Noble Rot #39 2025

The belief that great wines embody place has always been at the heart of Noble Rot. With this issue’s gloriously daft Gary Taxali cover – a blissed-out barrel jockey teetering on the brink of a watery downfall – we pause to ask why location matters so much to what we drink. Not so long ago, you couldn’t uncork a biodynamic Bobal without hearing that magic word: terroir.

But now, as Alice Feiring asks in this issue, has wine’s favourite mantra lost some of its juice? Elsewhere, Marina O’Loughlin reflects on how setting shapes flavour, while Bouchon Racine’s Henry Harris recalls the recipes — and the tins of tripe still lingering in his kitchen — that carry him back to holidays past.