Not The Usual Suspects – Alternative Grape Varieties Are you tired of Pinot Grigio or cheesed off with Cabernet? Do you find Merlot mundane, or that Sauvignon isn’t your scene? In which case, why not broaden your vinous horizons? But wait – many wines featured on these pages are not these usual suspects. Estimates say that up to 10,000 different …
Bodegas Tobía – Cuvée Blanco Rioja
Bodegas Tobía – Cuvée Blanco Rioja Last year, I tried a glass of Rioja Cuvée Blanco from Bodegas Tobía, a producer then unknown to me. As there are 66,902 hectares of vines and 748 producers in Rioja selling around 325 million bottles annually in many diverse styles, perhaps you’ll forgive me for not knowing all of them.1 Meanwhile, this glass …
For Fine Dining Value, Go Back to College
For Fine Dining Value, Go Back To College Last year, I discovered that my local college in Kendal has an excellent training restaurant as part of its Hospitality and Catering department. And it’s open to the public. Given the hospitality industry’s importance to the UK economy and the need to underpin this with professional training, this should have come as …
Cadgal and Moscato d’Asti DOCG
Cadgal and Moscato d’Asti DOCG Moscato d’Asti DOCG covers a vast area of some 10,000 ha in Piemonte, spreading across the historic regions of Langhe, Monferrato and Roero. It produces and sells about 36 million bottles yearly, 90% of which are exports. That’s a lot of wine, yet it remains less well-known in the UK, dwarfed by the ubiquitous Prosecco1. …
Zymology, imagine our world without fermentation
Zymology, imagine our world without fermentation. Our modern civilisation relies on technology. Who could imagine our world without fire, the wheel, or books? More recently, the internal combustion engine, aeroplanes, and mobile internet? In the future, AI looms. All are milestones in human ingenuity; where would we be without them? However, in this article, I would like to ask you …
What is terroir and does it matter?
What is terroir, and does it matter? Terroir is a French word without a simple English translation. The Oxford Companion to Wine devotes a couple of pages to the subject. However, my favourite explanation is much more succinct. It comes from literature: “For nitrates are not the land, nor phosphates and the length of fibre in the cotton is not the …
Maculan – Three Red Wines from Breganze in the Veneto
Maculan – Three Red Wines from Breganze in the Veneto The Veneto in North Eastern Italy is one of the powerhouses of Italian wine. After all, this region has been making wine for three or more millennia. Today, it contains many famous appellations, such as Valpolicella and Soave, and even more famous wines, such as Amarone, Prosecco and Pinot Grigio. …
Rossese Bianco from Josetta Saffirio is WOTY 2024
Rossese Bianco from Josetta Saffirio is WOTY 2024 Wine Alchemy’s Wine of the Year (WOTY) 2024 goes to Sara Vezza in Piemonte, Italy. This is for the rare white wine Josetta Saffirio, Rossese Bianco, Langhe DOC, 2022. As is usual, the Wine Alchemy WOTY is inspirational. Exceptional taste is a given. But, in addition, the winning wine must be genuinely …
Greatest Hits – A Case for Christmas 2024
Greatest Hits – A Case for Christmas 2024 This year, I’m ringing the changes for the Case for Christmas 2024 article. This time, it’s a Greatest Hits package. This features a dozen wines selected from all my previous annual Christmas wine recommendations. They are twelve wines that stand the test of time and fully deserve highlighting again. Such a listicle …
Le Monde Wine Tasting Dinner in Cumbria
Le Monde Wine Tasting Dinner in Cumbria At a recently held Le Monde wine-tasting dinner in Cumbria, we imagined ourselves in Italy, specifically the area of Friuli known as Friuli Grave. This territory is sandwiched between the Alps to the north, with Venice and the Adriatic coast to the south. It’s an enormous flat plain created over millennia by alluvial …