Just in

Wine

Experiencing Rose and a stimulating conversation

In the week I went to a wine tasting on non Provençal roses. Roses account for 11% of all wine sold in the UK. It’s an interesting case study on how wine tastes change. In the 70s and 80s it was unfashionable with consumers and unrated by the wine critics. Its introduction to the UK came [...]

July 21, 2018 // 0 Comments

The wines of Trentino

Yesterday I attended a tasting of Trentino wines, the wine tutor having recently returned from a trip there. It’s not a region I know well and that I know it at all it is for political reasons as there is an independence movement there harking back to its Austrian governance. It is situated north [...]

July 6, 2018 // 0 Comments

Italian Wine and Food Evening

Yesterday I attended an Italian wine and food evening. Italy is the biggest producer of wine in the world with more grape varieties (400-500) than any other country – France for example has only 150. Because Italy was only united in 1861, regional identities are still strong and this is [...]

May 23, 2018 // 0 Comments

Prosecco

Prosecco has so swamped the UK bubbles market that it now outsells champagne and we are its largest  importer. It’s not as if the surge was caused by an inspired advertising campaign as happened with Cinzano and Campari  in  the seventies. It became popular by selling cheap to supermarkets and [...]

May 11, 2018 // 0 Comments

What’s a girl like me to think?

Here’s another classic case of scientific research supposedly telling you one thing one week – and the next advising quiet the opposite. It was only about five days ago that fellow contributor Gerald Ingolby brought our readers the news that a new group called ‘super-agers’ [...]

February 26, 2018 // 0 Comments

Wine tasting evening

The wine industry in all its forms is better than most in offering opportunities to women. There are several notable female wine critics – Jane MacQuitty and Jancis Robinson and half  of the writers on Decanter magazine. Last Thursday evening I attended  a tasting of South African and [...]

February 24, 2018 // 0 Comments

Swings and roundabouts

It’s not often that contributors to this esteemed organ receive invitations to the publisher’s country pile on the outskirts of one of the most notable conurbations on the south coast and when we do they are treated by us all as more of a summons than something with an option to decline [...]

February 9, 2018 // 0 Comments

Tasting Barolo and Barbaresco

Last night I attended a tasting of Barolo and Barbaresco, two of Italy’s premium and most expensive red wines cultivated in South Piedmont with the Nebbiolo grape. We tasted 7 of the wines and the cheapest was £24. Be careful in particular if you see cheap Barolo in the wine section of a [...]

February 2, 2018 // 0 Comments

Arthur Davidson/betting tribute

I would like to add my own happorth – or should it be tenner to the passing of dear Arthur. What you won’t read in the obits is that he loved a flutter on the golf. His greatest punt was backing Webb Simpson at 66-1. In our regular calls he would say he backed the winner but it was usually [...]

January 28, 2018 // 0 Comments

A visit to the Ridgeview winery

Yesterday evening in the company of Algy Belville I visited the Ridgeview wine estate in Ditchling not far from Burgess Hill, East Sussex. It was founded in 1995 by Mike Roberts and produces premium sparkling wines by method champenoise although of course – as it’s outside the region [...]

January 26, 2018 // 0 Comments

1 3 4 5 6 7