TMG Blog

A single ornate Champagne bottle in a velvet lined presentation box beside a plain unmarked bottle without packaging — Story costs more than the wine
Buying Guide

Where the money goes in a prestige cuvee Champagne

Six or eight times the price separates a house's standard Brut from that same house's...
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Thirty champagne flutes arranged in tight rows across a long dark table, two unopened bottles and an ice bucket at one end — Buy one bottle per two guests
Buying Guide

How much Champagne to buy for a party of thirty

Ask five people how much Champagne thirty guests will drink and five confident numbers come...
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Several Champagne corks from different years laid beside a blending glass of pale straw wine and a wine thief on dark wood — NV Champagne is the house style
Buying Guide

Non-vintage Champagne is the wine a house is built on

The non-vintage bottle is the cheaper one, so it gets read as the lesser one...
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A single unlabelled Champagne bottle beside blending beakers holding different straw coloured wines and a folded vineyard map — A grower label is not a discount
Buying Guide

Grower Champagne is not automatically the cheaper bottle

Grower Champagne is supposed to be where the value hides — small farmer, own grapes,...
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Two champagne coupes on a dark slate board, a dosage vial and a small mound of raw sugar cubes beside a used cork and wire cage — Extra Dry is sweeter than Brut
Buying Guide

Why Extra Dry Champagne is sweeter than Brut

Extra Dry is sweeter than Brut. Sec is sweeter than both. The words on a...
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A folded paper chart with faded grid lines curls beside a glass of deep red wine and a magnifying glass — A vintage chart hides the range
Bordeaux

What a vintage chart hides behind a single score

Ninety-six sits beside one year on the chart, eighty-seven beside the year next to it,...
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Two matching Bordeaux bottles with different coloured capsules stand close on dark wood beside a rolled vineyard map — Second wines are not always cheap
Bordeaux

Second wines: when the same cellar is a bargain and when it is not

The pitch writes itself. Here is Carruades de Lafite, made by the same team, in...
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Two unlabelled Bordeaux bottles rest together, one dusty with an aged cork half drawn, the other freshly capsuled — Now wine and cellar wine differ
Bordeaux

Bordeaux to drink now and Bordeaux to keep are different buys

Buying Bordeaux to drink and buying Bordeaux to keep are two different activities. They use...
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A modest unlabelled Bordeaux bottle stands beside a stack of coins and a plain wooden crate on a rustic table — Value sits in Cru Bourgeois
Bordeaux

Cru Bourgeois is where the value sits in Bordeaux

Cru Bourgeois sits on a label like a consolation prize, and that is roughly how...
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Four terracotta dishes in a row hold different soils, pale gravel, dark clay and mixed pebbles — Gravel splits the four communes
Bordeaux

How gravel and clay separate the four Medoc communes

Margaux, Pauillac, Saint-Julien, Saint-Estephe. Four names on four labels at roughly the same money, and...
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Two glass cylinders hold pale gravel stones and dense reddish clay side by side on a low table — Gravel and clay pick the grape
Bordeaux

Left Bank and Right Bank Bordeaux: the soil decides the grape

Left Bank is Cabernet Sauvignon, Right Bank is Merlot. Every wine list repeats it, every...
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Five Bordeaux bottles lined up by height on a stone ledge, foil capsules blank, a brass scale and loose coins beside them — 1855 ranked price, not quality
Bordeaux

The 1855 Bordeaux classification is a price list, not a ranking

One shelf, two Bordeaux at roughly the same money. The label on the left carries...
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Recent Post

Macallan TIME : SPACE Sherry Cask and Mastery
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Producer Guide
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Burgundy
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