Wine

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 [...]

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 [...]

Spain is the third largest producer of wine in the world –  true or false? True. After Italy and France it produces 3 million bottles annually. Italy leads the way then France.  So Spain produces more than Australia or USA. Spain also has the largest expanse of vineyards but these are [...]

Yesterday ( Tuesday) we went on an organised wine tour of the Hunter Vallley wine region. It’s the main viticulture area of Australia boasting over 130 wineries. I have to confess that I am not a enthusiast or regular drinker of Australian wine. A friend of mine who is deeply knowledgeable on [...]

New Zealand is something of a freebooters paradise when it comes to wine growing. This is because they do not have the controls of many wine growing countries. In France there is the AC (appellation controlee) and in Italy the DC, the same thing which basically constricts the type of wine you can [...]

Wine-making has moved along way forward from a French rustic with ruby cheeks sticking his pudgy fingers into a barrel. These days it’s all about computers, hydraulics and geology and a winery resembles a production factory of silver coloured tanks and pipes. There is the odd surprising [...]

I am becoming something of a regular at the wine school which meets most Tuesdays and Thursdays. I was particularly looking forward to last night’s private cellar evening where we are encouraged to bring our own, preferably more esoteric, wine. I  chose for the evening the Thymiopoulos [...]

Yesterday the wine school I attend irregularly but enthusiastically had a gin tasting. The instructor initially explained how gin, based on the juniper berry, originated in the Netherlands in the sixteenth century as ginever and came to the UK with William of Orange where it became so fashionable [...]