In Guangzhou one November, I drank a Beaujolais made only weeks before. Years later in Paris, I tasted a fifteen-year-old from the same region. Both were complete.

My WSET students often ask which book will help them pass. Usually the answer is the one they already have. There is one exception, and it has just arrived at the Atelier.

For years I carried a French phrase about the finish of great wine without understanding it. One evening in Hong Kong, a Condrieu explained it after I had swallowed.

Across Valpolicella, the best grapes of the harvest now rest in the fruttai until December. Italy has put this rite forward to UNESCO, to protect a knowledge handed down through families rather than a method.

The three WSET wine textbooks are now available at Atelier del Vino, Grande Passione's home in Verona. I recommend the Level 3 book, which explains why wines taste the way they do. You need no course to benefit from it, only curiosity and a glass nearby.

Whenever friends visit Venice, I lead them away from the crowds on the waterfront, past the Arsenale, to a convent in Castello. Behind its walls, friars still grow vines.

In Hong Kong, a room of experienced tasters could not agree on acidity, tannin or sweetness. So one week I brought four bottles of water, each holding a single component, and we tasted them one at a time. This is the method that came from that evening, and how to repeat it at home.