Meet the Experts: Meet Andrew Jefford
To kick off the 2026 season, we're thrilled to welcome, Andrew Jefford, who joins Michael Palij MW—two trusted experts helping you discover even more exceptional wines.
1. What attracted you to the world of wine?
When I was 16, I began making homemade wine (using grape-juice concentrate and “country” ingredients
like carrots and elderflowers) to enliven family mealtime conversations. That got me interested in the
fermentation process – and then, through reading, I discovered a vast and exciting world of differences and
nuances. Right from the start, I loved wine’s combination of intellectual challenge and sensual reward, as well as its mood-altering abilities.
2. What excites you most about the current wine world?
Regionally speaking, I’m very interested in “the New Europe” – countries like Slovenia, Croatia, Romania, Moldova, and Georgia with ancient wine traditions but which suffered arrested development because of
war, poverty, and politics over the last century. All are now flourishing again (to varying degrees: the first three are safely inside the EU, but Moldova and Georgia are still struggling with Russian interference), and we’re beginning to realise just how much they have to offer us.
Trends? I’m really happy that texture is beginning to be taken seriously and valued as a wine quality. I love tannic reds and thick-textured whites. Stylistically speaking, I’m a big fan of orange or amber wines: a key medium of wine expression that we have almost completely forgotten.
3. Is there a region or grape variety you’re especially passionate about?
I live in France, so perhaps I should mention Madiran and Alsace, whose wines I love – thanks in large part to Tannat in the former region and Gewürztraminer in the latter.
4. What's your most memorable bottle?
Ch. Pichon-Lalande 1982. I bought a pre-arrival case (£9 a bottle delivered), and every bottle was magnificent: so tender, so ripe, so resonant. It came early in my drinking life, so I’ve never forgotten it. But I’m not saying (to anticipate your next question) that this was “the best bottle I’ve ever drunk.”
5. What’s a wine myth you'd love to debunk?
It’s the idea that excellence in wine is what matters. It isn’t. Difference is what matters; that’s where wine’s beauty and reward are to be found. Excellence is a subjective chimera. If I’d spent the last 40 years drinking only Pichon-Lalande`82, my drinking life would have been tedious. Many simpler wines are just as lovely, and just as memorable.
This is why I deplore the use of scores, though I accept that they are here to stay. They do, however, tell people that a 98-point wine is “better” than a 93-point wine. It isn’t. It’s just different. We should be exploring and enjoying the differences, not constructing a theology of excellence via point scoring.
6. What’s your go-to food and wine pairing?
I drink what’s open and eat what’s in the fridge, and mostly it works out (though we did have a bottle of the Pichon-Lalande '82 with paella once, which was a flop). Food and wine combinations are something I don’t want to stress about.
But if you serve me a bottle of ripe vintage Pomerol with cheese on toast (English vintage farmhouse cheddar on wholemeal toast, grilled until it’s bubbling and browning), I’m going to love it.
7. Favourite indulgent meal or snack?
Did I mention cheese on toast?
8. What’s one wine in your cellar you’re saving for a special occasion?
I visited Dominus shortly after Christian and Cherise Moueix and their team had bottled the 2013, and they gave me a half-bottle. I love Napa, and thought that wine was wonderful. I’m only ever going to have that half, and it’s the vintage with his portrait on the label (for the 30th anniversary). That’s for a special occasion.
9. Favourite film or TV series to relax with a glass of wine?
The Godfather – ideally with an old bottle of Regaleali’s Rosso del Conte. The first wine trip I ever did as a journalist was to visit Regaleali in Sicily in the late 1980s. I asked Conte Giuseppe Tasca d’Almerita if I could photograph him. He went upstairs for a while, and came down fully armed, wearing a bandolier (maybe two). That was what happened, and when I think about Sicily, that’s what comes to mind.
10. What’s one thing people might be surprised to learn about you?
That’s a tricky one, since I’m an obscure and unimportant person, so everything and nothing will be surprising. I do, though, revere owls, nightjars, swifts, and storm petrels. Will that do?