Andrew Jefford

The World of Fine Wine's contributing editor Andrew Jefford, the son of a vicar and eldest of three brothers, grew up in Norfolk, England. He studied English at the University of Reading, then pursued postgraduate studies on Robert Louis Stevenson with Malcolm Bradbury at the University of East Anglia, before working as an editor for Paul Hamlyn’s Octopus Group. In the late 1980s, he got the chance to combine his passions for wine and writing, and since then he has worked as a freelance drinks journalist and broadcaster. He has written several books and has won a plethora of distinctions for his work, including three successive Louis Roederer Awards in 2006, 2007, and 2008, three more in 2010, 2011, and 2012, and another two in 2016 and 2017. The New France was awarded the André Simon award, Lanson award, and Veuve Clicquot USA Book of the Year in 2003. He lives with his family in France, after a stint as a senior research fellow at the University of Adelaide and as wine writer in residence to the Australia Wine 2030 project.

Pepe Raventós 2010 Mas del Serral: Return to the farm

Andrew Jefford is inspired by a single bottle of Pepe Raventós 2010 Mas del Serral Conca del Riu Anoi, an elemental Catalan sparkling wine. The wine’s bright. A pale gold, though true gold for all that: gold

One Bottle: William Fèvre 2016 Petit Chablis Les Crioux

Here’s a shock, in a glass. A step out on deck in a winter gale; a leap into chill water. Once acclimatized, of course, the affront is tonic; you’re glad you risked all. Provocation becomes stimulation; stimulation

One Bottle: 2018 La Madeleine de St Mont, Plaimont, St Mont

I have never walked the long roads to Santiago de Compostela, and perhaps I never will. Were time to jolt, though; were I to tumble back six centuries through a crack in the floor and find myself

One Bottle: 2019 Domaine Pégaline Le Côté Obscur Pic St Loup

Le côté obscur means “the dark side.” Darkness, in these rancorous times, haunts our consciousness and discourse; dark arts have taken public life, of late, to dark places—or so it appears to many. The difficult label of

2019 Château L’Eglise-Clinet: Admirable testament to Pomerol’s mischievous, much-loved sage

Reflections on Denis Durantou and the wines from his final vintage Is it because of informality? (There are no classifications, no official hierarchies here.) Perhaps because the properties are small? Or maybe just luck? I’m not sure,