Champagne and oysters

It’s that time of year. Summer’s finished, the holiday season is over and the drinks industry can look back at the global travel retail (TFWA Cannes) and look forward to Christmas.

Bigging up bulk wine

It's not exactly glamorous. Indeed, as tempting invitations go, it’s up there with the World Remaindered Books Conference, or the Reconstituted Meat Product Exhibition

The serious business of bourbon

This is most odd. I’m standing with two American gentlemen in the corner of a very swish steak bar staring at a surreal painting of what we’re being told is a ship exploding as it sails towards a lighthouse. I think.

The games: a Carnival for Brazil duty free?

I should really know better. It’s the same old story every four years. It’s sunny outside, the lawn needs mowing, the car needs a wash and upstairs in my office I have numerous articles and stories to be getting on with.

The Warren Column: Fire and Ice

Jan Warren weighs up the myriad similarities between bartenders and cooks – and suggests mutual respect

Power to the co-ops

Considering all the different ways that wine gets to be made, the co-operative is the one that seems, at first glance, most out of step with the modern world

Can rum punch its weight in duty free?

Every centimetre of shelf space has to pay its way in travel retail.

Heading off the Christmas avalanche

So here we go again – I got my first Christmas press release on July 25.

The force is strong with single malt

It’s all too easy to forget these days that blended scotch whisky remains top dog, accounting for more than 90% of the whisky sold worldwide.

Diageo has momentum

The chief executive of the world’s largest premium drinks company expressed satisfaction at the company’s progress at a briefing to journalists and city analysts yesterday (July 28) following the announcement of its end of year results.

The schlock of the new

It may go against my better nature and political persuasion, but I have to admit that I love new stuff

What a difference a year makes

Do you have a recurring nightmare? Mine is very specific. I am speaking before an audience who are just staring at me in total silence. I finish my speech and everyone just stares. I ask for questions. Nothing. I start going red, and redder, and redder…

Uncertain times

These are certainly uncertain times we are living in - 51.9% of those who voted in the UK referendum voted for us to leave the European Union

At the airport it’s always five o’clock

Every time I take an early morning flight from a UK airport in the peak summer travel period it’s always the same

Spirit of Brazil has its day

Have you noticed just about every alcoholic drink has its own designated day?  What’s that about? Do the people who create these days think it makes a blind bit of difference in the way their target consumers treat the drink on its own special day?

None of the fun of the fair

What is the point of a wine trade fair? it’s a question that can take on an almost existential quality when, let’s say, you’re wrestling with the 3am demons in a hotel room with wafer-thin windows overlooking a roaring périphérique in the light-industrial banlieues of a Fench city.

The future of New Zealand wine

A smattering of the great and the good of the UK wine trade turned up for a debate last Tuesday (June 14), 6300.photo.2.jpgtitled ‘What direction should New Zealand winemaking take for the future’, sponsored by Villa Maria and arranged by its UK agent, Hatch Mansfield.

Brexit and travel retail

It’s the elephant in the room topic for travel retail.

EU – in or out?

This time next month we will know if the UK is in or out of the EU.

Shot down in flames

Question: Which of the following is NOT a valid style of music? Grunge, grime or grit? It is of course grit, grunge being a somewhat passé form of scuzzy rock and grime a beat-based style evolved from British garage music and jungle. We all knew that, right?

When brand trumps vineyard

Before mid-April, when it was acquired by Constellation in a $285m deal, I can’t say I was all that familiar with the Prisoner Wine Company

Cognac: crisis? What crisis?

THERE’S NO GETTING AWAY FROM IT – cognac has taken a pasting in duty free over the past couple of years.

Emerging markets: DIY or die

The menu arrives. It’s what you’ve come to expect from the modern bar – banana butter fat washing, smoke-injected spirits, aromatic mists, lavender foam – except you are in Yangon.

Convivial circumstances

The purchase of Bibendum PLB by Conviviality, operators of Bargain Booze, Wine Rack and wholesaler Matthew Clark, is another development in the continuing consolidation of the UK wine trade.

The price of greed

I know this sounds like the start of a joke, but I walked into a London pub the other day and asked for a pint of lime and soda.

India finally gets hearts racing

China has dominated the thoughts of the travel retail industry’s decision makers for much of the century.

What comes naturally?

There’s no doubt part of the attraction of natural wine, both for makers and consumers, is the anti-establishment image.

Gems emerge from the Emerald Isle

The Irish ambassador wasn’t just happy, he was positively beaming – and not just because he’d spent the previous hour sampling a range of whiskeys and other irish alcoholic drinks at the embassy in london.

Reports of Oz Wines’ Demise are Exaggerated

David Williams Author and Columnist for UK National newspaper, The Observer.

Canada goes small for growth

You need deep pockets to make a buck in travel retail these days. 

Worrying statistics and a time bomb

They say there are lies, damned lies... and statistics. You betcha. The other day I spent an hour helping a Canadian statistics company check its results for the UK drinks market.

Great white dopes

The relationship between a writer and  a public relations person is a little like that between a great white shark and a pilot fish. 

High rollers still spend big

FOR SOMEBODY WHO WRITES ABOUT travel retail for a living I have to admit my purchases on the move are often rather modest. 

A Tale of Two Industries

We all have our overused words. ‘Sorry’ inevitably takes this passive-aggressive Englishman’s top spot.

What lies ahead for duty free in 2016?

What does January have going for it? Not much in my experience – a sprinkling of quickly broken New Year’s resolutions, scrimping and saving after the Christmas festivities and, in the UK at least, grey skies and driving rain. 

Oblix at the Shard

It’s a bit of a labyrinth to get in but like an Egyptologist finally breaking into a pharoah’s tomb, it’s well worth the effort. The views are stunning and if my visit is anything to go by, the drinks and service are well worth experiencing as well.

A nail in whisky regions’ coffin

Light, floral, sweet and fruity aren’t the first words that spring to mind when it comes to describing the city of Glasgow.

Champagne welcomed on English soil

When the news emerged that Taittinger had become the first champagne house to take the plunge in the English wine business, the most immediately striking thing about it was how happy the natives were with the development.

The curious case of Champagne Jayne

THE STORY OF CHAMPAGNE Jayne v the Comité Interprofessionnel du vin de Champagne (CIVC) has all the makings of a film. Sadly, it wouldn’t be a fun frothy comedy like Champagne Charlie, that British wartime comedy that was named after the song inspired by the dandified founder of Charles Heidsieck.

Christmas could be a hard sell this year

So here we are again. At the back end of the year in the make or break season that will decide what sort of year our pubs, bars, clubs and restaurants are going to look back upon.

Di's Christian Davis on John Walker Private Collection

I would describe myself as a pretty traditional journalist, trained up to be suitably and sufficiently cynical and sceptical. Nevertheless, I cannot help but feel rather honoured to be yet again invited to a special tutored tasting with Johnnie Walker master blender Jim Beveridge.

Climate of discord shakes confidence

Last month duty-free executives headed to the stunning Red Sea-based King Hussein Bin Talal Convention Centre for the annual Middle East & Africa Duty Free Association (MEADFA) Conference. Despite the spectacular setting, the mood there was likely to have been sombre.

The ‘sucker deal’ view of duty free

An article in The New York Times exploring where to find the best duty free bargains in the Americas caught my eye recently.

Virtual Insanity

What possessed me? I shouldn’t have done it. We’ve all been warned about going online at night, specially after a drink. I know where it’ll lead and how grubby and ashamed I will feel afterwards.

Last of the green markets

Business columnist Hamish Smith discusses whether Islamic countries could be the next growth engine of the drinks industry

David Williams: don’t discount the discounters

It was during my first visit to Prowein in 2000 that I first came across the idea of discounters.

David Williams on tastings: It’s not rocket science

An early Monday morning, and the BBC radio newsreader has reached the final item of the 7am bulletin. As is the convention with any news story preceded with an “and finally”, the item is meant to signal a change of pace, offering some light relief. 

Joe Bates: “Truth is to be found in adventure”

Monsieur Bates. Je suis ici!” shouts a leather-clad biker, gesticulating wildly outside the roar and bustle of the Gare du Nord on a sunny October morning.

Is the message getting through?

A few years ago, on the day they banned cigarette smoking in the UK’s pubs, bars and restaurants, I was at a press conference with the new chairman of the Scotch Whisky Association.

Airports need to sort the basics

Over the past year I have heard several people in the travel retail sector grandly refer to their business as the ‘sixth continent’, to underline just how important the channel has become to the drinks industry.