• Home
  • About us
  • Orange wine
  • Shop
  • Wine reviews
  • Subscribe

The Morning Claret

Simon J Woolf + friends on wild and wonderful wines

Menu
  • Home
  • About us
  • Orange wine
  • Shop
  • Wine reviews
  • Subscribe
  • Le Saint Eutrope (my perfect little bistro)

    Hannah Fuellenkemper   

    Some kids get the itch to become astronauts but when I’m grown up I want to be Harry Lester. Once I am I’ll open my perfect little bistro. A tear-the-paper-off-the-table, stoneware carafe and colourful brocante-deco affair, doesn’t matter where so long as it’s hard to get to, oh – and in France. I will dress

  • Photo Hannah Fuellenkemper

    What winemakers do in winter

    Hannah Fuellenkemper   

    The Ardèche isn’t just about saving dish water for the garden and sleeping out the heat. There’s also the time of year you butcher the pigs that keep the vendangers fed during harvest. Namely January. Casse-croûte was at 10, the breaking and dipping of bread into last year’s bacon, boudin and dark-ochre eggs still crackling

  • Auberge de Chassignolles, my Hotel California in the Auvergne

    Hannah Fuellenkemper   

    Hannah’s further adventures off the beaten-track in South-Eastern France, as she’s abandoned in a hot, sticky Ardeche but reminisces about the perfect lunch

  • Molto Forte biodynamics, mezzo-forte wine

    Simon J Woolf   

    Wineries can soak up a lot of money – as per the popular industry joke “How do you make a million in wine? Answer: Start with two million”. The landscape is littered with vinous vanity projects created by wealthy industrialists, downsizing media tycoons or hollywood stars who can afford to blow fortunes on pipe dreams.

  • The Ottolenghi battle, or what to do when your business burns down

    Simon J Woolf   

    Allard Arisz is definitely a glass half full character. After 16 years in the wine distribution business, his Amsterdam North warehouse burnt down on March 7th this year. Some 30,000 bottles of wine were destroyed in the blaze, representing most of the company’s stock. Some might take that as a sign, time to shut up

  • Antonino "Nino" Barraco

    Seafood Grillo, Barraco style

    Simon J Woolf   

    It’s a gorgeous late summer evening on Sicily’s west coast. But instead of admiring the sea, our group of wine writers and bloggers are looking slightly perplexedly at what appears to be a patch of weeds. Actually this is Antonino “Nino” Barraco‘s prized hectare of coastal Grillo, practically growing on the beach and preciously handed

  • Pigs cheeks are go, at Stolen supper club

    Graves doesn’t have to be serious

    Simon J Woolf   

    Who doesn’t love a joyful, everyday wine – especially if it’s fairly priced Bordeaux. There’s an unfortunate view, particularly prevalent in the UK, that Bordeaux wines fall into only two categories – those sold at super-premium prices for the obscenely rich, and those that are little more than execrable filth. The truth is that there are many

  • That Gruner won't bite, Pete!

    Oh Balls! (Or how customer service saved the day)

    Simon J Woolf   

    Picture the scene – four old friends, and we’ve just passed a convivial evening in a restaurant. It’s Thursday night, 9.30pm, no-one’s ready to go home but at the same time a change of scenery is called for. Oh yes, and we’d like good wine please. The trouble is, we’re in Victoria. A quick look on

  • Pigs trotter on the conveyor belt

    The veritas crudo of prosciutto

    Simon J Woolf   

    I rarely write about food on this blog – that’s not due to a lack of interest, but rather just a matter of focus – this is a wine blog, after all. But following a recent trip to San Daniele di Friuli, to sample wines and enjoy the famed local prosciutto, I felt compelled to

  • Sherry Maestro No.22

    Simon J Woolf   

    Sherry seems to be going through a mini-renaissance right now, after decades of being banished to the backwater of granny’s christmas cupboard. It is after all one of the few real bargains of the wine world – complex, characterful, consistent and often aged for a decade or more, yet entry level examples in most styles

  • 1
  • 2
  • Next
All content © The Morning Claret, except where noted | Registered in the Netherlands KvK 65405218 | Privacy Policy