Dirk Niepoort has had a profound and lasting impact on the Portuguese wine industry as well as the global wine scene. As outspoken as he is opinionated, he’s widely regarded as one of its most talented winemakers and profound thinkers. Listen to us chat about the Douro Valley’s table wine revolution, his search to combine tradition with innovation and why failure is “part of the process of getting better”. To read more about Dirk, have a look at his  website. You can also follow him on Instagram @niepoortvinhos  Don’t forget, Cork Talk is now available on Spotify. You can listen to this week’s episode, plus my back catalogue of interviews with some of the world’s most extraordinary wine figures. 

The first print run of Karen MacNeil’s The Wine Bible ran to just 700 books. A wild underestimation, given it’s sold more than a million copies to date. To celebrate the publication of the magisterial third edition this week, I caught up with Karen to talk about her remarkable back story as a runaway street kid, the importance of humour in wine writing, the difference between a good and great wine and how, as a generalist, she keeps up the ever-expanding wine world. To read more about Karen, have a look at her website. You can also follow her on Instagram @karenmacneilco.  Don’t forget, Cork Talk is now available on Spotify. You can listen to this week’s episode, plus my back catalogue of interviews with some of the world’s most extraordinary wine figures.