The Joseph Report

Raise a glass to the outsiders who've shaken up the wine world

2014-11-09T15:45:00.002+01:00

Greg Lambrecht What does Greg Lambrecht have in common with Herbert Allen, Dennis L Burns and Elon Musk? He's used his experience in one industry to start a revolution in another. Musk, for those who haven't come across him made a fortune by co-founding PayPal before risking a lot of it on Tesla, the first serious electric automobile manufacturer.

Learning from Majestic - A request for cash

2014-11-09T15:20:00.000+01:00

I need a new battery for my MacBook Air laptop. Please would you send me a pound* to help to pay for it. I understand that the previous basis of our relationship was that I supply you with these words for free, but this is a one-off payment. Really. Honestly. And those of you who choose not to contribute won't be treated any differently from the ones who do. Any suggestion that

Why the Tesco story is part of a bigger UK retailing picture

2014-10-29T19:51:00.001+01:00

Following today's news that the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) is moving in on the Tesco £263m auditing 'black hole', I suspect that several people I know and like will be feeling quite apprehensive at the prospect of some serious official questioning. There is something in this story - from what has emerged so far - that's rather reminiscent of the scandal that surrounded the British

Pontet Canet or Francois Hollande? Which do you respect?

2014-10-24T10:21:00.000+01:00

Picture from the Independent Francois Hollande is currently le Président de la République Française. He enjoys an approval rating of 13%. His illustrious title doesn't seem to be doing him much good. People are judging him by what they see. From Decanter The 2012 vintage of Les Hauts de Pontet, Château Pontet Canet's second label has just lost its AOC/AOP status. My guess is that

Tesco: the giant canary in the mine

2014-10-24T08:29:00.002+01:00

'Commercial income' like 'collateral damage' is one of those attractively anodyne expressions that hides a decidedly unpleasant reality. In the UK, even some of the most sophisticated members of the business community have only just been introduced to this term that neatly covers all the cash that retailers extract from their suppliers rather than from the more expected source: their

In praise of hobbyhorses

2014-10-23T10:48:00.002+01:00

"Get off your hobbyhorse..."; "Stop banging on..."; "Can't you just change the subject..." Pity the people who had to spend time with William Wilberforce when he was going off on yet another of his tirades about why it was wrong to turn darker-skinned people into slaves. Or Emily Pankhurst's dinner companions as she launched into one of her speeches about why women ought to be

Sex and wine

2014-10-22T08:38:00.001+01:00

Original image to be found here As I write this, somewhere in the world, millions of people are having sex. Making love. Shagging. Fucking. Having intercourse. Enjoying conjugal rights. (Interesting how many different terms we have for the same activity). Some are enjoying it a lot more than others - including the people with whom they're actually doing it. There are those for whom it's a

Crimea and Punishment

2014-10-20T14:21:00.001+01:00

Ok, first things first. Crimea is legally part of Ukraine and Ukraine is not part of Russia. And, speaking as someone who has both just read Sebastian Haffner's Defying Hitler, a brilliant, blood-chilling contemporary account of the apparently inexorable rise of the Nazis in the 1930s, and had a number of very worrying illiberal conversations with Russians today, I think we really do

The shrinking shelf, and what Dr Who has to teach the wine world

2014-10-16T03:02:00.000+01:00

The famous Dr Who Tardis. Most wine producers seem to imagine that retailers' shelves and store-rooms are miraculous places that resemble the Tardis in Dr Who. For those unfamiliar with this UK cult BBC TV series, the Tardis resembles an old British police box used by the eponymous hero to travel in time and space. Seen from the outside, it scarcely takes up a square metre of space.

The way I think...

2014-10-14T14:21:00.002+01:00

I'm often struck by other people's - especially wine people's - difficulty in coming to terms with the way I think. Why, they wonder, do I always have to bang on about all the things I think are wrong with the status quo? Leafing through this week's Financial Times, I was surprised and delighted to come across an answer to that question - in an interview with one of my literary heroes

Time, Money and Wine. A personal theory of relativity

2014-10-11T18:12:00.001+01:00

Poster by Viktor Hertz Time and money are both rather peculiar. They each share the odd quality of being simultaneously absolute and relative. Anyone who has ever lacked the means to pay a bill, or the time to complete a task, knows all about the implacability of an empty wallet or vacant top half of an hourglass. But... then there's the relativity. The way that five minutes can feel like

Sex, Shopping, Wine... and Aldi

2014-10-11T18:12:00.000+01:00

Like 99.9999% of the rest of my fellow human beings, I have no idea how Google gets the numbers it does on its 'results', but I have to say that the idea of three hundred million sites sharing "sex and shopping" does strike me as a little strange. How and why did a pairing of these - to my mind at least - rather different activities come to be of even passing interest to so many people?

Why Tesco's woes are raising a cheer in Germany

2014-09-26T08:57:00.000+01:00

A small - or possibly fairly sizeable - bomb may be about to explode in the heart of UK retailing. In the wake of the revelation that Tesco, the country's biggest grocer, had overstated its latest profit warning by a cool £250m and the reported suspension of several of its top executives, there is a strong likelihood that the company may have to face some very tough questioning. And so may

Drinking the Kool Aid

2014-08-29T21:08:00.000+01:00

From strangecult.com Every so often, somebody gives me a phrase I really can't let go of. UK-born PR person, Louise Hurren, who earns most of her living by helping small Languedoc producers gain some kind of visibility outside their region, did precisely that when she used the expression "I guess I must have drunk the Kool Aid, because I felt utterly enthused about – well, everything"

Sackbuts and Sauvignons - why ancient isn't enough

2014-08-29T17:17:00.001+01:00

Curious ad, by courtesy of "Tom" on Flickriver What kind of music do you most enjoy listening to? Do bagpipes, sackbuts and recorders feature heavily? Do you drink much mead? Do you wear wooden clogs? A few of my multitude of readers across the globe may have a positive answer to at least one of these questions, but only a few. A somewhat larger number - including the keenest classical

Why oh why no WiFi?- an open letter to hotels across the globe

2014-08-24T05:07:00.001+01:00

Cartoon from blog.rottenwifi.com. Rottenwifi is an apparently useful app I discovered after writing this post. Dear hoteliers, I know from my own experience of trying to run an office and home that maintaining a WiFi - or indeed any internet - service that works reliably, consistently and at a good speed isn't easy. And I understand the challenges of offering WiFi to unpredictable

When 15% may not even be enough...

2014-08-23T22:27:00.003+01:00

The old vine Mallorcanwine that helped memake it through thenight. What do you do when you are alone in foreign land and you're trying to make sense of the fact that, a few hours earlier, you've watched a coffin containing your mother's body slide into a crematorium furnace? This, as you may have guessed, isn't a hypothetical question. I'm writing this at 10pm in Palma de Mallorca, the

Who really made money out of Rudy Kurniawan's fake wine?

2014-08-09T11:40:00.001+01:00

... A key question for many fine wine collectors now is where the rest of Kurniawan's fakes are lurking. Some information may yet emerge from billionaire collector Bill Koch, who bought many wines off Kurniawan. The Indonesian has agreed to pay Koch $3m in damages and tell 'everything he knows' as part of an out-of-court litigation settlement. There are fears the pyschological damage

Knowing what's good for you

2014-08-08T14:26:00.000+01:00