Today has been a very interesting day of tasting. It was the first day of judging the new South African Top 100 competition, held here in St James, Cape Town….
A couple more Portuguese wine discoveries
The great thing about visiting Portugal is that there are always more wines to discover. Here are a couple from this week. First, up, a couple of Dao wines from…
Spotted at the Portuguese tasting
Two meetings today meant I had less time at the annual wines of Portugal tasting, but I still managed to taste some interesting wines. Here are a few highlights. CARM,…
Closures: Diam’s guarantee, and new from Nomacorc
Haven’t mentioned the juicy subject of wine bottle closures around here for a while. I’m seeing more and more Diams – the technical cork that’s made from fragments of cork…
Planeta’s first Mount Etna wine: the Carricante
Almost two years ago I visited Sicilian producer Planeta. One thing they talked about was their new project on Mount Etna, which has some really interesting terroirs. At this stage,…
Lunch at the Harwood Arms followed by a great game
Had a brilliant day yesterday. It began with lunch at the Harwood Arms, together with Joe Wadsack, Will Willis and Stuart Bowman-Hood. Proceedings began with a pint of Sambrook’s junction:…
A memorable meal at Hakkasan, including an old Joguet
Dinner for the judges of the sparkling wine review was held at Hakkasan, the famed Chinese/fusiony restaurant. This was my first time here, so I was quite looking forward to…
Is Oddbins back?
Oddbins press tasting today. For those outside the UK, Oddbins were in the early 1990s a pioneering wine merchant who brought interesting wine to the masses. Then, in the noughties,…
An illustrated report from today’s big South African tasting
Spent an enjoyable few hours at today’s South African tasting, held in the rather dimly lit great hall at Vinopolis. The time passed quickly. There’s lot of interesting things going…