Taste the Difference Barbera d'Asti 2014, Italy, 14% (£8, Sainsbury's) So Italian - full of the fragrance of cherries and wild herbs, very stylish too. I matched this on Saturday Kitchen to pasta dish by Joe Hurd which incorporated nduja (spicy sausage) and tomato sauce. Show co-host Gennaro...
The Exquisite Collection Rioja Reserva 2009, 14% (£8.99, Aldi online) Pretty spot on Rioja Reserva at a fair price. It's very classic and there's plenty of wine for the price here. It's a dense, creamy and juicy red with hints of coconut and orange rind to complement the...
Jean Bouchard Hautes Cotes de Nuits red 2013, 12.5% (£9.99, Aldi online) The first duty of wine - whatever its colour - is to be refreshing. Gastronomic. Uplifting, if you like. Here's a red that does just that - and at a very fair, albeit not bargain...
Empress Ale A smartly packaged, gently carbonated new ale designed to be paired with spicy food, primarily Indian. The idea was born, apparently, out of craft beer fan Surj Virk's, 'sheer frustration of not having an alternative to lager when visiting Indian restaurants'. Apparently he spent a year...
Nyetimber Blanc de Blancs 2009, England (£35, Harrods, Harvey Nichols, Farr Vintners, Lay & Wheeler) Very refined, accomplished and elegant fizz from the producer that really kick-started the modern English sparkling wine scene. This point was made particularly vividly because, at the same tasting, we were treated...
There is something gloriously ancient, mysterious and knotty about Carmenère. Its story brings together competing historical hypotheses, ampelographic hide-and-seek and remarkable powers of reinvention. It gets both winemakers and wine drinkers hot under the collar, with the power to dismay and delight in seemingly equal...
Imagine the scene. Steeply rolling hillsides, dark forests in the background, the foreground a hectic green sea of bush vines sprouting vigorously from rich terracotta soil. On a rickety table in the middle of the vineyard there is a glass of mysterious white wine. It...
Love it or hate it there’s no doubting Sauvignon Blanc’s popularity – with the public at least. This historic grape variety – noble parent of Cabernet Sauvignon let’s not forget – tends to polarise opinion like few others. Yet the market tells its own success story. Sauvignon Blanc...
In 2015 one particular style of sparkling wine hit the headlines more than any other: Prosecco. For the first time, UK supermarket shoppers spent more on Prosecco than on Champagne and there were worldwide, midsummer scare stories that stocks would dry up before the new...
It’s hard to believe that, in just over 25 years, the English sparkling wine industry has come so far. Only in the late 1980s were Chardonnay vines planted alongside Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier in West Sussex by a pioneering couple from Chicago determined to...