Since 2002, Howard Bilton and David Baverstock, Portugal’s premier winemaker, have partnered to bring to the market a range of outstanding wines under the Howard’s Folly label. Bilton is a businessman hailing from Yorkshire, now living in Hong Kong, an enthusiastic art collector, wine lover and admirer of Portugal’s wines especially from the Alentejo region. Australian-born Baverstock has won the ...

Howard's Folly: The Boutique Producer Leading Portugal's Fine Wine Renaissance

Pascal Agrapart has long been a trailblazer for the small grower Champagne movement that has taken a firm hold within Champagne over the last 20 years. This growing movement has seen a rapid increase in single vineyard terroir expression throughout Champagne; a rise in overall quality working with more "human-size" production levels; and a wide array of variation and individuality ...

Champagne Agrapart – Pioneer of Terroir Expression

David Duband is a producer we have been following with avid interest over the last few years. A firm favourite among the F+R team, we were delighted to welcome him to our London HQ last week to taste through his fantastic range of Burgundies from some of the finest Premier and Grand Cru sites on the Côte d'Or. David’s modern ...

David Duband: A Rising Star of the Côte d'Or

In the midst of this golden age of Burgundy there is so much more to these Cote d’Or slopes than just the Premier and Grand Cru sites cultivated by the established superstars of the region. Le Grappin is a prime example of the new wave of vignerons who have been drawn to Burgundy by that "eureka" moment; that one special ...

Le Grappin: Wines of Site + Soul

This month sees the latest 2012 releases from the mighty Dal Forno estate. A winery that has redefined the boundaries of Amarone, producing wines of extraordinary intensity and finesse every year. We know in the past Dal Forno has not been afraid to declassify their top wine in a vintage they feel is not up to their exacting standards. Thankfully ...

A Visit from Dal Forno

Visiting Domaine Leroy is a highlight on any fine wine calendar and this year seemed ever more fortunate, finding the 2017s as composed as they will ever be, finishing up their last week of élevage in barrel before bottling planned for next week. On top of that Gilles points out that the 2017s have been the most consistently expressive vintage ...

F+R Visits Domaine Leroy

Alex Xu is a fine wine pioneer on a journey to grow compelling Chardonnay and Pinot Noir from his recently planted vineyard (淼庐 Miao Lu) in China's mountainous, southwesterly province of Yunnan. His approach to winemaking is rooted in a love for the place and the process, taking him on adventures across the world of fine wine to perfect his craft. ...

Adventures in Winemaking: Establishing a Vineyard in Yunnan

March is another busy month at F+R HQ with a treasure trove of releases from around the world of fine wine. One of the biggest highlights this month comes from Champagne, in the form of the long-awaited Bollinger Grande Année from the exceptional 2008 vintage. Dom Pérignon also release their 2006 Rosé which we were fortunate enough to taste earlier ...

New Releases Not To Be Missed This Month: March 2019

Pieter H. Walser, the man behind BLANKbottle, is one of the most inventive, energetic and productive winemakers in the Western Cape. He produces 30+ cuvees a year, each with its own unique story and presented in a "blank" bottle... well not exactly! The bottles have no mention of varietal but tend to have an artistic interpretation of what’s inside. It ...

BLANKbottle: Introducing the wines of Pieter H. Walser

F+R found themselves in the remote glens of Speyside last week visiting one of Scotland's finest whisky distilleries - Glenfarclas. Glenfarclas remains one of the few family-owned distilleries in Scotland in which all the whisky is produced and aged on site. It is a real family affair with three generations, as well as the production team, all living at the ...

F+R Visits Speyside's Glenfarclas Distillery

Excitement is building for the upcoming release of 2018 Bordeaux with the En Primeur tastings just weeks away. As soon as harvest began we started hearing from relieved vignerons who, after a tough start to the growing season, saw the weather turn in July for an uninterrupted long dry summer right up to picking. As the wine went through fermentation, ...

Bordeaux 2018: Early Vintage Insight from the Producers

Weingut Kracher, one of Austria's finest producers, is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year. Kracher has been hugely influential in raising the reputation of Austrian fine wine and continues to produce wines of the highest quality with staggering consistency. We met with Gerhard Kracher, the third generation of Kracher currently at the helm, to find out the fascinating history of ...

Kracher: Celebrating 60 Years of World-Class Sweet Wines

Roberto Cipresso is a winemaker with a reputation for extreme marginal winemaking; he is determined to push the boundaries of how and where it is possible to produce wine. We made his acquaintance after being introduced to him by the team at Venissa, the unique vineyard located in the Venetian lagoon. Venissa is just one of Roberto’s many winemaking consultancies, with ...

Roberto Cipresso: The Master of Marginal Winemaking

Stéphane Usseglio is the man at the helm of Domaine Raymond Usseglio in Châteauneuf-du-Pape. Understandably he has gained an unrivalled insight into the area surrounding the historic village at the heart of the southern Rhône. Speaking with FINE+RARE, he shares his interpretation of the nuances of Châteauneuf-du-Pape, an appellation so often considered a place of homogeneity, when it is in ...

Rhône 2017: Inside Châteauneuf-du-Pape with Stéphane Usseglio

Following on from our Bordeaux 2018: Early Vintage Insight from the Producers report published last week, we have since received further reports from both Pomerol and Margaux which we wanted to share you with. Château Margaux  Château Margaux sent us a quick note this week stating: “2018 is an incredible vintage. We have produced the most concentrated wines ever and they ...

Bordeaux 2018: Additional Early Vintage Insight from the Producers

Because terroir needs more than just sun and rain Last weekend saw the inaugural Festival del Potatore - Italy's first Vine Pruning Festival - held in the beautiful foothill vineyards of Franciacorta in Northern Italy. The Festival was the brainchild of Marco Simonit and his band of brothers known collectively as “The Pruninguys”; the closest viticulture is probably ever going to ...

Festival del Potatore: Italy's First Vine Pruning Festival

In celebration of Hong Kong Art Week and the vibrant creative energy that transforms the city throughout March, FINE+RARE is playing host to an exclusive fashion event at HOME Hong Kong, from Friday 29th - Sunday 31st of March 2019. For three days only, NYC based apparel brand andagain will be in residence, showcasing their latest capsule collection of bespoke, sustainably focused designs. Described ...

AndAgain Pop-Up Atelier Arrives at HOME Hong Kong

Chateau Brane Cantenac has been a consistent performer in Margaux since Henri Lurton took over the property in 1992. But in the last decade the quality has taken another sharp upswing. Even in a mixed vintage like 2014, Brane produced a beautiful wine. 2015 and 2016 were both outstanding and arguably some of the best wines ever made at the ...

Chateau Brane Cantenac - Behind the Bottle

The Right Bank in 2018 Our first stop was Pomerol, with a visit to Clos du Clocher to taste a number of wines from Jean Baptiste Bourotte. Clos du Clocher is situated in some of the finest Pomerol terroir in the middle of the plateau neighboring Trotanoy and La Fleur Petrus. We have been following the Chateau avidly as quality ...

Bordeaux 2018 - F+R visits Bordeaux for an early vintage insight

There is a great deal of buzz surrounding the 2012 Champagne vintage. What started earlier this year as a few quiet releases of impressive prestige cuvees from interesting producers of all shapes and sizes is quickly growing into the undeniable ‘next big thing’.  After a flurry of hotly anticipated 2008s, it is clear that 2012 is the new Champagne vintage ...

2012 Vintage in Champagne: A Versatile Classic

The Santa Barbara Hills in Southern California (situated just north of LA, beyond Malibu) are currently producing some of the most exciting wines in the whole of California. Whilst less established than Napa Valley or Sonoma further North, this wilder territory has attracted a young generation of winemakers who are not scared to experiment. Just a few decades since the ...

How to Spend 24 Hours in Santa Barbara

Santa Ynez, Santa Rita Hills, Ballard Canyon – these are all wine growing AVAs in the Santa Barbara region of Southern California which, over the last few decades, has seen itself become one of the most interesting and diverse wine growing regions in the US. Despite being further South than the likes of Napa and Sonoma, it is in fact ...

Discover Santa Barbara Wine Country with The Hilt's Matt Dees

Champagne 2012 Spring is well and truly here and as the sunshine makes a reappearance we start to think of upcoming outdoor events and all the wines required to accompany them. Of course, Champagne is an ideal accompaniment and this month sees a host of releases from the 2012 vintage. As it begins to creep onto the market, 2012 is fast ...

New Releases Not To Be Missed This Month: April 2019

Last week we were blessed with a visit to our offices in London from Burgundian legend Nicolas Potel. Listening to Nicolas recant tales of drinking vintages back to 1865, you realise the wealth of experience he has - from growing up in the footsteps of his father at one of Burgundy’s great wine estates, Pousse d’Or, before branching out into ...

Nicolas Potel: A Liquid History Lesson

Reviewing the Bordeaux Barrel Tasting Reports from the Wine Spectator’s James Molesworth dating back to 2010, we can confidently say that Bordeaux 2018 has seen the highest number of potential 100 point scores in the last decade, with a total of five wines awarded 97-100 points. With the benefit of one consistent taster throughout the decade - not to mention a ...

A Sign of Things to Come? Potential 100 Point Wines from Bordeaux 2018

Visiting Chateau Ausone during En Primeur Week, we were fortunate enough to spend some time with owner Alain Vauthier and his son Edouard (who has grown up working at the Chateau) to discuss the changes afoot at Saint-Emilion’s most prestigious address. Chateau Ausone has, without question, been producing some of the finest wines in the world for many decades, but ...

Château Ausone: The Ethereal Estate of Saint-Émilion

The Drouhin-Laguiche relationship has borne beautiful fruit since the fortuitous meeting of Maurice Drouhin and the Marquis de Laguiche during the Second World War; when they met, became friends and decided to combine the Marquis’ ownership of a prime piece of the already celebrated Montrachet Grand Cru and Maurice’s skills as a négociant. Maurice bought two barrels in 1943 and ...

Montrachet Marquis de Laguiche Vertical Tasting with Véronique Drouhin

Every year we taste a huge range of this season's rosé releases, whittling down to the wines we believe are the ideal offering for this summer’s drinking. As the rose market becomes ever more populated with more varying styles we have outlined below two top picks that offer two very contrasting styles of rosé. Castello di Ama’s “Purple” Rose manages ...

Rosé Season: F+R's Top Pink Picks

Venusa artisanal beer is the latest release from the talented craftsmen at Venissa who, thanks to a combination of biological expertise and historical investigation, have created a beer that uniquely represents the flora and fauna of the Venetian islands, as well as rekindling the lost agricultural traditions that made Venice the thriving mercantile centre of Europe during the Renaissance. Venusa ...

Venusa: The New Artisanal beer from the amazing Venissa Heritage Project

The 2018 Bordeaux En Primeur campaign reached new heights this week with the surprise release of one of Saint-Emilion’s top estates - Chateau Angelus. As well as offering a pleasing reduction in price versus their last two vintages, this welcome surprise set the tone for potentially one of the most exciting En Primeur campaigns ever. Last week our first releases ...

2018 En Primeur Release of Pomerol's Chateau Belle-Brise

The first full week of the campaign is now behind us and already we have seen some top wines released. So far the Right Bank has dominated, with Chateau Angelus being the only top Grand Cru Classe released so far, causing huge interest. However, the high scoring, low priced Chateau Laroque was also an incredibly popular choice as was Chateau ...

2018 Bordeaux En Primeur: The Week in Review #2

“The 2017 vintage is the best wine I ever did”…. A bold claim from the larger-than-life Dirk Niepoort - made none the less impactful by the laughing concession that he had said the same of his 2015, 2011 and 2005 vintages. 2005 and 2011 vintages were universally declared, whilst the 2015 was a more limited vintage for declarations from the ...

2017 Vintage Port Release and Vertical Tasting with Dirk Niepoort

With over 50 fine wines designated as originating entirely from Beckstoffer Heritage Vineyards – the Beckstoffer family has been at the forefront of fine wine production in Napa since they bought up and nurtured some of Napa’s finest terroir from the early 1970s onwards. Heritage vineyard sites such as To Kalon which Beckstoffer bought from Beaulieu Vineyards in 1993 is ...

Napa Valley Heritage: Talking Tradition + Terroir with David Beckstoffer

We have been huge fans of the wines from Alvaro Palacios’ Bierzo estate, Descendientes de J. Palacios, for many years and following the latest release of his spectacular 2018s we wanted to look behind the bottle to find out what is so special about these wines and the region of Bierzo. Alvaro Palacios is one of the world’s most respected ...

Behind the Bottle - 2018 Releases from Descendientes de J. Palacios

Meet the Bloomsbury Atelier Co-Founders. Sculptor-turned-Distiller Alan McQuillan and Architect-turned-Industrialist Benjamin Harriman met through exhibiting and practising their respective arts in Bloomsbury, London. It was their common passion for unique materials that reflect the cultures of the world, and the people that define them, which kick-started their working relationship. We sat down with Alan to discuss what inspires and influences ...

Meet The Makers: Bloomsbury Atelier

Destination: Cuba; "the key to the Caribbean", nearly 110,000 km2 with a population of 11+ million. Target: The Cuban cigar. There are few places in the world that can match Cuba when it comes to growing cigar tobacco. The co-founders of Bloomsbury Atelier travelled to the largest island in the Caribbean to find out what makes it so well suited to this ...

The Lighthouse: In Search of Cuban Tobacco

Another busy week of En Primeur with a steady flow of releases from across the appellations. The highlight release of the week had to be Chateau Clinet who produced an outstanding wine in 2018, receiving some of the highest scores ever at the property, yet releasing the wine at a significantly lower price than both its 2015 and 2016 wines. ...

2018 Bordeaux En Primeur: The Week in Review #3

We were fortunate enough to welcome the man, the legend, Eduardo Chadwick into our London offices this week. What made the event even more special was that he opened the 2014 Chadwick Cabernet Sauvignon with us; the first wine from Chile ever to score 100 points. When presenting his range of wines to the team he made a point of ...

Eduardo Chadwick Visits F+R London

Another busy week in Bordeaux with some major releases stirring huge interest from around the world. Chateau Pavie Macquin was one of the top picks in Saint-Emilion in terms of quality and price and the wine unsurprisingly sold out very quickly. Le Dome was another Saint-Emilion hit in 2018 and again its fair pricing combined with huge critic approval saw ...

2018 Bordeaux En Primeur: The Week in Review #4

It was a great pleasure to spend some time over the last few weeks with Omri Ram, the winemaker and viticulturalist at the helm of Chateau Lafleur - first tasting the new 2018 releases with him at Chateau Lafleur and then again on his recent visit to London. Following the tasting it was no surprise to see the spectacular scores ...

Chateau Lafleur - Exploring the iconic estate's unique DNA with Omri Ram

It’s a good thing Dom Perignon’s Vincent Chaperon is an energetic, fit and talkative person. He needed it for a day of back-to-back tastings with trade and press to launch the latest incarnation of the house’s sensational 2002 vintage: Dom Perignon P2 2002. The theme of the launch was "energy and intensity". There was plenty of it in the room ...

Energy and Intensity: Dom Perignon 2002 Plenitude 2 Revealed

The reviews are in. The overall top scorers for the 2018 vintage are Chateau Ausone and Petrus, both sharing an aggregate score of 99.5, with Chateau Lafleur just behind with 99.3. These aggregate scores are compiled from the top Bordeaux expert critics: James Suckling, Lisa Perrotti-Brown (Wine Advocate), Jeb Dunnuck, Jane Anson (Decanter) and Antonio Galloni (Vinous). Out of the ...

2018 Bordeaux En Primeur 2018: Critics' Scores Round-Up

Clos de Sarpe is a rather unassuming place to visit, nestled in a little enclave north east of the village of Saint Emilion. It is in fact a tiny property in Bordeaux terms, made up of just 3.7 hectares and producing a maximum of 14,000 bottles a year, but more often than not, closer to just 10,000. In 2018 they ...

Chateau Clos de Sarpe: Tasting through the Ages

For many of us, Tenerife has more to do with holidays in the sun than fine wine, but there has in fact been a long history of winemaking on the mountain slopes of the northern part of the island, which is much cooler than the tourist hub in the south. The grapes are grown on some of the world's most ...

Tenerife + its Terroir - in conversation with Jonatan Garçia Lima of Suertes del Marqués

The Rauzan Segla 2018 has been met with rave reviews. At what point did you feel you had made a special wine?  It is a long process in a technician's mind as the picture of the vintage is getting clearer and clearer from the picking to the “dégustations d’assemblage” (blending tastings).  Each vintage gives me a particular emotion, the ...

Interview with Nicolas Audebert – Chief Winemaker at Chateau Rauzan Segla, Chateau Canon and Chateau Berliquet

Yesterday we got our first in-depth look at the latest Vintage Ports from 2017. It is a rare event indeed to have two vintages (2016 and 2017) so widely declared back to back. But according to all the top Port houses, the 2017s are without question a match for 2016s, albeit with wines possessing a very different profile.  Even ...

Port 2017: The New Vintage Declaration

Last week we were fortunate to have an extensive tasting with Andrew Tierney from one of Barossa’s most celebrated wineries - Torbreck. The estate is most famous for its two top cuvees, The Laird and Run Rig. The Laird is a rare beast, produced only in exceptional vintages. The latest release is currently 2012. Run Rig is therefore perhaps the ...

Torbreck Run Rig - Behind the Bottle

Following last week’s Bordeaux hiatus due to the VinExpo wine fair in Bordeaux, we expected a busy week to follow. The week saw a flurry of very well priced “value-buy” favourites come out and quickly sell out! This included Chateau Leoville Barton and highly anticipated Domaine de Chevalier. Chevalier has proved to be the ultimate value pick of the vintage ...

2018 Bordeaux En Primeur Round Up #5

Just smelling, let alone tasting, the wines from Daniel Landi, you immediately know you are in some very capable hands. Looking at the pale ruby colour you might be surprised that this wine is 100% Grenache. This earthy, terroir-driven, mineral style Grenache has been described as “the Pinot Noir of the South”, providing amazing flavour complexity, intensity and persistence on ...

Daniel Landi: Grenache growing pioneer of the Sierra de Gredos

We were very lucky to have the Hundred Acre team visit us in our London office last week and to open up some very special bottles from one of Napa’s most celebrated modern wineries. The property was set up just 20 years ago and has very quickly became one of Napa’s most iconic premium estates. The story behind the bottle ...

Behind the Bottle: Hundred Acre

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