I have been in two minds about adding another Riesling into the Wines With Attitude portfolio - in my experience people either love Riesling or hate it which is why I describe it as the Marmite grape (with apologies and also homage to the manufacturers of Marmite). But I was persuaded to by a new customer
Traditionally as a nation we Brits tend to veer towards crisp white wines when eating Chinese food perhaps thinking that it will
In the first part of my blog on the Rioja wine region and its wines I mentioned the rebellion that has going on for some time in the region against the Rioja wine classification system. Rioja red wines have essentially been classified based on length of time the wine is aged in oak which seems quite out
So long 2018 and a big welcome to 2019. I doubt that this year will be any less of a rollercoaster than last year for those of us in the UK; in fact I think we are all expecting turmoil and confusion in the first few months at least. So let's try to find some cheery news in what's predicted to happen in the wine
We read frequent reports about how e-commerce in the UK is growing and that includes a trend amongst time-pressed wine lovers towards buying wine online. But there are some things to be aware of when looking at wine e-commerce and I don't mean in this instance the large scale wine investment scams -
The very name “Beaujolais” often sends a shudder down the spine if, like me, you have memories of Beaujolais Nouveau tasting like fiercely dry Ribena with bubblegum and bananas served early on the third Friday in November just 8 weeks or so after the grapes have been harvested. It was in my view the Beaujolais Nouveau hoo-ha that was responsible for Beaujolais wines falling out
It's the time of year when the wine industry in the UK awaits with bated breath the decision of the Chancellor on alcohol duty. Will he or won't he raise duty on wine again in the Budget? As a reminder alcohol duty is, according to HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) "a tax that is charged on alcohol produced
There seem to be an increasing number of letters on wine labels like AC, AOC, AP, AOP, DO, DOC, DOCG, DOP, DOQ, IGP, IGT, PDO, PGI, POP and VdIT - and these are just a selection from wine labels from EU countries. But what do they actually mean? What is AC wine? What does AOP mean? What is the difference between
I was asked recently to comment about blue wine for an article in The Independent newspaper. Early in 2017 in my wine predictions for that year, I had mentioned the growing trend for orange wine - and I wrote the following about blue wine... "Fortunately blue wine which emerged in 2016 is not expected to be as popular - surely that's just not right?!". With
Last year I got myself into a twitter discussion with Victoria Moore, author & wine editor for the Daily Telegraph, about the things we don't like about trade wine tastings, so I thought it might be interesting to share them with you along with some other dos and don'ts at wine tastings. Whether you