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
I wrote a little about organic wine in my blog post on the differences between natural, organic & bio-dynamic wine without going into much detail about the term "organic wine". And since "organic" is one of the most searched for terms on the Wines With Attitude website, it seems to be a priority for discerning wine consumers
I am amazed by some of the wine tales that I read or hear about to the extent that I sometimes wonder how much wine has been imbibed when the stories originated. Variations of these tales suggest that, like a game of Chinese whispers, some of them are being blown out of all proportion as they circulate.
Portugal is perhaps best known, wine-wise at least, for its fortified wine, port (about which you can read more in my port blogposts on ruby port and tawny port ) but the largest wine region in Portugal is actually Vinho Verde - and the UK is its second biggest export market after France. Nevertheless vinho verde remains
For wines that are a combination of "terroir, know-how and passion"
Back in the day I used to buy French wine from an importer based in North London. I can’t remember how I got to know him but tasting his wines was one of the initial sparks in my interest in good wine – and one of those wines
The focus in the wine world at the beginning of each year is on Burgundy with the release of the latest vintage - in January 2018 this was the 2016 vintage release. It therefore seems like a good time to provide a very quick guide to Burgundy and its wines .
How are you supposed to make sense of
One of the most searched for terms on the Wines With Attitude website is Carmenère and yet I would not be surprised if many readers had not heard of this black grape variety because it accounts for only a small proportion of the total world wine grape production.
So why is Carmenère a popular search term? Though at relatively low levels compared to the big