Wine Blind Tasting

Blind tasting begins with wine. It ends by changing the way we pay attention to the world. neelburton.com/2026/07/14/wh…

Bordeaux: one of the world's greatest, and most complicated, wine regions. Fortunately, I've just made my chapter on Bordeaux free to download. neelburton.com/2022/09/26/bl…

Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul. —Oscar Wilde

Pouilly-Fumé is Loire Sauvignon Blanc; Pouilly-Fuissé is Burgundy Chardonnay. But Les Cornets is on Kimmeridgian marl, as in Chablis, & both father & son studied oenology in Beaune. W/ its breadth, restraint & textural depth, this wine is a Burgundy in all but grape. Bon weekend!

Struck by this. El Borde from Bullas, Murcia, oscillates between Chablis, Burgundy & Muscat. Fine, intense, yet ghostly, with a haunting sense of negative space. A wine that challenges every preconception about the whites of southern Spain. Limestone. 700m. 13%.

Viking poets referred to gold as 'the leaves of Glasir'—the tree of solid, shimmering gold that stood directly outside the doors of Valhalla. This Ginkgo, however, is Chinese.

My take on the philosophy of wine—and what people who don't drink it might be missing. neelburton.com/2026/07/10/wh…

This Wachau Riesling is so dense you could be eating a honeycomb. Except that it is, of course, bone dry. Perfect with my kasoori methi chicken tikka.

Blind tasting is one of the best ways to learn about wine, & one of the hardest skills to master. I've made my wine tasting crib sheets free to download, covering classic grape varieties, regions & styles. Use in blind tastings or simply when sipping. neelburton.com/2022/09/26/bl…

From 1ha of old vines in Cravant. Les Clos is not on tuffeau but on poor clay-siliceous soils rich in flint, over red clay—translating into a wine of unusual body, depth & structure, w/ dark fruit, smoky minerality & fine earthy tannins. A standout #Chinon, v old skool, v serious

I think this may be becoming my favourite Kumeu wine. Linestome rather than clay, Hawkes Bay rather than Auckland.

I've just redesigned my two blind wine tasting sheets. Both are free to download from my website: neelburton.com/2022/09/26/bl…

Was looking up the value of flambéing a tarte tatin. Then I noticed that the first photo was mine. I made that 'model' tarte tatin!

A rare taste of Gran Canaria. The volcanic soils in GC are older than in Tenerife, but the varieties & styles overlap so much that it would be v hard, blind, to distinguish between the two. This wine, which is unstabilised & unfiltered, is like a wild Benje—and I love it ❤️

Tea-time

Sitting in my kitchen with all the doors and windows closed, I caught a whiff of cigarette smoke. Went outside to check and found a man smoking in the street, ten metres away, on a windy day. One day, my nose could save my life. Probably not his, though.

Late lunch of fish samosas paired w/ one of Cassis' finest. All chalk, citrus & sea breeze, think Chablis rather than Provence. A rarity—how any wine ever leaves that tourist hotspot is beyond me.

Weirdest wine fact: Catalonia has a two-day annual festival, the Festa de la Fil·loxera, complete with puppets and pyrotechnics, commemorating the arrival of phylloxera in 1887. The louse wiped out 90% of the vineyards, eventually giving rise to… the Cava industry.

I hate these huge kitchen clocks—because the aim of living is, in fact, to step outside of time.

Keep returning to this Vulpes Chenin, from a high-altitude vineyard in the Citrusdal Mountains, near Eben Sadie’s Skurfberg vineyards. Rosa Kruger introduced winemaker Nuschka de Vos to the once-neglected site. Just 1,200 bottles of the 2024 made. 95 points from Tim Atkin.

Vostizza currants (Corinths): tiny, intensely flavoured dried grapes from the northern Peloponnese, with their own PDO—once known as Greece's 'black gold'. Rich, complex & balanced. Liquorice? A grand cru of dried fruit, hiding in plain sight in the baking section. £2 for 375g.