You may have heard of English Wine Week, the annual celebration of English wine. Organised each year by English Wine Producers, the week-long campaign aims to highlight the best of English wine. English Wine Week 2017 will take place between the 27th of May and 4th of June, and will Read more…
Do you know how important French oak is to fine wine? Oak barrel ageing is common practice for all the best red wine in the world – and many whites, sparkling and fortified wines too, for that matter. Using oak barrels to ferment and/or age wine has multiple benefits for Read more…
Ever had a Retsina wine? Greek wine is growing in popularity, though it’s not likely to enter the mainstream any time soon. The wines of Greece come in a variety of styles, and the white Assyrtiko grape in particular has been turning sommeliers’ heads for a while now. Retsina is Read more…
If there was a Yoda of wine, it would be Robert Parker. It not that he’s small, green and hairy. He isn’t. Nor talks in inverted syntax does he. Rather, Mr Parker is a hugely respected repository of wine knowledge, and his influence flows through the global industry like a Read more…
Storing wine properly is of vital importance, but is often overlooked by wine lovers. It may seem trivial, but this stuff matters: The difference between storing your wine in a vintage wine rack and in your kitchen is vast. We aren’t all sitting on large cellars of old Château Margaux back Read more…
Have you heard of Pinot Meow, the wine for cats? It may sound crazy, but cat wine is real – and surprisingly popular! Unlike the grape wine industry, there is really just one major player in the cat wine world: Apollo Peak. For those you that haven’t heard of Pinot Read more…
Have you ever been to Rioja Alta? Rioja wine is perhaps Spain’s greatest, and easily its best known export throughout the wine-loving world. Top Rioja brands such as Faustino Rioja, El Coto Rioja and Marqués de Caceres, to name just three, regularly appear in wine stores throughout Europe, America and Read more…
Do you own any Port wine glasses? Many people don’t, but we think you should. Wine glasses come in all shapes and sizes, and with good reason: Individual wines have distinctive aromas and characteristics, and certain glasses are better at highlighting these than others. Of course, some wine glasses are Read more…
Toro wines are some of Spain’s most distinctive reds: Powerful, full-bodied and complex, with intense fruit flavours and grippy tannins. Mostly produced from the Tinta de Toro variety, known elsewhere as Tempranillo, the wines nonetheless have a character that is all their own. Toro wines have a unique profile that Read more…
We’ve spoken about wine kits before, and let’s just say that we have mixed feelings. For us, wine kits remove quite a lot of the romance inherent in a good bottle of wine: The best wines display a real sense of place, what the French call “terroir”. Wine kits do Read more…