Jonathan Ray

Mrs Ray is worried. Although she’s finally accepted that I drink too much when I’m out and about or at home with company, she’s fretting that I drink too much tout seul. Some misguided saps regard drinking on one’s own as the start of a very slippery slope, but I believe it to be one

Lunch at the Academy Club with my wicked chums Mark Slemeck and Charlie Grey was probably not the best preparation for tasting a dozen or so wines for this offer from Corney & Barrow. Mark likes his wine but likes his caipirinhas better and Charlie is more of a Pinot Grigio/Newcastle Brown Ale kind of

With a seemingly endless round of lunches, dinners and tastings, it has been a punishing few days of far too much vino. Even dear Mrs Ray expressed her concern, although I thought that a bit rich given the state of her after Book Club. We decided, though, to take it easy, and I even foreswore

Having just turned 65, I enjoyed a week of firsts. My first ever facial and my first ever yoga class progressed to my first ever impedancemetry session, my first ever photobiomodulation session, my first ever hyberbaric chamber session, my first ever cryotherapy session, my first ever sensory deprivation session, my first ever neurofeedback session and

Hurrah! At last, I’ve persuaded the mighty Wine Society to grace our pages, and I’m delighted. Founded in 1874, the WS is the world’s oldest cooperative wine club, famed for sourcing top-quality wines at modest prices and for championing lesser-known regions. I’ve said it before: if, for whatever bizarre reason, I had to buy wine

I’ve been in Vienna, drinking Grüner Veltliner, Zweigelt and Blaufränkisch like a fish. It’s thirsty work being a lush and I also patronised the fabled Loos American Bar rather more often than I should have. It’s such a seductive spot, LAB, and their Corn ’n’ Oils are very fine, and I can never resist a

I know I keep saying it, but Alsace is my favourite of all French wine regions. Heck, it might even be my favourite in all the world. It has everything: a remarkable history, glorious scenery, chocolate box-pretty towns and villages, fabulous food, extraordinarily fine eaux-de-vie and stunning, smile-inducing wines. Oh, my goodness, the wines. Produced

It’s just as well Raffles Doha is so luxurious – there's so much impenetrable technology that I couldn’t work out how to leave.

It has been a punishing couple of weeks, with two Spectator Wine School Masterclasses, a brace of Winemaker Lunches and a cracking Winemaker Dinner with Ch. Pichon Baron in the library of our new venue above Old Queen Street Café, hosted by mighty Christian Seely himself. My old pa, faced with such an onslaught, would

I love champagne and I love English fizz – and long gone are the days when you wouldn’t dare mention both in the same sentence. We Brits can hold our heads up: much of what we make is world-class. I’m delighted, then, that thanks to Honest Grapes, we can feature here one of my all-time