LiscioGlassPack

Liscío Loving

This week I fell in love. I’m not about to run off with another man. Or woman. My new love is not even a wine. Or a book. Or a work of art. Well, in a way it is. It’s not a pet, a place, a film. That obscure object of my desire is a glass. It walked […]

Château Chenonceau? Who needs it? Birmingham's got The Cube!

Bougrier comes to Birmingham

Birmingham may not have châteaux or the country’s longest river  nor a coastline or vineyards as can boast the Loire region of France. But it does have canals and is the country’s second city, it has interesting modern buildings and well, there are vineyards not too far away even if they don’t yet reach the standard of production that Loire […]

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Shoes or Wine?

‘Feast your eyes on that lot.’, I texted while being unable to turn my eyes away from the treasures which lay before me.  A kind of delirium set in along with a state of dread. I was in awe. The items which currently lay on my dining room floor so rarely graced my table singly, […]

Lam

Lammershoek Lam 2012

South African wines are becoming so exciting, believe me, but you have to know where to look. For the most part that may not be among the  branded wines but from the individual producers many of whom are like brands anyway their names are becoming so well-known. I’ll come back to others in a subsequent blog but […]

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Petite Sirah’s Grand Prix

When was it that L.A.Cetto Petite Sirah from Mexico was Decanter Red Wine of the Year in the UK and cost about £3.99? 15 years ago? It was a great value everyday wine, to be sure, but it didn’t set the world alight or make hoards of wine producers start planting this grape. I wonder, however, if Chile’s […]

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World Champagne Day

Whoever selected today as World Champagne Day must have had a bit of inside knowledge on what the weather was going to be like today here in the UK. It’s a bright, uplifting day just like a glass of champers, the synergy alone should be reason enough to pop those corks. Not to mention that […]

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Monthly Wine Writing Challenge

Enjoy reading these and then vote for your favourite here 1)     Desolé Beaujolais – by Confessions of a Wine Geek 2)     Trick or Treat – by Wayward Wine 3)     Oops – by BYWine 4)     Wine’s Oops Moments – by Talk-a-vino 5)     The Perfect Word for Winetasting – by MyCustardPie 6)     Oops – by Wine Raconteur 7)     […]

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Foamability

I’ve always called the effervescent in sparkling wine ‘the fizz’ but Professor Richard Marchal from Reims University  whose whole working life is dedicated to assessing, counting, observing, photographing, monitoring bubbles in wine calls the mousse that forms a ‘collar’ at the top of the glass when poured, ‘the foam’, so the foam it is. Frilling Foam Facts: 1. It is […]

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Heavy Metal

If you’re a wine producer how do you make sure your wine gets noticed, talked about and, mostly importantly, bought? You send a sample to wine writers and hope they actually get round to opening it. You send a sample to wine writers, hope they actually get round to opening it and like it. You […]

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Wines Meat Their Match

Warning: this is not a suitable reading for vegetarians or vegans. For incurable meat eaters, however, read on……. I realise that not everyone is a simple soul like me who is willing to eat anything and everything: from sweetbreads to tripe, from the bloodiest steak to succulent veal, from foie gras to any other form of […]