If you're someone who flies Virgin Atlantic, borrows Virgin Money and signs up to Virgin Active because you're a fan of Richard Branson's brands, then Virgin Wines might surprise you. Not because there's anything wrong with the brand. But, while started by Branson, it was subsumed in 2005 under the Direct Wines umbrella.

i Newspaper
 
TheIPaper
The Independent around the web
E-break Time
Independent Crossword
Barbecue-style salmon belly with roast cherry vine tomatoes
The light watch: the atrium

Room Service: A master joins the museum district

Conservatorium, Amsterdam

Upwardly mobile: Mark Hix cooks with salmon

Around Britain, the salmon fishing season is in full swing, so cast out and enjoy our chef's delicious recipes

Chris Froome hit the ground running

Tour de France 2013: 10 steps to glory for Chris Froome

How Froome went one better this time and ascended to the top of the podium

Last night's viewing: The Briefs, ITV
Britain's Favourite Supermarket Foods, BBC1

The ordinariness of life inside Britain's busiest criminal law firm was as startling as the dedication to wrongdoing shared by so many of its clients. In one scene a brief calmly talked to a 21-year-old as a financial adviser might a customer thinking about opening an ISA: "If you brandish an axe in a public place, that would contravene conditions of your Asbo."

Wine: Something for the weekend

2012 La Vieille Ferme, Côtes du Ventoux

My life in food: Florence Knight

Head chef, Polpetto

Isaac McHale: The chef of The Clove Club on racing crabs and eating testicles

My earliest food memory Racing large brown crabs across the kitchen floor with my dad. We'd buy them from our local fishmonger, MacCallums of Troon, in Glasgow. And the winning crab would get cooked first – and made into a Singapore chilli crab dish. Afterwards, my dad and I would take the inner claws from them, clean them and use them as devil horns come Halloween.

The 10 Best rosé wines

A glass of the pink stuff is perfect for a summer’s day, so make sure you’ve got a chilled bottle ready for warmer weather...

The Grand Place in Brussels

Postcard from... Brussels

Anthony Rose: 'Bordeaux can delight like no other fine red'

Bordeaux hasn't got where it is today through stupidity. The biggest fine-wine region on Earth is run by shrewd businessmen with a unique mechanism for selling their wines. In essence, the châteaux entrust their sales to specialist merchants who trade them on the Bordeaux place. Which makes it even more mystifying as to why they should have so badly misjudged this year's disastrous campaign to sell the 2012 vintage. Prices were down on the absurdly overinflated 2011s, yet the gesture was too feeble to stop sales from plummeting.

Career Services

Day In a Page

Independent Travel Shop See all offers »
Berlin - East meets West
Three nights from only £399pp Find out more
Europe’s finest river cruises
Four nights from £669pp, seven nights from £999pp or 13 nights from £2,199pp Find out more
Historic Sicily
Seven nights half-board from only £799pp Find out more
Lake Como and the Bernina Express
Seven nights half-board from only £749pp Find out more
Pompeii, Capri and the Bay of Naples
Seven nights half-board from only £719pp Find out more
Special report: How my father's face turned up in Robert Capa's lost suitcase

Special report: How my father's face turned up in Robert Capa's lost suitcase

The great war photographer was not one person but two. Their pictures of Spain's civil war, lost for decades, tell a heroic tale
The unmade speech: An alternative draft of history

The unmade speech: An alternative draft of history

Someone, somewhere has to write speeches for world leaders to deliver in the event of disaster. They offer a chilling hint at what could have been
Funny business: Meet the women running comedy

Funny business: Meet the women running comedy

Think comedy’s a man's world? You must be stuck in the 1980s, says Holly Williams
Wilko Johnson: 'You have to live for the minute you're in'

Wilko Johnson: 'You have to live for the minute you're in'

The Dr Feelgood guitarist talks frankly about his terminal illness
Lure of the jingle: Entrepreneurs are giving vintage ice-cream vans a new lease of life

Lure of the jingle

Entrepreneurs are giving vintage ice-cream vans a new lease of life
Who stole the people's own culture?

DJ Taylor: Who stole the people's own culture?

True popular art drives up from the streets, but the commercial world wastes no time in cashing in
Guest List: The IoS Literary Editor suggests some books for your summer holiday

Guest List: IoS Literary Editor suggests some books for your summer holiday

Before you stuff your luggage with this year's Man Booker longlist titles, the case for some varied poolside reading alternatives
What if Edward Snowden had stayed to fight his corner?

Rupert Cornwell: What if Edward Snowden had stayed to fight his corner?

The CIA whistleblower struck a blow for us all, but his 1970s predecessor showed how to win
'A man walks into a bar': Comedian Seann Walsh on the dangers of mixing alcohol and stand-up

Comedian Seann Walsh on alcohol and stand-up

Comedy and booze go together, says Walsh. The trouble is stopping at just the one. So when do the hangovers stop being funny?
From Edinburgh to Hollywood (via the Home Counties): 10 comedic talents blowing up big

Edinburgh to Hollywood: 10 comedic talents blowing up big

Hugh Montgomery profiles the faces to watch, from the sitcom star to the surrealist
'Hello. I have cancer': When comedian Tig Notaro discovered she had a tumour she decided the show must go on

Comedian Tig Notaro: 'Hello. I have cancer'

When Notaro discovered she had a tumour she decided the show must go on
They think it's all ova: Bill Granger's Asia-influenced egg recipes

Bill Granger's Asia-influenced egg recipes

Our chef made his name cooking eggs, but he’s never stopped looking for new ways to serve them
The world wakes up to golf's female big hitters

The world wakes up to golf's female big hitters

With its own Tiger Woods - South Korea's Inbee Park - the women's game has a growing audience
10 athletes ready to take the world by storm in Moscow next week

10 athletes ready to take the world by storm in Moscow next week

Here are the potential stars of the World Championships which begin on Saturday
The Last Word: Luis Suarez and Gareth Bale's art of manipulation

The Last Word: Luis Suarez and Gareth Bale's art of manipulation

Briefings are off the record leading to transfer speculation which is merely a means to an end