There’s always one grower who upsets the applecart: Didier Dagueneau, François Chidaine, Olivier Lamy, Jean-Marie Guffens, Robert Plageoles, Josh Jensen to name a few. There’s gold in them hills, you just need to take the leap. We often say that tasting is believing. Even a few years ago, we wouldn’t have thought that the humble region of Touraine was capable of matching the best wines of Sancerre or Saumur...

With its green, shire-like landscape studded with extinct volcanoes, the tiny, remote appellation of the Côtes du Forez is another of France’s hidden gems. Although technically part of the Loire department, we tend to associate it more closely with Beaujolais. The drive from Lyon to La Madone takes roughly an hour and a half...

A great year for Bannockburn naturally means a great year for 1314. “I’m more excited about this vintage than any in recent memory,” says Gus Pollard. And that goes for the 1314 wines as much as it does for the Estate wines currently resting in the cellar...

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, it’s hard to overstate how far the wines of this producer have come over the years. Aurélien Laherte’s terroir-centric wines are at a level that compares with the best Grower wines in Champagne...

Sadly, the sun has set on Macedon’s mercurial Animus Distillery. Fortunately, its lovely hand-filled, artisanal baubles live to shine another day. Beautifully packaged in bespoke glass globes, these handmade, high-proof gins...

Elevating the reputation of a relatively untapped Burgundy appellation is a rare thing. To do it as an outsider, from scratch, and on a modest budget is a whole other story. Tasting the new wines from this driven young grower, it is easy to forget that it was not long ago that Camille Thiriet vinified her first wines in a bootstrapped garage owned by her parents.