The Don of Chilean Cabernet

If you ever get the opportunity to visit the vineyard where Concha Y Toro’s flagship Don Melchor wine starts its life, you are likely to find yourself in a ditch. An actual ditch, dug just so that you can see, close up, the composition of volcanic stony soil in which the vines struggle to survive. Beats being handed a stone or rock by a winemaker, as is so often the case. Read More…
Wine Duty: Enough Is Enough

Sometimes, being a wine lover feels like you’ve made a pact with the Devil.
You’re labelled a “snob” for turning down a glass of cheap wine.
You’re branded a binge drinker because you dare to have a glass or two on a regular basis.
If you drink wine in the week, it must be a coping mechanism – especially if you’re a woman. And obviously, you have no control.
Rarely is it mentioned that many of us like wine for its taste and its alchemy with food – not for its alcohol levels.
Now, it looks like the UK’s wine lovers are about to get punished again. Read More…
And The BAFTA Goes To…

When Edgar Sampson wrote Stompin’ At The Savoy, I doubt he had in mind a woman clomping around in vertiginous heels, in serious danger of tripping over her £1000 floor length dress and smashing the glass of Champagne in her hand.
Yet here I was, tottering clumsily around the Savoy Hotel in the Strand, experiencing what it was like to be a EE British Academy Film Awards nominee getting ready for the big night.
You have to be good in heels, for a start. Or at least use your acting skills to pretend you are. And you would have arranged your designer dress weeks before, instead of selecting the one that fitted, straight off the rail. Read More…
What Wine, What Film 2014

Matching wine with food? That’s SO old school. Apparently.
Now, it’s all about pairing it with music, art, books and (in my case) film.
So, for this year’s EE British Academy Film Awards best picture nominations, here are my suggestions for what wine goes with what film… Read More…
The Bicycle Diary

I thought someone was joking when they said that the bikes were waiting for us at Cono Sur.
But, as we rolled up the driveway to the Santa Elisa estate in Chile’s Colchagua Valley, there they were – a row of black, slightly careworn cycles.
I should have clicked, given that Cono Sur’s entry level range of wine is called Bicicleta. Read More…
Sweet Dreams Are Made This

It’s late morning on a grey, overcast day and there’s a solitary man sitting between a row of vines near the Hungarian town of Tokaj.
He’s checking every grape and picking only those with the right amount of desiccation and “noble” rot, (botrytis cinerea).
It’s a lengthy, painstaking job that can take weeks of passing up and down the vineyard for those perfect grapes – or aszú berries, as they become known (and first mentioned in the 16th century). Read More…
To Be Or Not To Be Prosecco

The glass of wine in my hand doesn’t smell particularly fruity. Or blossomy. What I am picking up is more dried grass and lemon peel.
I take a sip. Yes, hay, some herbs maybe, raw hazelnuts, lemon peel and fresh bread. It feels dry, rounded but restrained.
Not what I’d expect from a glass of Prosecco.
Yet, according to producer, Primo Franco – of Nino Franco – this is exactly what his Grave di Stecca Brut 2009 is. Read More…