I hear that Tim Atkin is the latest victim of the recession, downsizing, dumbing down - call it what-you-will. Tim is one of the UKs more readable wine writers and his weekly column in the Observer was always worth taking in. Now it is to be reduced to a handful of wine recommendations aka the Sunday Times and Sunday Telegraph who have also dispensed with their regular columnists.
Since my January detox I have reduced my consumption of alcohol considerably and almost totally cut out sugar apart from its natural manifestation in healthy cool climate fruit: apples, pears, blueberries, raspberries. I found that my taste has changed and that anything with sugar, especially if I sample processed foods like my children’s breakfast cereal, now tastes incredibly sweet. This also applies to wine where I have become super-sensitive to residual sugar when I taste. I always disliked the residual sugar in certain New World wines, considering it a fraud. Now I loathe it.