MW Perspectives

Question Everything: How to Apply Critical Thinking to Sustainability

2025-09-05T14:45:00Z

Sustainability is everywhere. Environmental concerns permeate every corner of our lives and our industry, from vineyard to cellar to marketing. This was the impetus for my film project, Sustainability: Countdown to 2030, which I created with the cine...(read more)

AI in Wine Education: Help or Hindrance?

2024-09-05T16:15:00Z

From Isaac Asimov’s three laws of robotics, penned in the 1940s, to the dystopian Terminator movies, the first of which was released in the 1980s, hype and panic over artificial intelligence (AI) are nothing new. Yet this can be easy to forget ...(read more)

How Production Methods Influence Fortified Wines

2024-01-05T15:55:00Z

Using examples from around the world, assess how fortified wine styles are influenced by their production methods. A fortified wine has had distilled grape spirit added to it before, during, or after alcoholic fermentation. Historically, grape spirit...(read more)

McLaren Vale’s Grenache Renaissance

2023-05-26T18:40:00Z

How has the perception of Grenache changed in McLaren Vale? What is driving this change? High up in the picturesque Blewitt Springs subregion of McLaren Vale GI, South Australia, stately old bush vines stand sentinel. Small and gnarled, some are over...(read more)

Hungarian Wine Regions in the Shadows

2022-12-16T16:25:00Z

Ask anyone outside Hungary about the country’s wine, and Tokaji and Bikavér (the blend also known as Bull’s Blood) will be top of mind. Furmint may get a mention thanks to the multiyear Furmint February program that has done so muc...(read more)

Australia’s Wine Identity

2022-08-12T17:07:00Z

How has the Australian wine industry developed its identity over recent decades? The Australian wine industry has undergone a great amount of change in a short amount of time. In the 1960s, Australia was a fortified-focused nation; fast-forward ...(read more)

A Cultural Exploration of Wine in China

2022-07-06T22:02:00Z

What are the key factors that shaped the current landscape of the production and sale of wine in mainland China? An exploration of local culture can illuminate how a country’s wine industry took shape and inform an understanding of its current ...(read more)

Making Bulk Wine for Export

2022-06-17T15:45:00Z

What are the key factors a winemaker needs to address when producing bulk wine and preparing it for export? Exporting wine in bulk has been one of the growth areas of the wine industry in the past two decades. While bulk wine can be traded and transp...(read more)

Cabernet Sauvignon in Stellenbosch

2022-05-13T15:01:00Z

What makes Stellenbosch a favorable location for growing Cabernet Sauvignon? A late-budding, late-ripening variety, Cabernet Sauvignon needs warmth to ripen. In Bordeaux, it’s the gravel that plays a major role coaxing the grape to ripeness, wa...(read more)

Study Strategies: Evaluating Wine Quality

2022-04-08T14:40:00Z

For more than one reason, my first-ever IMW trip, taken in 2015, a year after I graduated as a Master of Wine, came as quite a shock. The first was the sheer bewildering pace of the thing: eight days, three Australian states, 11 wine regions, and God...(read more)

Viticulture in Great Britain

2022-03-11T13:30:00Z

What are the main challenges facing growers in Great Britain? Grapevines are not native to the British Isles, and there are no wild examples. It is claimed that the Romans introduced them, although the archaeological evidence for this is almost non-e...(read more)

Research Paper: Wine Retailers & Packaging

2021-07-30T16:11:00Z

The challenges associated with the Research Paper, Stage Three of the Master of Wine Examination, are often underestimated. I have an undergraduate degree in English literature as well as a law degree. I thought my background would have better prepar...(read more)

Science vs. Romance in Wine

2021-06-11T16:00:00Z

Has science taken away the romance of wine? Wine, as a product and as a societal and cultural force, comprises both the scientific and the romantic. It is a substance that is defined by science in that it can be broken down into its biological and ch...(read more)

Comparing Global Marselan Styles

2021-05-14T14:00:00Z

Marselan has increasingly appeared around the world over the past 20 years. Compare and contrast global Marselan styles. How are regional styles developing? In just 30 years, Marselan has progressed from commercial introduction to holding a minor rol...(read more)

Canopy Management in Napa & the Finger Lakes

2021-03-31T14:03:00Z

The United States has many diverse wine regions spread across the country. California’s Napa Valley and the Finger Lakes of New York are on the extremes in terms of climate. How would a vineyard manager handle the differences when looking at ca...(read more)