories, bigger polka dots and more caffeine in the ink of its display copy.  I remember that issue less for the photos by Richard Avedon or Steven Meisel, the words of Martin Amis or Frederick Exley, than for this: Erzeugerabfüllung. It was one of the longest, strangest strings of letters from the Roman alphabet I had ever seen. Neither did it seem designed to come out of someone’s mouth. But there it was in Alan Richman’s Wine & Spirits column, accompanied by a lovely still-life photograph of his topic: two bottles of Riesling Kabinetts on a white, sun-dappled tablecloth. Richman’s main point – made almost 35 years ago – still holds true: estate-bottled, table-quality German wines remain some of the least expensive, most delicious wines in the world, chiefly because – then as now – the labels, as he wrote, “cannot be understood by anyone who is not a part-time oenophile, linguist and cartographer”. One US dollar in Richman’s pocket, as I have already said, bought what roughly two-dollars-and-fifty-cents does today; what he was on the hunt for was a good dry white in a range that would now cost somewhere between 12 and 30 bucks, and he easily accomplished that by finding a dealer in New York City who carried a good selection of wines from the Mosel and Rheingau. At the time, I didn’t know the meaning or significance of any of this, but it staked a claim in my brain. The only wine I had ever tasted was the one served at our Episcopal church during Eucharist on Sundays. The flavour it had was of a strange, super-concentrated jam that somehow warmed your upper body. Even as a young kid, I liked it. But the adjectives these German bottles were squeezing out of Richman – “citrus-like”, “honeyed”, “tart-sweet” – weren’t close to describing what was in that chalice, even if you believed in transubstantiation. Was it because Richman’s wine was white, and the parish’s was red? Perhaps, but both colours of grape juice bottled by Welch’s tasted pretty much the same to me. No, I sensed there was something – a lot – I had to learn, and, along with the romance and beauty of the labels, and the contextual air of well-bred taste and cultural with-it-ness featured on the other pages, this, I feel sure, was the decisive moment, the true origin point, when I came to believe that among the many extraordinary things that make life worth living, not just words but wine reigns at the top.  I warned you about distractions, didn’t I? Because that would be my excuse for now informing you, as a quite apropos footnote, that, yes, there was something unusual about our church’s Communion wine. It was, as I have confirmed with the church, actually port (Taylor’s Tawny, to be more accurate), cut, according to tradition, with water. There is a good and fascinating reason for this. In 1701, when the War of the Spanish Succession kicked off, France also became an enemy of England, and its wines, as a result, were no longer made available for import. The Anglican Church searched for and found a replacement, the fortified wines of its new ally, Portugal, and port continues to be an acceptable option to pair with the Host.  II. Distillations A satisfying story, not unlike a satisfying life, is one that surprises you with the mystery of its unfolding. A thing pulls in a certain direction long enough to reach the proximity of something else which then turns toward a new destination. I had actually gone into that bookstore, as I said, to look at books. But I came out, even though I didn’t yet know it, with a different compass point. Within a few years, shortly after graduating from college, in 1992, I got hired by The New Yorker, where I stayed for almost nine years. I then met my future wife, who wisely laughed at the thought we might be able to survive in New York City on my meagre salary, so I went to Vogue, and soon after became the founding editor of Men’s Vogue. After 23 issues, and four years, the financial crisis laid an axe to many magazines, including that one. Eventually, I took on the editorship of Town & Country. Then, finally, in 2016, I moved up to Esquire, the magazine, as it happens, that didn’t offer me a job when The New Yorker did, and became that storied magazine’s editor in chief, until – well, you best read about that in The New York Times.  As far as distractions go, magazines were a good one. They made me who I am, gave me a tremendously worldly education, honed my taste, introduced me to all manner of accomplished people, required me to build quite a wardrobe, and paid me pretty well to do all of this, often with a glass of wine not far out of the picture. There was really no other way I would have ever got to taste all the bottles I have (a lot of the big names people whisper about from Burgundy and Bordeaux, Champagne and also Piedmont, Tuscany and Napa). I built a modest cave à vin of my own by buying the Smith Haut Lafittes of the world way before hedge-fund hoi polloi ran up the prices, and by having access to rare offerings, like 12 bottles of Fiorano, the legendary white wine Alberico Boncompagni Ludovisi, prince of Venosa, made before ripping out all his vines. I smelled the musty perfume of Margaux in the cellar as I watched the workers rack the wine by candlelight. I lured Jay McInerney away from the Wall Street Journal to become my wine columnist; and I once stood in Bordeaux’s town square, tight on 2002 Pétrus, trying with great focus to commune with the statue of Michel de Montaigne while my French friend, a true oenophile, extolled the majesty of the Big Mac’s special sauce.  As the editor of a magazine, curiosity is your profession, even to the point of distraction. Editors – writers, too – are prone to it. It’s a hazard of the gift, and having a jumble of ideas, if you’re any good, is key to making a magazine of any real intellectual or creative daring. Now as a husband and father of three, working from home and trying to be ‘present’, and a still youngish former editor and occasional micro-influencer trying to stave off the solitude to fathom and plot the next phase of a fruitful future, this skill of mine, the strength of which became even more magnified over two decades, is something of a family project.  The way I most often hear the word ‘distraction’ now, for instance, is when it’s being hurled at me in verb form by my wife or daughters accusing me of being more of a phone-enslaved screen vegetable than they are. (I respectfully disagree.) But it’s a sore point for two reasons. One, what I did as an editor is, in a nutshell, now what a smartphone essentially does. Not very imaginatively, of course, and not with taste or charm or originality, but with a bloody, money-grubbing ruthlessness that stalks every step of our digital peregrinations and doesn’t give a twist if the algorithms that are its brain make us its slave by retrofitting our attention spans for kindergarten.  The smartphone – not the former me or any of my fellow kind still in the media biz – is now the true croupier of culture, dealing out a targeted shuffle of Pavlovian temptations to the point of daily mental exhaustion. And, though this thing is in many ways my personal nemesis, I am, against every fibre of my being, too often its obedient servant. Aiming not to live according to the famous line by T.S. Eliot – “distracted from distraction by distraction” – I recently decided to at least take a serious inventory of my favourite ones, both those of the pre-digital sort (tennis, The Walking Dead, checking the mailbox, my sock collection) and those of the post-digital sort (the any and everything I do because my phone wants me to). Then I caught myself watching tennis on my phone and realised this might be harder than I thought. It’s enough to drive a person to drink, thank god! With that in mind, I like to keep a special something for the occasion around, in this case – what else? – two bottles of Riesling Kabinett, for it had struck me as more than a little weird that I’ve probably tasted fewer than a handful of German wines in my entire life. Part of the reason is that those I had were bad, and, like a lot of other simpletons about this great wine region of the world, I’d come to think of Riesling as a cloying elixir equal parts green Jolly Rancher, apple cider vinegar, and hairspray. This, I knew, was wrong, not true and, in terms of wine equity and inclusion, on the wrong side of history. But, if you happen to live in a place like I do – a bourgie swathe of Connecticut bordering New York City where the shops cater heavily to Cali-Fran-Taly banker’s tastes – it might take you a few stops to find what Richman recommended, an erzeugerabfüllung (estate-bottled) Kabinett (wine made from grapes with a minimum must weight/sugar content) Riesling, and when you do it will probably be coated in a fine sift of years-old dust. I bought a green (Mosel) bottle for US$16 and a brown (Rhine) bottle for US$20, both handsomely labelled. I opened them a few minutes ago and took several investigative swigs. The words bright, invigorating and snappy came to mind. One is indeed sweeter, and, though not my usual jam, it is tamped by a pleasing peachy tartness, and the classic overtone of honey isn’t making my palate feel doused with syrup. The other example is, as Richman said so long ago, a very finely layered creature with mineral clarity and an echo of baked bread, something a gluten-free person like me finds particularly appealing. A rather obvious thought: why haven’t I been buying this instead of throwing a ton of endless money at affordably bad white Burgundy, which is mostly a product aimed at fulfilling a desired outcome, like White Claw hard seltzer? III. Words But don’t let me get distracted, again. A writer really has to be careful about such things. Just think about it. Unlike, say, a painter or musician or actor or photographer, the process of writing requires zero physical exertion, no chance to score an endorphin release while sitting staring anxiously at a blank page. Of the many things in life that vie against the counter intuitive impulse to be glued to a desk, Cyril Connolly, in Enemies of Promise, his classic study of the things that distracted him (and others) from becoming a great writer, names the temptations but does not say much about why they’re so deeply tempting to someone who would otherwise be sitting alone in an empty room. Praise, money, fame, social prominence, affairs and journalism are the most common boltholes, according to Connolly, who, as a famously late sleeper that married three times, might have also added the bliss of unconsciousness and excessive alimony. In 1938, the year the book was published, he would never have imagined how hard the task might get without a cigarette. Smoking is a death wish, I know, but when you want to off yourself for still having a hundred pages to go, being able to snap open a nice lighter, flick some ash, stub a butt and inhale some lungfuls of focus-enhancing nicotine must have been kind of helpful. Connolly also doesn’t have much to say about drink except that artists who drink to excess do so “out of the consciousness of wasted ability”. According to that, the 20th century’s most famous literary alcoholics – Dorothy Parker, Truman Capote, F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Styron, Elizabeth Bishop, James Joyce, Raymond Chandler, William Faulkner – might have left behind even greater treasures than they did. Because Ernest Hemingway did almost everything with more gusto than any of his peers, including running up his bar tab, as a drinker he belongs in his own sentence. He is the novelist who most romanced a good drink or nice bottle of wine as one of life’s great pleasures. Who didn’t want to have a vermouth with Jake when reading The Sun Also Rises? (Don’t, it’s gross, at least if you order it at one of those kiosks in Montmartre where the bottles are hung upside down with spring-loaded dispensers.) Or, track down a bottle of Valdepeñas, Hemingway’s favourite variety of Spanish wine. Or, get a drink at the bar named after him at the Ritz, in Paris, and then go somewhere on the Left Bank to order “a dozen portugaises and a half-carafe of the dry white wine”.  In the early work, he is not boastful about drinking so much as he is the possessor of an unusual appetite for a good buzz. He is also, like Connolly, aware of the need to keep writing separate from drinking, and drinking within his control. It is hard to read the first paragraph of A Moveable Feast, in which he describes an “evilly run café where the drunkards of the quarter crowded together and I kept away from it because of the smell of dirty bodies and the sour smell of drunkenness”, except as a kind of terrifying admonition to himself. It is tragic that he didn’t heed his own advice. Late in his life, Hemingway became fond of rum daiquiris at the Floridita, his favourite bar in Havana, which might explain his taste for a prose style that soon became too often cloying self-parody. In one of the most extraordinary drinking sessions ever committed to words, in the roman à clef Across the River and Into the Trees, a 50-year-old Hemingway, who was smitten with a teenage Italian countess from Venice, fictionalises his infatuation with a last muse. In one stretch (that covers an evening-to-dawn crawl from Harry’s Bar, the grill at the Gritti Palace, a gondola and a hotel room), one half or another of the couple imbibes: one scotch whisky and soda; six Montgomery Martinis (15 parts gin; 1 part vermouth), two of which are described in size as ‘super’; a bottle of Capri Bianco; two bottles of Valpolicella; two bottles of Roederer Brut ’42; and two bottles of Perrier-Jouët. That is, I suppose, one extreme, and, clearly, not one to be tried at home.  The other might have been espoused by Dr. Samuel Johnson, the great critic and lexicographer. As a young man, he’d drained “many a bottle of wine” but loved port especially. (Perhaps Johnson, a devout Anglican who was born in 1709, in the midst of England’s 14-year war with Spain, also first encountered port as a boy at the Communion altar.) He describes himself to friend and biographer James Boswell as having been “apt to go to excess in it”, adding that, “therefore, after having been for some time without it, on account of illness, I thought it better not to return to it”.  Boswell, who worried about his own dependence on alcohol, even keeping a journal of his intake in an attempt to enforce moderation, argued for a third way, which some of the Romantics later adopted. Wine, he claimed, “produces truth; in vino veritas”. Hoping to persuade Johnson of his point, Boswell once convinced the critic to come down off the wagon for just one glass of claret, so Johnson “might judge, not from recollection, which might be dim, but from immediate sensation”. Boswell reports what happened after the glass was emptied: “Johnson shook his head, and said, ‘Poor stuff! No, Sir, claret is the liquor for boys; port, for men,’” adding, “‘A man would be drowned by it before it made him drunk.’”  That actually reminds me of something I think I forgot to mention about Riesling Kabinetts – they’re also highly admired for their low percentage of alcohol. On that note, I think I’ll have another glass.  This article was originally published in FONDATA, Issue Two.

Jay Fielden, former editor of Men’s Vogue, Town & Country and Esquire, recalls how a magazine column on wine, read in a Texas bookstore, shifted his ambitions beyond journalism and set him on the path to becoming a writer of books.

Former Esquire editor-in-chief Jay Fielden reflects on magazines, writing, Riesling Kabinett and the distractions that shaped a life in words and wine.

Jay Fielden on Wine, Words and Distraction

How one became another  

In Sicily, for the feast day of San Giuseppe, they make a soup, a very plain soup of 
chickpeas, fava beans and wheat grains, all soaked and cooked separately before 
being combined with bitter wild greens and perhaps some broken pasta. It is a 
celebration not of poverty but in poverty. The richness of the meal comes from the 
time it takes, the hours of soaking and boiling, of picking leaves in muddy fields. 
The feast day of the patron saint of workers (and the stepfather of God) falls on 
the 19th March, full spring in the Sicilian countryside with the almond trees in 
blossom. San Giuseppe’s soup marks the last use of the previous year’s harvest, 
the last pulses and grains to be taken from the store which the summer’s baking 
heat and the rains of autumn had provided for the coming winter. It is both a soup 
and a celebration, but it is also a sacrifice – a sacrifice of time against an uncertain 
future, time given freely as a kind of guarantee. Cooking of any kind – but especially the lengthy processes of preserving, drying, 
pickling and curing – is really an act of optimism, an assertion that there will be a 
future in which to eat. And the more time and care you put into such a process, the 
more value you get out. For example, the longer a cure or a pickle takes, the longer, 
in general, it will last. In providing food for the future, this sacrifice also makes 
it much more likely that the future it was made for will indeed occur. A practical 
optimism, you could say. A spending of time, not just because you have little else 
to spend, but because it is prudent to do so. For much of the world now, of course, the situation is reversed: we can buy almost 
anything we want at any time we please and have it delivered almost immediately. 
And we seem to be encouraged to spend less time doing things like cooking. 
Time is a commodity, and rather than sacrifice our time, we’re encouraged to 
sacrifice time itself, to take shortcuts. Time is listed in any given recipe, along 
with the rest of the ingredients and equipment: two onions, one stick of celery, 
one carrot, 15 minutes preparation and two hours cooking time, but it is almost 
always consequently manipulated. Everybody knows – once they have followed 
a few recipes – that enough time is never given to cook an onion. ‘Sauté until soft 
and golden, about two minutes,’ writes the chef (or the editor insists so the recipe can fall into the category of ‘quick and easy weeknight suppers’ or ‘fifteen-minute 
meals’ or whatever it is they are currently trying to sell). The fact that nobody ever
sautéed an onion until soft and golden in less than 10 minutes is elided, sacrificed 
to the promise that this dish, now, will not cost too much of your time. Even recipes 
which can never be made quickly – soups, stews, cures – are touted as demanding 
just a little of your time and even less of your attention, your active time. The slow 
braise allows the cook to focus not on cooking, but on other things. To me, this 
is a lost opportunity. Yes, it is nice to know that dinner is safely squared away, 
puttering merrily to itself in a low oven. It is exciting to think that a jar of cabbage 
is slowly transforming into sauerkraut at the back of a dark cupboard. But if all we 
see is the prepared ingredients and the end result, how much do we miss of the 
metamorphosis in-between? Convenience is desirable, but over the last year, time has – for most of us – come at 
less of a premium. Even before that, though, I have always found a certain satisfaction 
in giving my complete attention to whatever I am cooking. This goes without saying for 
the quick and fast – for the doneness of a steak, or pasta, for deep-frying, or grilling 
delicate fish. However, it is also rewarding for the slower processes, for observing the 
slow changing of textures as liquids bubble and reduce.  If, for example, you are making marmalade, you could work out the setting 
temperature and, once the final boil has begun, insert a probe thermometer with 
an alarm set to sound when it reaches the precise temperature: all well and good. 
If, however, there isn’t a thermometer to hand – or, as is often the case, you only 
have one that is in sore need of calibration and therefore useless – you can fall 
back on the finger test your mother may or may not have taught you. Placing a 
stack of saucers in the fridge and – when you think the marmalade is nearly ready 
– spooning a little out onto a cold saucer, you prod the result with your finger to 
see if it wrinkles. What, then, if you don’t have a stack or even a single perfectly 
chilled saucer to hand? Then you have to watch the bubbles rise. 
The point of making marmalade or jam is not simply that you are cooking a liquid 
until it reaches approximately 105˚C, but rather that you are cooking a liquid until 
it becomes capable (as water is not) of reaching that temperature – which means it 
has to become thicker, stronger. The bubbles it creates, at first double the liquid in 
volume (bringing the inevitable worry that your pan is too small) before settling and 
lowering into a dense boil that threatens to catch on the bottom. Once you’ve seen 
it, that transformation is unmistakable, and if you had just stuck a thermometer 
in the pan and got on with something else, you would never have noticed. This 
(admittedly useful and in a working kitchen, essential) piece of technology would 
have removed you from the process, from the facts of cooking. This is true of any kind of technology – it is, by and large, its purpose. I am not necessarily suggesting 
that you replace your oven with a wood-fired stove and monitor the temperature 
with a questing hand (if you can’t hold it in there, it’s hot enough) – although that 
would, I think, be fun. Certainly, anything which makes our lives easier is not to be 
dismissed out of hand, but isn’t it always worth wondering what, at any moment, 
you can afford to lose? 
The point with cooking is that the time put in is not simply lost but rather spent 
or, invested – although sometimes you might not think it – wisely. A six-hour 
braise consumed in less than 30 minutes can seem hardly worth the effort, but 
only if you see the eating of food as the sole reason to cook it. When I think of 
meals I have cooked for other people, for birthdays or holidays or simply for 
the pleasure of company, it is rarely the eating of them – the few minutes of 
attacking a chicken or slurping up pasta or licking grease off fingers – which 
comes immediately to mind but rather their slow build-up. It’s the digging of the 
pit to build the fire that has to die before I bury the lamb, wrapped carefully in 
foil and sackcloth; the careful attendance to a boiling pan of stock, its bubbles 
changing in size and consistency as it gradually reduces into gravy; the oil 
slowly spitting out of a pot of ragù, its surface barely moving as it stews. These 
are the things I remember fondly, the nurturing process of bringing a meal 
together. And these moments aren’t solitary meditations – with any meal there 
is more to be done than just cooking something. There are salads to be made 
and dressings to be whipped, pasta to be rolled, tables to be set, cocktails to be 
mixed, and wine to be poured. The making of a meal is only a chore if you begin 
to do it wishing it were already over. If instead you begin to do it because you 
want to do it, with the end result of ‘something to eat’ as almost a by-product 
of a rewarding activity, then the pleasure you find in it changes. 
Although for most of us, it’s no longer – as it was for the Sicilians celebrating 
San Giuseppe – a matter of life or death. This choice to involve yourself 
purposefully in the everyday act of cooking, and otherwise preparing food, still 
has an air of sacrifice, of time exchanged in the promise of something greater. 
It is, I suppose, literally a sacrifice, as the time you allot to cooking is time 
you could have made available for emails, or exercise, or simply to idly scroll 
through Netflix adding films you will probably never watch to your list. But, as 
is the way of all such propitiatory acts, it is a sacrifice which contains the seeds 
of its desired outcome. What you put in determines what you get out, in the 
straightforward terms of a meal you can eat – but it is also its own reward. You 
know, as you reverently chop, or soak, or simmer, that you are investing your 
time to create something better than good. That whatever you are making will 
have a special richness to it. The richness of chickpeas, or water or gold.  This article was originally published in FONDATA, Issue One

Margate-based chef and food writer, Thom Eagle, contemplates the value of spending more, not less, time in the kitchen.

Illustration by Stewart Walton.

Margate-based chef and food writer, Thom Eagle, contemplates the value of spending more, not less, time in the kitchen

FONDATA: Time for Food

Time for Food

“It’s been an absolute pig of a year,” says Mark Gaskain. It’s September 2024 and we’re reaching the end of what has been a trying growing season across most of Europe – with seemingly never-ending rain. Fortunately, Gaskain knows that such challenges are just part of the job. He’s a farmer, born and bred, now at the helm of his family business, and responsible for growing 70 million apples a year. But in the last decade, he’s added a new strand to the business – after selling a swathe of land to none other than Champagne Taittinger in 2015. That land is now the home of Domaine Evremond – one of the most exciting English wine projects to date.  The story began almost a decade ago. Patrick McGrath – founder and CEO of Hatch Mansfield, which represents Champagne Taittinger in the UK – had been looking at adding an English sparkling wine to the company’s portfolio. It was the early 2010s, and he spied an opportunity with the burgeoning category – but Pierre-Emmanuel Taittinger suggested that, rather than taking on an existing estate, McGrath should create his own, working with Taittinger. Taittinger had embarked on a similar venture in California, creating Domaine Carneros with their US agent, Kobrand, under Pierre-Emmanuel’s uncle, Claude. Together, they decided to take the plunge.  They charged leading English wine specialist Stephen Skelton with helping them find the perfect site – determined to have chalk soils, south/southwest-facing slopes (for maximum sun exposure) at altitudes below 100 metres (with temperatures reducing by 1°C per 100m, anything above this would simply be too cold in England’s marginal climate). Kent – with easy access across to Champagne – was decided on, but it took them 18 months to find the right site. At the same time, the Gaskains were looking at selling some of their land (a foray into soft fruit had proven challenging, and were looking to get back to their core business of apples). The timing was fortuitous and the orchards at Stone Stile Farm – around the village of Chilham, southwest of Canterbury – were perfect. As Alexandre Ponnavoy (Chef de Cave for both Taittinger and Evremond) told me, if a site can grow good fruit – it’s a good indicator for its viticultural potential.  In 2015, the deal was signed and the project launched with great fanfare at Westminster Abbey. Domaine Evremond takes its name from Charles de Saint-Evremond (1614-1703), a Frenchman, essayist and early ambassador for the wines of Champagne – bringing them to the court of Charles II – who is buried in Poets’ Corner. Although Didier Pierson – a grower in Champagne – had made English wine under the Meon Hill label, Taittinger was one of the first major Champagne Houses to invest in England (Pommery had bought vineyards in Hampshire in 2014). Unsurprisingly, press coverage was extensive: the Champenois were coming to make sparkling wine on our home turf – the French naysayers set to eat their hats as the world started facing up to fine English fizz.  Evremond’s first vines went in the ground in 2017, with more added in 2020 (the team set up at the local Premier Inn to tackle the work mid-pandemic) and in 2024. The land here has a layer of alluvial clay over its chalk subsoil which is part of the Paris basin, shared with much of northern France (including Champagne). Around Canterbury, however, there’s more flint in the soil – something that Ponnavoy feels shines through in the wine, giving it a mineral, reductive character. There’s also a definite maritime influence – moderating temperatures, but also bringing ocean breezes from Whitstable, which is just six miles away. For Ponnavoy, it’s the combination of the site’s chalky soils, maritime softness and sea winds – a “contrasting climatology” – that defines the Evremond wines.   Gaskain is deeply involved in the project – his in-depth knowledge of the land an invaluable resource, knowing where potential frost pockets lie, for example, or where the soil might be overly rich for vines. He and his team manage the site day-to-day, guided by Christelle Rinvelle (Taittinger’s Vineyard Director). Currently, they have 62 hectares of vines, split between 45% Chardonnay, 45% Pinot Noir and 10% Meunier. They planted Chardonnay on areas with the thinnest topsoil, allowing its roots almost direct access to the chalky bedrock, while the Pinot Noir and Meunier sit on the more clay/gravel-rich plots.  The vines are widely spaced (5,000 vines per hectare – half the vine density Taittinger uses in Champagne) and trained higher than across the Channel, allowing for better airflow (helping manage disease pressure) and a larger canopy (to aid ripening). While herbicides have never been used on the site and there’s a concerted effort to be sustainable, Gaskain is clear on the limitations of viticulture in Kent: “Organics is madness in this climate,” he tells me – as, perhaps, 2024 proved. While the team has vine-specific sprayers, Gaskain can also draw on his team’s orchard equipment too – a boon when conditions are challenging – and spray the entire site in one (rather long) day.  They harvested tiny quantities of fruit in 2018 and 2019, with the first commercial-sized vintage coming from 2020 (conveniently the grape harvest falls neatly between that of Galas and Braeburns). Early wines were made at nearby Simpsons, and from 2020, they set up in an old concrete barn on the site – with the entire operation run on a generator. In June 2022, they broke ground on a new winery (“We were over budget four weeks after starting,” says McGrath, with a weary smile). The same company that worked on the Channel Tunnel dug out 83,000 tons of chalk (around 2,000 lorry loads) to make way for the three-storey building that stretches 20 metres below ground. Designed by Reims-based architect Giovanni Pace, the idea is for the winery to blend into the landscape – rather than stand on it. It has the capacity to cellar 1.5 million bottles – all without expending any additional energy on cooling, thanks to its natural subterranean chill.   Works were finished in time for the 2024 harvest – a relief undoubtedly for the team. There is something charmingly British, slightly ramshackle and underdog about the operation – despite the very serious money behind it (£17 million invested so far, reportedly). “Everybody’s had to muck in,” says McGrath. He might be Hatch’s CEO and one of the Evremond founders, but he’s also the first to pull on his wellies to help with harvest – and has spent more weekends in the vineyard than anyone else. Vitalie Taittinger has taken over from her father as President of Taittinger, and McGrath’s daughter India is running the commercial side of Evremond – meaning the operation really is a family business, even if it comes with some luxury, Champenois-esque swagger.  With the Taittinger association, of course, expectations are incredibly high – something McGrath is painfully aware of. Talking to Ponnavoy – who is in charge of the winemaking at both Taittinger and Evremond – there’s been something very exciting about creating a project from scratch, even if it has come with some challenges too. He argued to keep the small 2018 harvest for the property only, allowing them to follow the wines in tank over several years, and get to know the site. It was a huge cost, and delayed the first release, but something he felt was crucial.  “It was really important not to do a copy of another sparkling wine, not to produce a… ‘style’,” he says. Their goal, instead, was: “To identify the terroir, to identify the soil, to identify the climate, and reproduce all that in the bottle. To find the Evremond identity.” Inevitably, there’s a temptation to draw comparisons between Taittinger and Evremond, but the team is clear that they are totally separate projects with very different DNA.  Working with English fruit, Ponnavoy felt it was key to manage the potentially biting acidity (and the wine sees full malolactic as a result), but – for him – the greatest challenge was to avoid a bitterness that he finds common in some English wines. Managing the phenolics to avoid this was, for him, therefore essential, while he also focused particularly on the bubble texture – working to get a very fine mousse, something that he believes sets the wine apart from the competition.  In time, Evremond hopes to make 400,000 bottles a year, although there are only 120,000 of its first release. There are plans to add a vintage and rosé cuvée once the vines have matured and they’ve gotten to know the site, but for now they’re only producing the non-vintage Classic Cuvée. Now, a decade after they bought the land, Edition 1 of the Classic Cuvée is set to be released. For a début, it’s an incredible result – perhaps not surprising given the pedigree of the operation. Incredibly fine, taut and layered with oyster-shell, iodine and flint, it’s a wine full of the promise of what Evremond can do.  Domaine Evremond’s Classic Cuvée Edition 1 will be released on Thursday 3rd April: contact your Account Manager to register interest or sign up to be notified here 

A decade ago, Champagne Taittinger did something unexpected: they bought land in Kent. On the eve of the release of the project’s first wine, Sophie Thorpe caught up with the team behind Domaine Evremond about the challenges and triumphs of their English adventure 

Champagne Taittinger bought land in Kent 10 years ago. As the first wine from the project is released, we talk to the team behind Domaine Evremond

Diving into Domaine Evremond – Taittinger’s new English wine

Unearthing Evremond: Taittinger’s new English wine project 

The growing season in 2019, as is becoming the norm these days, started with a warm February and March, leading to an early budbreak at the beginning of April. An early budbreak leads to a nail-biting spring for the vignerons, where the window for frost damage is only extended. Fortunately, there were only a couple of occasions where temperatures dropped to dangerous levels, with most Chablis producers today well equipped either with smudge pots, electrical heating wires or water sprays to offset the frost damage.  At Long-Depaquit they lost just 5%, which was not a concern. Samuel Billaud notes that the frost was much more dangerous on the lower slopes of Chablis where damage was higher than the 1er Cru and Grand Cru sites which were largely undamaged. For Olivier Bailly, winemaker at Domaine Billaud Simon, it was not simply the direct damage of the frosts (particularly on the night of 14th April) but the resultant stress on the vine following the outbreak that saw yields further affected. However, the real issue in regard to yields, came down to flowering rather than frost, with a windy, rainy, wet period during May which meant yields were notably affected. This period led to a lot of heterogeneity in the bunches and also noticeable millerandage (which results in very small berries): this does not affect quality but markedly lowers yield. Unlike 2018, therefore, 2019 is a low-crop vintage with producers’ yields ranging from 20 to 40% below normal. Despite the poor flowering, the rest of the growing season was straightforward, with very little rain and plenty of sunshine, which meant excellent sanitary conditions in the vineyard with no rot at all and very little sorting required at picking. There were two short heatwaves, one at the end of June and another at the end of July, which did cause sunburn damage to exposed grapes but other than that, no sorting was required. Regarding temperatures and rainfall, it was similar to 2018 with average rainfalls down 50% on average. Temperatures were also a full 2.2 degrees above average during the growing season, which is quite extraordinary. When comparing the similar effects of drought and sunshine in the 2018 vintage, vignerons talked about how the high yields helped dilute the intensity of the sun. With half the crop, how did the grapes survive in 2019? Was this to be a low-acid vintage with abnormal tropical fruit tones like 2015 or 2003? Matthieu Mangenot, winemaker at Domaine Long-Depaquit, describes how something quite unusual happened. In the later part of the growing season, the grapes concentrated – with water in the berries evaporating from the skins. This increased sugar levels and therefore alcohol (typically to 13.4 to 13.8%, which is high for Chablis, but it concentrated the acid levels too. Despite the drought and heat, the acid levels sit close to great vintages such as 2008, 2014 and 2018, with a pH of 3.25 to 3.3 after malolactic fermentation. Olivier Bailly at Domaine Billaud Simon had even higher acidity levels (between 3.10 - 3.25 pH), stating, “It is the magic of Chablis to find Chardonnay retaining such acidity, despite the warm weather”.  The result is, as Mangenot told us, “undoubtedly a ripe, concentrated, powerful vintage, but with a freshness too, at the same time retaining real Chablis mineral typicity. It is a hot, warm vintage but it does not really behave like that in the glass.” The fruit ripeness is similar to ’15 – but there are no excess aromatics of over-ripeness or yellowness in the wine that is typical of the low-acid vintages like ’05 and ’06. The acid profile is much more like ’17, and very much still retaining a sense of place, avoiding the tropical fruit aromas of 2015. Samuel Billaud describes 2019 as “highly concentrated Chablis with sun-kissed aromatics – it is concentrated, with balanced structure and excellent minerality. It is a ‘gourmand’ [moreish] vintage, yet with tense, structural minerality.”  Our own impressions is there is no doubt a concentration and aromatic pungency to the wines, yet the nose retains the Chablis-esque chalky minerality and savoury dried-straw tone, as well as lifted floral aromatics. There is noticeable power, weight and warmth to the palate even on the Premiers Crus, with the top examples retaining mouth-watering acidity despite this opulence and concentration. They really have a wonderful combination of intensity and power, while retaining mineral typicity. Producers such as Samuel Billaud still has a majority of his 2019s undergoing élevage, with the Grands Crus left another six months in tank before being bottled. Despite them being babies the wines are already showing a lot of promise. Billaud compares his 2019s to the 2016s in terms of riper aromatics, but with much more concentration and minerality. It also has similarities to the 2017 vintage when it comes to structure and minerality, he says.  For Mangenot, the power and concentration allied with vibrant acidity and minerality makes this vintage hard to compare, “It doesn’t really taste like any other,” he says, “but for Chablis-lovers, it makes it a fascinating vintage to discover.” Read more Editorial

As the first Chablis 2019s are released, we talk to top producers in the region – including Samuel Billaud, Matthieu Mangenot from Domaine Long-Depaquit and Olivier Bailly from Domaine Billaud-Simon – about the vintage

We talk to top producers in the region Samuel Billaud, Domaine Long-Depaquit and Olivier Bailly from Domaine Billaud-Simon – about 2019 the vintage

2019 Chablis first look at the vintage

Chablis 2019: a first look at the vintage

Ch. Beauséjour Duffau-Lagarrosse clearly has some fantastic terroir. One of only a handful of top-rated Premier Grand Cru Classé B estates, it is beautifully positioned on the southwest-facing slopes of Saint-Emilion’s famous limestone plateau. The property gained notoriety with the release of its 1990 – a wine Robert Parker professed as being “the wine of the vintage” en primeur – in his view beating other legendary wines from the year, such as Margaux, Pétrus and Latour. After maturation in bottle, he went further and declared that it may be “one of the greatest wines made this century”. A legend was born. This historic estate has been in the Duffau-Lagarrosse family since 1847, but Joséphine’s recent take-over was far from straightforward. Prior to the sale, it was owned by 30 members of her family. With the majority wanting to sell the property. Determined for it to remain part of the Duffau-Lagarrosse legacy, the only option was to attempt to buy it herself – no small feat for the then 30-year-old. But this prime-positioned Saint-Emilion estate had plenty of bidders queuing to snap it up, undeterred by the €75 million price tag – a price far beyond Duffau-Lagarrosse’s means. Initially, it was a bidding war between neighbouring Ch. Angélus’s Stéphanie de Boüard and Clos Fourtet’s Matthieu Cuvelier. Then, however, the Courtin-Clarins family stepped in – and offered to partner with Joséphine Duffau-Lagarrosse. Joséphine met with Prisca Courtin-Clarins, Clarins CEO and the third generation to run her family’s cosmetic empire (which remains 100% family-owned). According to Duffau-Lagarrosse, they instantly hit it off and the synergy between them was obvious: two young, talented, ambitious French women. Duffau-Lagarrosse had all the technical know-how to make great wine, as well as a life-long experience of the estate.  Courtin-Clarins, meanwhile, had all the commercial experience and financial backing to help manage and develop the business side of the property. Joséphine invited Prisca to see the château and she loved it. Within a month of meeting, they had put in their own bid. With the family connection, their bid was favoured and the two of them became co-directors on 12th April 2021. Walking around the amazing labyrinth of limestone caves under the property (covering 650 square-metres), where Duffau-Lagarrosse now ages the wine, you can see how proud she is of her family estate and how excited she is for the future – now under her control. She admits that it all happened a bit quickly. After deciding to follow in her family’s oenological footsteps, she had deliberately stayed away from Bordeaux for as long as she could, knowing that her family ties would eventually pull her back. Born and raised in Pomerol after graduating, it wasn’t long before she was travelling around the world, learning to make wine in regions other than Bordeaux. Duffau-Lagarrosse has an impressive resumé, working under some of the world’s best winemakers. She worked with Ch. Margaux’s Phillipe Bascaules when he was at Inglenook in Napa Valley, before heading to Hawkes Bay in New Zealand to work on Bordeaux blends in a contrasting climate. Following her stint there, she went to Mexico to work on a project with famous Bordelais consultant Stéphane Derenoncourt, before returning to France and working in Burgundy with Maxime Cheurlin at Domaine Georges Noëllat – someone who had inherited an historic family estate at a similarly young age. Of all the vintages to take on such a legacy, however, 2021 was far from the easiest – a year that asked everything of its makers. “It was not easy,” she admits, a smile sneaking onto her face, “but I really enjoyed it.” As we tasted the 2021, we asked whether she’d had to chaptalise – a common practice in the year’s cool conditions. For a millennial born in the era of climate change, it was totally new to her, but she felt it was needed to round out the mid-palate. “So I called Burgundy,” she jests, a twinkle in her eye. Despite its challenges, Duffau-Lagarrosse is very pleased with her 2021 – the first full vintage under her lead – and as she should be. She certainly respects what previous winemaker, Nicolas Thienpont, had done with the estate over the last 12 years – consistently producing one of the top wines of the vintage. Without swerving away from his style, Duffau-Lagarrosse is still keen to put her own bent on the wine. Reducing the amount of new oak is perhaps the most obvious first step – although that is also understandable considering the vintage conditions in 2021. She is also keen to make sure extraction levels are very carefully monitored and this was particularly important in 2021. “We had to question everything,” says Duffau-Lagarrosse, but the challenges proved to be a fast-track for understanding the terroir she had inherited. And she wasn’t alone – hiring two of Bordeaux’s leading consultants, Axel Marchand (professor of oenology at Bordeaux University) and Julien Viaud (the co-owner of Michel Rolland’s consultancy, which according to Duffau-Lagarrosse, has a contrasting and complementary approach to Rolland’s philosophy of high extraction and high proportions of new oak). The new team is certainly one of the most exciting and positive developments in Saint-Emilion – especially given the recent tumult in the appellation. There is certainly a lovely balance to the Ch. Beauséjour Duffau-Lagarrosse in 2021, and the wine has captured the beautiful, scented perfume of vintage’s top examples. It’s a wine that shows the promise of this vigneronne and address – one that is set to compete with the very best in the appellation. The legend is safe in the hands of its rightful owner. Browse all Editorial 

The 2021 vintage was a challenging year in Bordeaux – but at Saint-Emilion estate Ch. Beauséjour Duffau-Lagarrosse, it was also the first with Joséphine Duffau-Lagarrosse at the helm. We visited the young vigneronne to find out what it means to take on such a legacy

1990 Beauséjour Duffau-Lagarrosse was declared “a modern legend” by Robert Parker. Now Joséphine has taken over the family estate. We visited to find out more

Joséphine Duffau-Lagarrosse on her family legacy

Generation Y: Joséphine Duffau-Lagarrosse

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When a wine is on "pre-arrival", it means that we have a confirmed order on the bottles from our supplier and we are simply waiting for the winery or distributor to ship the wine to us. The delivery timeframe for pre-arrival wines varies significantly, depending on where the wine is coming from. We will notify you once they arrive at our warehouse and, at that point, you can decide to arrange shipping or list them for sale.

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