Trevor Clough is the owner and head blender at Digby Fine English based in West Sussex, England. Digby is a sparkling wine brand, and they’re the first wine producer to operate under the négociant, or blending house, model in England. This means they source their grapes from growers in places like Kent, Sussex, and Dorset, and blend […]

Frederick Stevenson is the brainchild (and longtime alias) of Steve Crawford. Steve launched this small-scale winery based in Adelaide, Australia as an antidote to the industrial scale and trophy winemaking that he felt had overwhelmed the Aussie wine scene. What Steve prefers to make and drink are the fresher, livelier styles he had become accustomed to […]

Australia’s Riverland is an area known for its high-volume production, and, when combined with areas like Murray-Darling, is often considered The Land of Yellow Tail. But Ashley Ratcliff of Ricca Terra is changing that. For Wine Enthusiast, Christina Pickard writes, “Today, Ratcliff’s farm is planted to 46 different grape varieties across 10 vineyard sites covering […]

In this episode, you'll hear how John came to be known for his textural whites, and how he learned to embrace a model for winemaking that fit his terroir (read: not trying to be a copy/paste version of Bordeaux or Burgundy). You'll also hear John's take on why getting South African wine to be mainstream in the US is still an uphill battle, as well as his adoration for Japan and, yes, McDonalds... 

Alder Yarrow recently published a piece for Vinography called “Putting South African Chardonnay in a Global Context,” in which he positioned South Africa against some of the world’s great Chardonnay regions (Chablis, Sonoma, etc.). Among those reviewed was the 2020 Van Loggerenberg “Break a Leg” Chardonnay, which Yarrow calls “bright and delicious.” Read more here.

Today's episode is with Alastair Reed of Konpira Maru, which is based in the Whitlands subregion of the King Valley in Victoria, Australia. In this episode you’ll hear what Konpira Maru really means (no, it’s not a Japanese whaling vessel) and how owner Alastair Reed and his former student-turned-business partner Sam Cook almost turned Konpira Maru into a Sherry company. We’ll talk a bit about the grapes and the geography of Australia, and why “diner pepper shaker” is the only kind of pepper aroma Alastair and Sam ever seek to extract from their grapes.

James Suckling recently compiled a list of his top Australian wines in his 2022 Annual Report, highlighting Sami-Odi’s Shirazes as some of the “most exciting wines we tasted, with their fresh and structured palates and hemmed-in alcohol.” Suckling continues, “The texture and clarity of Sami-Odi shiraz, vintage-dated and blended, are seductive and memorable. You really […]

Tim James, one of South Africa’s most lauded wine writers, details a few older-vintage wines he recently opened. Thorne & Daughters was in the line-up; of the 2017 Rocking Horse Cape White Blend, he writes that it “didn’t seem “older” at all; it’s developing nicely, with a good few years to go. Always one of […]

Today's episode is with Tim Wildman of Wildman Wines​. At Vine Street Imports, we import his two "sibling" pét-nats to the US. In this episode, you’ll hear about Tim’s experience becoming a Master of Wine and why he chose to build his business around pét-nat. You’ll hear some hot takes on how he thinks Australia has yet to make its best wine, and you'll hear why he doesn’t think the wine industry should waste its time "demystifying" wine.