The grandeur of Place Vendôme is hard to match, and to say that about a location in a city like Paris is quite a statement. Follow Martin Green’s tour of the horological history of the square and discover what makes this place so special.
The GPHG foundation’s rules for the Jewellery category state that the watches must demonstrate exceptional mastery of the art of jewelry and gem setting. This is an especially difficult category to judge from still photos as you really need to touch and manipulate the jewelry and see the gems reflecting from different angles. Our panelists settle on two favorites as top contenders despite the fact that they haven’t had a chance to handle these treasures.
David Oscarson’s use of guilloche and fired enamel to create the exquisite designs on his pens is his well-established hallmark, and over two decades he has brought compelling and often thought-provoking topics to pictorial life with clarity and artistic flair. His latest collection features sea turtles all the way down, providing us with just a whiff of the bygone summer.
For a die-hard shoe aficionado, the Berluti moniker probably resonates the same way that Franck Muller’s name does for a WIS: overpriced, under-crafted, and something that clueless wanabees might buy. But Berluti, like Franck Muller, was a game changer. As much as What Makes Me Tick wouldn’t be caught dead wearing a Franck Muller on his wrist, Berluti is for him one of the greatest shoe brands ever.
In the Waipara region, North Canterbury, in the southern part of New Zealand’s South Island there is a cult winery called Pyramid Valley that Ken Gargett has visited a few times. Today he tastes several 2018 wines from the place with the picturesque vineyard names and shares his opinion with us.
Adding a few diamonds to a watch: how hard can that be? As it turns out, stone setting is a lot more difficult than many appreciate. Diamond-setting watches requires the expertise and craftsmanship of about half a dozen highly skilled craftspeople, each a master of their craft.
There is one wine producer that has taken on almost mythical status in recent years: Domaine de la Romanée-Conti. And one of its wines, Romanée-Conti, stands out above all others. Many wine lovers, perhaps most, consider it to be the very best wine in the world. Ken Gargett is one of them.
Joshua Muchow became somewhat informed about gemstones and related techniques in studying for the jewelry-heavy Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève categories we discuss annually. This new information has sparked a significant amount of passion for the topic, leaving him wanting to share some of what he’s learned about one of the most beautiful sides of haute horology: gems and their settings.
Another champagne from 2008, you ask? Yes, Ken Gargett resoundedly replies: he says 2008 will go down as the greatest year of the champagne century despite a plethora of fine years since the turn of the millennium, and he is here to tell us all about it.
One of the most famous bourbon distilleries of all is Buffalo Trace, whose story started centuries ago with a famous name: Daniel Boone, who rode through Leestown in 1771 “on the buffalo trace” more than 20 years before Kentucky even became a state. Ken Gargett shares here why he thinks the bourbon from this American distillery is so special.