Awkward barrel samples. Weary vignerons. Fully booked hotels. Missed tables. The wine traveller’s path is rarely lined with sunshine and perfectly chilled glasses. Which is why Issue 40 of Noble Rot is about good timing —and giving yourself a fighting chance. In The Wine Traveller’s Guide to Getting It Right, our man in New York, Levi Dalton, explains when not to visit wine regions, revealing how arriving at the wrong moment can distort your experience of young wines and quietly sabotage tastings before you realise what’s happening. He decodes the rhythms of the cellar, argues for visiting Burgundy in November rather than June (“a rookie mistake”), and shares insider intelligence — from Santorini’s grape harvest colliding disastrously with peak tourist season, to the joys of Piemonte’s porcini season. Along the way, top winemakers, restaurateurs and critics reveal their favourite local places to eat and drink.

Elsewhere, Simon J Woolf offers survival strategies for the awful wines served on long-haul flights, while Alice Feiring reveals the lengths she’d go to secure a decent glass in a restaurant cursed with a truly terrible wine list.

Elsewhere in Issue 40’s celebration of everyday miracles:

• Jesse Armstrong, creator of Succession, writes about the cheese sandwich he considers his Greatest Meal.

• Marina O’Loughlin meets the chefs behind Fallow, who have built one of the UK’s most successful hospitality operations— and 1.4 million Instagram followers — from scratch.

• Dan Keeling attends a tasting of Burgundy’s Clos de Tart spanning 136 years, and reviews what may be the greatest-value red appellation in the world: Langhe Nebbiolo.

• Diana Henry dishes the dirt on choosing the right restaurant for famous guests, drawing on her former life as a TV researcher.

• Brian McGinn, co-creator of Chef’s Table, explains why it’s extremely unlikely he’ll ever commission a wine version.

Plus stories and recipes celebrating Autogrill, breakfast drinking, choucroute garnie à l’alsacienne, and how authentic Indian food is finally having its moment in New York City —among much more.