To buy tickets, head to the Spectator Shop. Join us in the Spectator boardroom on Friday 8 November for the next in our series of Spectator Winemaker Lunches with Joseph Phelps Vineyards. Joseph Phelps is a name to conjure with in California and under the expert tutelage of export director, Robert Baxter, we will enjoy the winery’s Freestone Chardonnay, Napa Valley
To buy tickets, head to the Spectator Shop. Join us in the Spectator boardroom on Friday 15 November for the next in our series of Spectator Winemaker Lunches with Domaine Léon Beyer. The gregarious patron, Marc Beyer, a titan of Alsace winemaking, is coming to London specially to host this lunch, bringing with him a fine selection of the Beyer family’s world
To buy tickets, head to the Spectator Shop. Join us in the Spectator boardroom on Friday 22 November for the next in our series of Spectator Winemaker Lunches with Château Grand-Puy Ducasse and Château Meyney. Château Grand-Puy Ducasse (5ème Grand Cru Classé Pauillac) and Château Meyney (St Estèphe) are two of the most familiar names of Bordeaux and we are indeed
To buy tickets, head to the Spectator Shop. Join us in the Spectator boardroom on Friday 29 November for the next in our series of Spectator Beermaker Lunches with Timothy Taylor’s Brewery. Timothy Taylor is one of the UK’s most celebrated brewers, founded in Keighley, West Yorkshire, in 1858 and still family owned. Best known for its Landlord Pale Ale (four
To buy tickets, head to the Spectator Shop. Join us in the Spectator boardroom on Friday 6 December for the next in our series of Spectator Winemaker Lunches with Domaine of the Bee. Domaine of the Bee is a boutique wine estate in Languedoc-Roussillon (‘a tiny producer of enormous reds’) founded by Justin Howard-Sneyd MW, former wine buyer for Waitrose, his
To buy tickets, head to the Spectator Shop. Join us in the Spectator boardroom on Friday 13 December for the next in our series of Spectator Winemaker Lunches with Château Quintus. Château Quintus is an exceptional estate in Saint-Emilion owned by Domaine Clarence Dillon, in whose portfolio it rubs shoulders with Château Haut-Brion, Château La Mission Haut-Brion
To buy tickets, head to the Spectator Shop. Join us in the Spectator boardroom on Friday 27 September for the next in our series of Spectator Winemaker Lunches with Bodegas Artadi. Bodegas Artadi dates from 1981 when Juan Carlos López de Lacalle, his family and 13 other growers founded the estate in Alava in the heart of Spain’s Basque country. Today,
From ‘Low talk’ by John Daniel, 19 July 1963: Everybody has heard of Dr Johnson’s dictionary, which is now not much more than a curiosity piece, while few know Grose’s dictionary, which provides a unique anthology of 18th-century underworld slang… He collected words he remembered from his reading and his night-time excursions about Drury Lane
To buy tickets, head to the Spectator Shop. Join us in the Spectator boardroom on Friday 13 September for the next in our series of Spectator Winemaker Lunches. Ben Howkins is one of the world’s leading authorities on sherry. To mark the publication of his book, Sherry, Maligned, Misunderstood, Magnificent! (published by the Steven Spurrier-led Académie du Vin Library), Ben will introduce us
To buy tickets, head to the Spectator Shop. Join us in the Spectator boardroom on Friday 6 September for the next in our series of Spectator Winemaker Lunches with Journey’s End. Since the Shropshire-based Gabb family took over Journey’s End in 1995, the estate has grown greatly in both size and reputation. The warm days/cool nights of the coastal Schapenberg Hills
To buy tickets, head to the Spectator Shop. We are delighted to announce that the Spectator Wine School’s eight week autumn term will start at 6.30pm on Wednesday 25 September in our boardroom at 22 Old Queen Street. Drawing on the unrivalled expertise of our merchant partners (namely Corney & Barrow, FromVineyardsDirect, Mr Wheeler, Private Cellar and Yapp Bros)
Sajid Javid is Chancellor, Priti Patel is Home Secretary, Dominic Raab is both Foreign Secretary and First Secretary of State Michael Gove becomes Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, his fifth Cabinet job. Matt Hancock remains Health Secretary and Gavin Williamson is Education Secretary. Amber Rudd remains Work and Pension Secretary and Geoffrey Cox stays
Boris Johnson has just delivered his first speech as Prime Minister. On the steps of No.10 Downing Street, Boris hit out at ‘doubters…doomsters (and) gloomsters’ as he pledged to take Britain out of the EU by October 31, ‘no ifs no buts’. ‘The buck stops with me,’ he said. Here is the full video: And
I am about to go to Buckingham Palace to tender my resignation to Her Majesty the Queen and to advise her to ask Boris Johnson to form a new administration. I repeat my warm congratulations to Boris on winning the Conservative leadership election. I wish him and the Government he will lead every good fortune
Barring a huge upset, it seems inevitable that Boris Johnson will be walking through the black door of Number 10 in two day’s time. Once there, he is expected to conduct a sweeping reshuffle of government ministers – appointing his allies and removing members of May’s Cabinet who are opposed to his Brexit strategy. So
On Wednesday afternoon Boris Johnson will meet with the Queen in Buckingham Palace, will be invited to form a government, and then will stroll through the black door of Number 10 as the next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. There, he will officially begin the process of appointing his Cabinet, the ministers who will
Thank you, Cheryl. Thank you, Charles. Thank you very much, Brandon, for a fantastic, well-organised campaign. I think it did a lot of credit, as Brandon has just said, to our party, to our values and to our ideals. But I want to begin by thanking my opponent, Jeremy. By common consent, an absolutely formidable
Leave we must Sir: It is interesting that as the Brexit process drags, people become more distanced from what was a simple decision made at the referendum. The question was stay or leave, and the decision was leave. In last week’s letters, Mark Pender writes that it is a mystery to him why MPs continue
Mars missions When will there be a manned Mars mission? — As early as 1962, Nasa studied the practicalities of a mission to Mars, as part of its Project EMPIRE (Early Manned Planetary-Interplanetary Roundtrip Expeditions). The initial plan was to put a man on Mars by the early 1970s. However, budgetary restraints meant that the
Twenty years ago, the Scottish parliament was reconvened after a lapse of almost three centuries. The logic for devolution was clear enough: that Scotland has discrete issues, and ones that were not always solved by London government. Devolution would allow ‘Scottish solutions for Scottish problems’. There was, in Westminster, a feeling that MPs could worry