The rise and rise of Charles Heidsieck over the past decades and especially the last seven years is unparalleled in the sparkling universe. Three years ago I announced its cuvées to be its finest yet. This year, these deeply contemplative yet thrillingly engaging cuvées have ascended yet another leap and now confidently rank among the […]

Readers of my Australian Sparkling Report 2018 will appreciate that it’s at the affordable end of the market that it pays to be most discerning in your sparkling choices. Sparkling wines are among the most complex, labour-intensive, time-consuming and hence expensive of all wine styles to produce, and it takes an outfit of considerable expertise to […]

I am alarmed and dismayed to report that the positive trend that I observed last year in the effects of natural corks proved to be short lived, and my tastings for my Australian Sparkling Report this year have seen a stark and dramatic return to abominable levels of detrimental influence of corks on wine bottles. […]

The vast continent of Australia boasts an immense diversity of terroirs that give birth to its extensive plethora of sparkling styles. Again in my tastings this year, Tasmania has set the benchmark on every measure. And the diversity even within this one region has never been more pronounced. We don’t much speak of the subregions […]

It’s the week before Easter, the sales are in full force, Bollinger is $64, Taittinger is $50, Lanson is $40 and Piper-Heidsieck is $39. Last year, Australia clocked in as the fastest-growing champagne market on earth by both volume and value. At the height of our champagne frenzy, should we even bother with Aussie fizz? […]

I am very proud to launch my Australian Sparkling Report 2018, the most in-depth report I’ve ever filed on this dynamic category, a 77 page trawl through all the hot topics in Australian sparkling, featuring full reviews of my 120 best sparkling wines of the year of every price and style. As always, I am […]

Australia’s thirst for champagne seemingly knows no bounds, and after fifteen years of strong growth, 2017 has hit a new high as a record-smashing year for champagne consumption down under. An all-time record 8.53 million bottles were popped in 2017, a huge 16% up on 2016. The explosion in ex-cellar value was larger still, mushrooming […]

Together with Musque Food & Wine Owner and Chef Stuart Oldfield and Champagne Louis Roederer, it’s my great pleasure to invite you to join me for a very special champagne soirée in the Barossa Valley. By popular demand off the back of the resounding success of our inaugural Musque Champagne Soirée, we are back, bigger […]

Champagne is the most guarded wine region on earth and one of its biggest secrets is beginning to get out. The age of a bottle of non-vintage champagne has long been a mystery. It’s been impossible to distinguish from the label a fresh, young bottle from a stale one, to track a collection in the […]

Over the course of seven years, hundreds of tastings around the world and more than a dozen visits to Champagne, I have been privileged to taste more than 2,600 cuvées from more than 200 houses, from the very youngest releases all the way back to the grand old vintage of 1830. My list of 100 […]