Jefford on Monday
![The existential winegrower](/assets/images/article/full/remote_columnists-andrew-jefford-existential-winegrower.jpg)
The existential winegrower
[Andrew Jefford] Making good wine is a free act of self-definition; it doesn’t seem fanciful to suggest that what we like in the taste of wine is the taste of this freedom.
![Of tourists and toadstools](/assets/images/article/full/remote_columnists-andrew-jefford-wine-tourism-domaine-virgile-joly-slide.jpg)
Of tourists and toadstools
[Andrew Jefford] New consumers have the money, leisure and desire to visit, explore and learn. As a result, visitor pressure has grown with toadstool velocity. For many producers, indeed, it’s reached crisis levels.
![The great grape census](/assets/images/article/full/remote_columnists-andrew-jefford-great-grape-census.jpg)
The great grape census
[Andrew Jefford] This new database charts exactly what varieties are grown in which regions around the world; readers can also follow major planting trends around the world during the first decade of this new century.
![The Sancerre gauntlet](/assets/images/article/full/remote_columnists-andrew-jefford-sancerre-corks.jpg)
The Sancerre gauntlet
[Andrew Jefford] As a message of the general dissatisfaction which I’ve heard repeatedly expressed towards the INAO over the past three years, though, the Sancerre challenge is clear.
![‘It's our year!’](/assets/images/article/full/remote_columnists-andrew-jefford-fine-summer-weather-fitou-june-2013.jpg)
‘It's our year!’
[Andrew Jefford] For many French winegrowers, 2013 has been a catalogue of anguish. But for Languedoc, it is a good vintage.
![Nutt Slammer, anyone?](/assets/images/article/full/remote_columnists-andrew-jefford-star-trek-nemesis-wine-scene.jpg)
Nutt Slammer, anyone?
[Andrew Jefford] Professor David Nutt and his colleagues had developed the synthetic alcohol substitutes.
![The last trees in the forest](/assets/images/article/full/remote_columnists-andrew-jefford-seppeltsfield-cellar-slider.jpg)
The last trees in the forest
[Andrew Jefford] When you taste that fortified wine and others like it, you have to ask yourself: could Barossa Shiraz ever make a better wine than this is?
![Of jellyfish and guardsmen](/assets/images/article/full/remote_columnists-andrew-jefford-gewurztraminer-alsace.jpg)
Of jellyfish and guardsmen
[Andrew Jefford] If we were to regard place and the cultural traditions of place as the primary translators of wine flavour, and variety as secondary and anecdotal, we’d be wiser wine lovers.
![The Gobi wine mystery](/assets/images/article/full/remote_columnists-andrew-jefford-vineyard-workers-ch-hansen-wuhai-inner-mongolia-slider.jpg)
The Gobi wine mystery
[Andrew Jefford] Once the enormous vineyard challenges are overcome, and a couple of decades of experiment has got underway to match site and variety, then the Gobi desert vineyards of Ningxia and Wuhai may surprise us all.
![A sexennial treat](/assets/images/article/full/remote_columnists-andrew-jefford-the-world-atlas-of-wine-7th-edition.jpg)
A sexennial treat
[Andrew Jefford] One harvest every six years deserves a little comment, especially when the crop is the most useful single volume on wine ever published - The World Atlas of Wine.