The long bank holiday weekend provided an ideal opportunity for a family get together. Remarkably, we managed to find a house big enough to take 15 on budget in the…
First Drop Mere et Fils Chardonnay, great wine, fabulous labels
Aussie wine producer First Drop are fast becoming one of the cleverest at marketing their wines – even outdoing D’Arenberg. The good news is that the content of the bottle…
Mountford Estate Chardonnay 2008, one of the highlights of today’s NZ tasting
Spent a few hours at the New Zealand Wine Growers tasting today in London. It was great to see so many winemakers and punters there, but it did make it…
Christmas bottles
OK, a round-up of some of the memorable wines we’ve had this holiday. Pictured above: the Man O’War Chardonnay 2009, with its characteristic matchstick reduction adding some Burgundian-style complexity. This…
Two Californian Chardonnays
Californian wines are somewhat under-represented in the UK. Here are a couple of impressive Sonoma Chardonnays that I liked quite a bit, and which show restraint, balance and complexity. Marimar…
Video: tasting three rather interesting Chardonnays
A short film of me tasting three interesting Chardonnays, two from Australia and one from South Africa.
Kennedy Point Chardonnay from Waiheke Island
This is an interesting wine. You wouldn’t expect to find this in the UK, such is the small scale of its production, but Sam Harrop brought me back a bottle…
A pair of Hamilton Russells
I’m a great fan of taking time to get to know wines. Most of the wines featured here on this blog have been drunk, as opposed to those brief sniff…
A lovely white Burgundy from Sauzet
Sometimes the hierarchy of Burgundy vineyards can be a bit of a problem. It magnifies the label effect: when critics see the name Grand Cru on a label, it usually…