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Wine

A visit to Wiston Wine Estate

British wines are on the up. Camel Valley in Cornwall produces an award-winning and much-rated sparkling rosé, the Chapel Down Wine Estate of Kent sparklers are similarly highly-acclaimed, whilst  Sussex has a cornucopia of wineries stretching from West to East Sussex. One of the most famous is [...]

November 25, 2024 // 0 Comments

Celebrating 10 years at the Rust

Last week was my tenth year as wine correspondent of The Rust and I enjoyed a bottle of Supertuscan Sassicaia with the editor. It was my choice of wine as it nicely illustrates the cycle of wine fashion. I drank it first in the late 1970s when a friend invited me to their family home in Tuscany [...]

October 13, 2024 // 0 Comments

Left field/unusual vintage.

The wine world has moved on from expensive Bordeaux and Burgundies to Supertuscans but at a lower level there are new countries and vineyards. Today I am going to focus on Greek wines though many imbibe Croatian wines. I am ignoring Spanish wines as Albariño from Galicia is increasingly [...]

May 28, 2024 // 0 Comments

Al la Colthard/both ends of the spectrum.

Last week I was in London which was hellish because of the crowds but had two meals that were memorable for different reasons. The first was in Chinatown at Haozhan with a girl friend of many years. I knew she would offer to pay her share but likes value and Haozhan ticked all the boxes. We had [...]

December 16, 2023 // 0 Comments

Vintage Crime: A Short History Of Wine Fraud/Rebecca Gibb (book review)

This morning, on my habitual overnight “tour” of the British national newspapers seeking items or stories of potential interest to Rusters, on the website of the Daily Mail I came across this review by Constance Craig Smith of a new book on the subject of wine called Vintage Crime: A [...]

November 17, 2023 // 0 Comments

Bottle Shock (movie)

This is the 2008 film of the Judgement of Paris which I recently reviewed. It stars Alan Rickman – excellent as he always is – as the wine expert Stephen Spurrier who set up a wine-tasting competition in Paris in which the Californian chardonnay Montelena and Stag’s Head red beat the [...]

July 4, 2023 // 0 Comments

A wine tasting with a difference

In May 1976 the English wine critic Steven Spurrier presented some Californian wines in Paris. Fearing that the distinguished panel was so unfamiliar with them, at the last moment he paired them with some classy French wines like Chateau Mouton Rothschild, Las Cases and Ch. Montrose. In a blind [...]

May 26, 2023 // 0 Comments

A la Colthard: Nice food & drink

We have only visited 2 restaurants so far so I’m going to concentrate here more on the food and drink of Nice. Every morning we send Bob off to his beloved market le Cours Saleya and he returns with an abundance of fruit and vegetables of the highest quality. We have our breakfast of croissants, [...]

April 9, 2023 // 0 Comments

A la Colthard: a Spanish Day in London

Yesterday I went with Alice Mansfield to the Royal Academy to see the Spain and Hispanic World collection of Archer M Huntington, the son of a railroad magnate and avid collector around the turn of the twentieth century of Spanish paintings and artefacts. Alice considered Spanish art underrated [...]

February 6, 2023 // 0 Comments

A private cellar tasting

Yesterday I attended a private cellar tasting organised by a local Wine School. I enjoy these events where participators bring their own choice of wine. Mine was a Slovenian red bottled by Dveri Pax which went down well. My neighbour, who was clearly a wine connoisseur and was anxious you should [...]

November 18, 2022 // 0 Comments

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