France Heads for an Early August Harvest in 2026
Update: France's 2026 harvest is in. It turned out to be driven by frost and rain rather than the heat this piece was tracking. Read what actually happened.
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Wine news, tasting tips, and stories.
Dispatches from the UK wine scene.
Crouch Valley Named a New Capital for English Still Wine
A Master of Wine looked at Essex last week and said, essentially, you're all sleeping on this. The Guardian ran it on May 24th. Crouch Valley, a stretch of land most people associate with commuter towns and flat horizons, got singled out as one of the most promising spots for English still wine right now.
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Spring Frosts Hit English Vineyards, Threatening 2026 Harvest
Somewhere in the Weald right now, a vineyard manager is walking rows of vines and doing the maths on how bad this actually is.
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English Wines Win Record Gold Haul at the IWC 2026
The number that stopped me mid-scroll on Wednesday was 23. That's how many gold medals English wines took home from the International Wine Challenge 2026, reported by The Guardian on May 20, a higher percentage of golds per entry than any other country in the competition.
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Bordeaux 2025 Scores Its First Serious Reviews
The first detailed notes on the 2025 Bordeaux vintage started landing in mid-May, and the language being used is not the cautious, hedging kind. Berry Bros. & Rudd and Cult Wines both published early reports around May 13, and the word "spectacular" has been doing the rounds since. That kind of adjective gets thrown at maybe one vintage in five or six years, so it's worth paying attention.
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Bar Blondie Opens in Queen's Park
Alexandra Price spent years telling other people which wines to drink. Now she's opened a room where you can make up your own mind.
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Etna Nears DOCG Status as "Inside Etna" Lands in the UK
Forty-odd producers hauling wine samples up from the slopes of an active volcano to a London tasting room is either dedication or mild madness. Possibly both.
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Lady of the Grapes Opens Second Location in Borough Market
April 30th. Lady of the Grapes announced a second site, this one in Borough Market, bigger than the original Covent Garden spot that's been quietly doing something most London wine bars don't bother with: stocking almost exclusively wine made by women.
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Little Owl Brings Accessible Greek Wine to the UK
Forty quid for a bottle of Assyrtiko from a producer nobody's heard of is a hard sell. That's the problem Greek wine has always had in this country, and it's not really about the wine.
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Blouge, the Red-White Blend Crossing Over
Somewhere between a Beaujolais and a skin-contact white, a glass of something genuinely difficult to categorise is being poured in natural wine bars across the UK right now.
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The Wine Society Launches Its "High Intention" Collection
Sustainable wine is one of those categories that sounds brilliant in theory and becomes quietly maddening in practice.
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