The Bottle Opener: Winemaking in the middle east March 5, 2015 Among the many wonderful things about wine are the extraordinary people who make it. Part artist, part scientist, they are always passionate, hopefully commercially minded, and never dull. Of all of them, Serge Hochar of Lebanon’s Chateau Musar was one of the most magnificent. It was his passion that created one of the world’s finest [...]
The Datables: Watches with calendar displays can be things of beauty March 5, 2015 There are few things that niggle at me more than the presence of an unnecessary date display on a watch (yes, yes, first world problems). Brands are, in the large part, hopelessly addicted to them, allowing tiny, pointless displays to disrupt the unity and balance of their designs. I especially can’t abide the now-canonical magnifying [...]
Watch talk: A new generation of women’s watches is blazing a trail of originality March 5, 2015 Every January specially invited watch journalists decamp to Geneva’s Palexpo – a great, industrial box next to a motorway – to be shown watches that cost more than many of their flats in an unrelentingly beige luxury bubble. This is SIHH, where Richemont’s brands (and a few select “friends”) assemble to set out their stall [...]
Beautiful things: Miyabi knives and science-inspired Adidas trainers March 5, 2015 Chefs are infamously disagreeable, but one area they do tend to agree on is the importance of decent knives. It is widely accepted that the Japanese craft the very best, and these ones made in Seki, central Japan, certainly seem to confirm this. Each handmade utensil is made up of 101 layers of ice-hardened steel. [...]
Against the Tide: A survey of the late, great Richard Diebenkorn March 5, 2015 Few painters capture the openness and light of California like Richard Diebenkorn. His bright and breezy paintings – some abstract, some figurative, some in-between – won him plenty of fans during the 20th century, even if the critics remained nonplussed. In the 50s, when New York was exerting a strong gravitational pull with its distinctive [...]
Tomb raider: Italian photographer Domingo Milella focuses his lens on civilisations past and present March 5, 2015 From the Italian village jutting precariously into the sea to gnarled Turkish rock-faces striped with ancient, indecipherable script; Italian photographer Domingo Milella documents the tussle between civilisation and landscape. For his latest project he embarked on a photographic journey from his home in Bari, Italy, all the way to Mexico City via Cairo, Ankara, Anatolia, [...]
Perfect world: Introducing the Montblanc Heritage Spirit Orbis Terrarum March 5, 2015 Montblanc’s “heritage” as a serious player in watches dates back about a decade, which might make the moniker it’s chosen for its new collection a little bit rum, were it not for the fact that the star piece is such an absolute humdinger. This world timer has the clean-cut look of a classic mid-20th century [...]
Anatomy of a wristwatch: A master watchmaker explains what goes on under the hood March 5, 2015 Mechanical timepieces have the complexity and allure of tiny, self-contained universes. We asked a master watchmaker to explain what goes on under the hood. It was Jaguar’s founding father, William Lyons, who famously said “the car is the closest thing we will ever create to something that is alive.” But the late, great virtuoso English [...]
Why Ferrari’s 458 Spider is a true Italian stallion March 5, 2015 I was in Paris the other week to attend the sale of France’s most talked-about barn find; the classic car collection of Roger Baillon, who made and lost a fortune building trucks. Discovered last year in appalling condition were about 100 of the rarest and most beautiful cars of the 20th century. For four-wheel aficionados, [...]
Alastair Campbell on winners: Are there any left in the Labour party? March 5, 2015 When the political satire In The Loop came out in 2009, the Culture Show did a segment in which the critic Mark Kermode watched the film with Alastair Campbell. Afterwards, a sourfaced Campbell delivered his verdict: “I didn’t find it terribly funny.” Kermode said he had sympathy with any representation of politics as venal and [...]