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Posted on by Simon J Woolf

Honing the human touch

Posted on by Simon J Woolf
Simon J Woolf sets out his stall on how wine writers will ultimately survive AI, and even thrive from it. While it will not make us redundant – far from it – we need to work out how it best fits into our workflows, without allowing it to do the writing, which remains our greatest strength, he opines. It takes a brave person to stand up in front of six publishers and ask them whether they would co...
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Let’s talk about… Keeping afloat?

Posted on by Helen Savage
In our online Circular seminar on the crisis facing French vignerons, Helen Savage, sets the scene by showing the seriousness of La crise viticole, before concentrating on case studies on how three wineries are faring. A highlight of the session is Helen’s interview with Fanny Rey of Domaine des Graves d’Ardonneau, who left the prospect of a career as an opera singer behind to return to a family w...
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How AI is advancing ampelography

Posted on by Dr José Vouillamoz
From DNA to data, artificial intelligence is beginning to read the vine, according to grape geneticist and ampelographer Dr José Vouillamoz, who also explores whether it will also decide its future. The possibilities are boundless, with an electronic nose already being used to classify cultivars, and Vouillamoz, one of the world's leading authorities on grape variety origins through DNA profiling,...
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From the Chair: Help another wine writer in 2026

Posted on by Meg Maker
In her column this month, Circle Chair Meg Maker encourage members to help and mentor colleagues as their New Year’s resolution for 2026. Wine as a category is experiencing myriad existential threats: climatic, meteorological, social, cultural, financial. It’s a destabilising time, but as wine commentators our role is to help make sense of it all, prying apart false and shaky claims, dismantling ...
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Perusing Planeta’s broad and colourful palette of Sicilian wines

Posted on by Robert Smyth
Robert Smyth takes a tour through Sicily’s wine regions while visiting Planeta, a prolific producer with vines and wines spanning the large Italian island.  After having long enjoyed Planeta’s wines from afar, it was a wonderful to finally get the opportunity to visit them in Sicily, and also catch up with their Hungarian winemaker Patricia Tóth. Driving up the winding roads to Planeta’s winery ...
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Age like a fine rośe

Posted on by Dominic Buckwell
Libertation Tardive, in tandem with renowned rosé expert and Circle-member Liz Gabay MW, take a deep dive into the question of how well refined rośe can age. Dominic Buckwell, a co-founder of the aforementioned organisation, whose mantra is “Great wines take time”, and also a Circle-member, reports. In October 2025, the not-for-profit organisation called Liberation Tardive, co-founded by myself, ...
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Old vine time is nigh

Posted on by Amanda Barnes
To access this post, you must purchase Premium Friend of the Circle (inc one-off joining fee) or 2026 Premium Friend of the Circle (current Friends renewal only/April), or log in.
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All change in Alsace

Posted on by Sue Eames
Sue Eames scopes and scans Alsatian soils, studying how the different grapes varieties perform in them, and also senses the strong shift to organic and biodynamic farming. Back in March, I was lucky enough to be invited on the Association of Wine Educators’ visit to Alsace, and found it be a region that has changed dramatically since when I last visited in 2022. We learnt so much about how the di...
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All hail Acadie Blanc

Posted on by Jochen Erler
To access this post, you must purchase Premium Friend of the Circle (inc one-off joining fee) or 2026 Premium Friend of the Circle (current Friends renewal only/April), or log in.
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