- Season 4 Trailer
- Wine 4 Green Pizza
- Inside the Fort Knox of Wine
- Wine 4 Spag Bol
- English Wine and Climate Change
- Wine 4 Fish Pie
- Our WINE(S) OF THE YEAR 2022!
- Wine 4 the ULTIMATE burger
- Selling Net Zero Wine
- The Wine Lover’s Wish List
- How To Be a Better Wine Lover
- Burgundy – The Tipping Point?
- The New Beaujolais
- Wine and Your Microbiome
- Australian Pinot Noir Comes of Age
- The End of the Hangover?
- New Zealand Chardonnay
- News & Views 1
- Santorini – Wine’s Jurassic Park
- Santorini – Wines to Save an Island
- How Wine Gets Rocks Wrong
- Portugal’s Fine Wines
- The Mystery of Minerality
- Germany’s Pulling Power
- The Microbial Face of Terroir
- LIVE Q&A (Winchester)
Summary
Self-improvement – via a wine glass. With a side helping of ‘vinous Kama Sutra’.
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves…
In our last episode we explored what we wine lovers want from the year ahead. In this programme we flip the camera round and take a look how we can be better wine lovers.
Suggestions like ‘drink better’ inevitably crop up. But so do more thought-provoking tips such as, ‘Pair food with wine, not the reverse,’ ‘Give a bottle of wine that we love to someone who isn’t expecting it,’ and ‘Listen. Encourage. Celebrate.’
Supporting climate action is high on the agenda. ‘Drink only wines from sustainable farming,’ is one view, another is: ‘Take a stand against wine in overly heavy bottles!’
Firm opinions are expressed on everything from shopping local to keeping an open mind (to other people’s views as well as to unfamiliar wine styles), trusting your own palate, being humble, supporting small producers and retailers, pouring Pinot Gris down the sink, giving new things a go – and putting wine on the table not a pedestal.
In short, this is a largely heart-warming, occasionally challenging, certainly thought-provoking episode that will hopefully get us thinking about what it is to be a wine lover, and how we can each get the most out of this glorious liquid.
Into this engaging mix are thrown the usual hodge-podge of random elements, from lobster mac’n’cheese to ‘Naked on Roller-Skates’ and artificial intelligence holding forth on ‘wine tasting in the style of the Kama Sutra’. You’ve been warned.
Thanks to wine writer Libby Brodie, Master of Wine Peter McCombie and Master Sommelier Gearoid Devaney – as well as a host of wine lovers all around the world – for sharing their views for this episode. Enjoy!
Starring
Wines
We pair this zesty wine chat with a couple of special bottles to tie in with the discussion:
- Ata Rangi Lismore Pinot Gris 2009, Martinborough, New Zealand (more recent vintages c £20-25, find it on Winesearcher)
- Ridgeview Sparkling Red Reserve Pinot Noir NV, Sussex, England (£55, ridgeview.co.uk)
- Bride Valley Pinot Noir 2018, Dorset, England (£21.50, bridevalley.com)
Links & Notes
- Here’s a link to our tribute to Steven Spurrier – and a recommendation for his Bride Valley Pinot Noir 2018.
- If you’d like us to share our recipes for home-made porcini arancini and lobster mac’n’cheese, let us know!
- As ever, you can find our podcast on all major audio players: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, Amazon and beyond. The button below will redirect you automatically to this episode on an audio platform on your device.
Snaps from Francesca & Jakob
Get in Touch
We’d love to hear from you!
It may be your views on how to be a better wine lover. You could have some suggestions for what wines Peter can match with his truffle Marmite… Or you may well have some other wine-related issue, question, anecdote or experience you’d like to share with us.
Whatever’s on your mind, please do get in touch.
You can send us an email or, better still, leave us a voice message via the magic of Speakpipe: