Just in

Articles by Algy Belville

Avatar photo
About Algy Belville

We are delighted to add Algy Belville to our team of writers. Algy was a director of family film Bodgers and Belville , Wine Merchants of St James. He will be contributing a column on wine. Algy lives in Amberley Sussex , is captain of his Crown Bowls team and a local Councillor. More Posts

Sassicaia and the Super Tuscans

Fashion, as in many things, determines price in wine. In my lifetime I have witnessed Bordeaux, then Bourgogne, then the Supertuscans dominate the fine red wine market. The rise of Sassicaiia from a table wine in the 1970s to £150 per bottle now is a case in point. Its production is far more [...]

April 8, 2021 // 0 Comments

Lightweight reds

Readers who share my aversion to heavy alcohol reds have asked to recommend lighter ones. This subject was well covered by Jane MacQuitty in The Times last Saturday and Andrew Jefford of   Decanter. Both recommended as lightweight reds the Austrian Bass Zweigelt and Jane Macquitty the John [...]

March 12, 2021 // 0 Comments

The proof is in the alcohol

The other day I opened up a bottle from my cellar of Barberesco – Piero  Busso was the winemaker and it was called Gallina. I saw that is was 14.5% alcohol and two glasses of it gave me a headache for the following day. I did a kindness for a friend on the Rust and he wanted to thank me with [...]

March 10, 2021 // 0 Comments

A virtual wine tasting

Last Sunday was something of a first: a virtual wine tasting. I invited about 12 people but with  declines and dropouts the final number was 6. The day before I spoke to the wine tutor and event organiser expressing a concern that the group might be unfamiliar with the technology which was not [...]

December 16, 2020 // 0 Comments

Barolo and Barberesco

Last night I went to a tasting of the two finest wines of Piedmont – Barbaresco and Barolo.  Both big expensive wines. Piedmont is surrounded by the Alps and almost every vineyard is on a slope. It’s truffle country with hazelnut trees where rice is grown too. The main grape is [...]

October 8, 2020 // 0 Comments

Left Bank of Bordeaux

Last night we tasted the wines of the left bank of Bordeaux. Our tutor began with a lecture on the history of the wine region. 2000 years ago the Romans introduced wine there.  However the real breakthrough came some 1600 years  on. The Dutch irrigated the Medoc basin and Bordeaux started to [...]

September 30, 2020 // 0 Comments

The price of and on expectation

A good friend of mine who is a well-informed wine connoisseur has been preparing a list of wines from his favoured suppliers. The first list was priced between £8 and £24. The second was more expensive going up to £38. I have yet to taste the second batch but I made the point to my friend that [...]

June 20, 2020 // 0 Comments

Hahah! Don’t believe everything you read in the media

Those in the traditional newspaper and television industry around the world – never mind dedicated online news sites and the big battalions of social media which daily push out clips, rumours, fake news items and hilarious You’ve Been Framed-type “fails’ and cock-ups, any of [...]

May 5, 2020 // 0 Comments

Getting a taste for it

The drinking and appreciation of wine is arguably one of the great hobbies of Man. There’s been a lot of it about for tens of millennia and who could argue that relaxing over a glass of something rather special isn’t one of the great pleasures of life? I’m certainly not going to. Across the [...]

November 23, 2019 // 0 Comments

A wine tasting with a difference

The local wine tastings I irregularly attend are as interesting for the effect of the wine as their quality. Last night we had a private cellar evening where attendees brought their own wine as well as the wine tutor. There were ten present and at first a certain awkwardness as the wine tutor was [...]

November 15, 2019 // 0 Comments

1 2 3 4 5

Copyright © 2026 The National Rust | Design by Premonition