The UK Champagne market is, as we’ve said again and again, complex and crowded. Importers and makers need to fight prety hard to be noticed. One of the problems is the sheer number of brands and labels available. However what we, the consumers, often don’t realise is which Champagne is owned by which other Champagne […]

It’s spring, it must be Champagne! As the years roll by, I’m start to realise how short they’re becoming. Why, it seems only a couple of weeks ago that I was at the Champagne Bureau‘s annual tasting in the Banqueting House in Whitehall, London. As it happens, they DID hold the tasting the week before last, so that’s […]

The pub world is a fickle place – premises are closing all around us and, depending on whom you ask, the indutry is either in trouble or in crisis. In my own locality of Barnet in Hertfordshire (look me up, buy me a drink!) there are pubs boarded up, former pubs that are now private […]

The clothes you wear to a tasting are important – you want something that you don’t mind staining with red wine; hence there is a prevalence of scruffiness and flamboyance in the wine-writing fraternity. So imagine the consternation caused by being required to wear a suit and tie to a tasting! I only own one […]

Food and wine go together like … well … food and wine! There is a huge amount of snobishness over which wines to serve with which food – red with red meats, white with fish etc. That’s all well and good but with the myriad of wines available to us, where do you start to […]

Regular visitors to this podcast series will be delighted to know that The Kernel Brewery in Bermondsey was one of only 3 finalists in the 2012 BBC Food And Farming Awards – I spoke with them last year (see the podcast on Mircrobrewing earlier in this series) and we congratulate them on their success! Now: Christmastime […]

You may know the wines of Wolf Blass from the supermarket, where his Yellow Label wines sell pretty well. But Wolf began by making premium wines, characterised as Black Label, Grey Label and, more recently, Platinum Label. These high-end wines are much more about the individual character of the vineyards and are priced to match. […]

The Great British Beer Festival 2011 just ended at Earl’s Court in London. As a judge in the CAMRA beer festival, I have, on occasion, got to go along and taste beers entered into the competition to win a medal and, hopefully, the title Best Beer. In the midst of this arduous work, I have […]

Every area of work has its networks of colleagues, contacts and friends, and, in an ideal world, it’s difficult to tell them apart. The same is true of the fraternity and sorority of wine-writers. We meet and compete in the convivial atmosphere of tastings and presentations and develop a sense of closeness, of belonging … […]

While the grand wine houses boast of their age and ancient heritage and the newer wine-makers talk of creating a lasting presence in winemaking, there is a group of Londoners who are doing it the way it has always been done. The Urban Wine Company have been gathering the grapes of private growers around London […]