We caught up with Laure Colombo, the next generation of winemaker in the Jean-Luc Colombo wines legacy. Her vigorous confidence in what she and her wines stand for make this an engaging and informative interview. 

 

Laure has grown up amongst the rich landscape of the Rhone valley in a location that straddles the climates of continental France and the Midi. She has the great energy and confidence of someone who knows what she is talking about, simply because she lives it.

Taking nothing for granted, Laure is investing her energy in growing vines at a higher altitude in Saint Péray. Here, wine production is integrated with a myriad of other living plants and organisms to create harmony and balance using the techniques of permaculture. Her objective is to create an enlarged system of life that will produce food, a home for bees (and many other creatures), as well as beautiful wine.

Tasting Saint Péray with Laure Colombo:

Full article:  Laure Colombo: La Belle De Mai 2012, Saint Péray

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Last week a picture was posted on Twitter of vines in Shabo, a large estate that lies to the west of Odesa on southern Ukraine’s Black Sea coastline. The image seemed benign at face value but the reality, of course, is that the city of Odesa has been bracing itself for attack by Russian forces. 

 

As COVID-19 conspires with the grimmest of winds and rain to force a societal retreat behind our own front doors, the word ennui springs to mind. The muddle of displeasure is pierced when Natalia hands me a large bulbous glass of a liquid I do not recognise.

 

 

Britain’s lamentable exit

On the eve of Britain’s official departure from the EU, my partner and I decided to explore a small town on the Italian Riviera where thewintry cold doesn’t feel so much like cold war bite.

I had warned my significant other that I would be having an inverse departure party, a release of the sanity valve if you like!

 

Sitting inside the ancient castle walls inside the town of Soave, a short drive from Verona in northern Italy, the unique slightly almond aroma of the indigenous grape, Garganega, rises gently from my glass. The castle sprawls up the side of an extinct volcano that gives the region its variant soil structures that mark out the better quality of Soave wines.

 

Tanisha Townsend decided to move to Paris 4 years ago after regularly passing through the city en route to the world’s most famous vineyards. In fact, it was about 2 years ago at the Printemps de Champagne Bouzy Rouge tasting in Reims that I saw (who we shall now refer to as) GirlMeetsGlass chirpily speaking to her web followers on Snapchat.

 

The cathedral in Santiago de Compostela, the final resting place of Saint James, rises out of the landscape, infested with antiquity. The rambling steep streets give way to shafts of dramatic light, emblazoned chapels, and tightly packed tapas bars, dusty, as old novels pressed together in antiquarian bookshops.

 

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