Gusbourne Pinot Noir Boot Hill Vineyard 2014, England, 11.5% (£22-23, Honest Grapes, Hennings, Buon Vino) The recent English Wine Producers tasting is an annual event that gets palpably more exciting and delicious every year. There were far too many exciting wines to be able to recommend them...
Something of a throwback article, this one - revisiting the top marks I gave to a glorious Chilean Chardonnay (Aristos Duquesa d'A 2008) in Decanter magazine's January 2012 edition. The reason for posting this now? Something of a hullabaloo about wine critic James Suckling giving a...
Pieropan La Rocca Soave 2013, Italy, 13% (£21-22, Laithwaites, The Wine Society, Jeroboams, AG Wines, Nickolls & Perks, Four Walls, Hedonism, Hennings or use Wine Searcher) The Pieropan family has been making Soave since the 1860s - and they make Soave like few others. Their two famous...
Parcé Frères Rivesaltes Vin Doux Naturel 1996, France, 16.5% (£14, The Wine Society) We served this wine blind to the 30 Master of Wine students who valiantly came to Winchester to practice for their tasting exams at our annual boot camp. While not everyone identified it correctly, most...
Thymiopoulos Xinomavro 2012, Greece, 13.5% (£10.50, Marks & Spencer) We are huge fans of Greek wine and this is a brilliant buy. I recommended it on Saturday Kitchen to a typically inventive dish by chef Michael O'Hare (of The Man Behind the Curtain in Leeds) but which...
Louis Roederer Cristal Vinotèque 1995 (For release in 2017) Although there are times when a plate of food and a glass of wine go beautifully together, it’s rare that the wine actually smells identical to the food. Tasting Roederer’s yet-to-be-launched Cristal Vinotèque 1995 over dinner in Reims...
Beefsteak Club Malbec 2015, Argentina, 13% (£8.79, Waitrose) At the Waitrose spring wine tasting there were plenty of wines I could have recommended but the sun was shining as I headed home and the idea of a weekend BBQ more than a little tempting. With this in mind,...
Tio Pepe En Rama, Spain, 15% (£15.99, Adnams, The Wine Society, Lea & Sandeman) New initiatives aimed at reinventing certain styles doesn't always work for drinks like wine, so it's wonderful when something does make sense. The En Rama initiative is designed to get people as close as possible...
Chapel Down Blanc de Blancs 2009, England, 12.5% (£30, Wine Pantry and Chapel Down) It was a sunny evening with friends and we had a few wines open to go with tapas. None of them could stand up to the beautifully spicy pan-fried whole mini chorizo. 'Funnily...
Mud House Sauvignon Blanc 2015, New Zealand (from £6.50, Tesco) Hard to ignore this eye-catching deal (Majestic also have a similar one running at the moment). But it's not just that - I recommended this on Saturday Kitchen to go with a really fun, flavoursome dish by...