As prices enter the stratosphere, wine lovers are looking elsewhere – largely to Germany

‘Some Massandra wines — the toast of tsars — have been shipped with great difficulty to the west’

‘Top-quality dry Riesling is a truly thrilling drink with more pace and variation than white burgundy’

‘There are now 50 Lebanese wine producers — at the beginning of the century there were just 14’

‘Many of us have a Pavlovian reaction to the pop of a cork but guests do not have to be welcomed with fizz’

‘I have had the pleasure of tasting six vintages of Harlan Estate recently . . . some are extremely good’

‘Baroness Rothschild swore that her wines stored in the UK tasted better than those stored in Bordeaux’

‘For the first time in living memory, the St-Émilions fared better than those in neighbouring Pomerol’

‘Adding water to the fermentation vat is not necessarily evil – it can mean a better-balanced wine’

‘It is only worth ageing a wine with lots of tannin if there is enough fruit to support it’

‘Growers who plant Riesling grapes in Bordeaux must sell their wine as geographically vague Vin de France’

‘These producers might not own their vineyards but they make extremely good wine’

OW Loeb, one of the great names of the international wine trade, was bought by restaurateur Marlon Abela in 2014. In the past year, it has suffered a spate of resignations and disputes over payment

‘They have tension and precision but enough fruit to counterbalance the acidity and austerity’

‘Good news: 2016 is a seriously delicious vintage. Bad news: there is a serious shortage of wine’

‘There are times when a half bottle of Champagne is just the job, and what better than Bollinger’ 

‘An arabesque of a wine, very different from vintage port. Long and luscious but not excessively sweet’

‘Too sweet for burgundy but so much more interesting than the average Kiwi Pinot. Glorious’

‘If this brilliant wine were made anywhere else, it would cost twice as much. What a treat’

‘My mother might allow herself a treat of a small glass of amontillado, but only once the gravy had been made’

‘Current vintages of Douro table wines command prices in the region of €60-€90 a bottle’

‘A helicopter was hired to circulate the frozen air and raise ambient temperatures — it worked like a dream’

‘In half of all cases, the vintage champagne was not seen as inferior to the prestige cuvée’