I’ve had some wonderful encounters with Croatian wines over the years – the muscular reds from Dalmatia, on a visit to Dubrovnik back in 2003, and more recently an excellent Istrian expression of Malvasia. In a few weeks time I’ll be visiting classic Dalmatian wine country again. Staying on that theme, here is a review
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A brace of Rieslings
I’m not sure if there are collective nouns for different grape varieties – in general we talk about flights of wine, so why not a brace of Rieslings, a gaggle of Gewurztraminers or even a congress of clarets? German white wines are often misunderstood in the UK, which is a shame in some ways (they
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Let’s get naked, again
Here’s a brief write-up of some of the more interesting wines I encountered at the Naked Wines tasting in London this evening. I have to say, I think the interactions with the winemakers were at least as interesting as the wines, if not more so. So nice to have a room full of enthusiastic producers
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Don’t you just hate it when that happens . . .
Simon falls in love with Hegarty Chamans Cuvee No. 1 – only to discuss his supply has been cut off!
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Birthday vinucopia
I have to write a brief post about my very enjoyable birthday celebration, last week. What better place than Green and Blue (of which I have spoken before) – good atmosphere, brilliant wines, and enough high quality nutrition to keep everyone from falling under the table. As we ended up being a party of 14,
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A very sparkling bottom
To some, the idea of English wine is a bit of a joke, wrongly associated with those sickly sweet concoctions labelled as “British Wine”. It’s an unfortunate and confusing quirk of our labelling laws that “British Wine” is made from imported grape must, which often has sugar and other additives thrown in. English wine, however,
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Let’s get naked
I’ve read a lot about Naked Wines over the past few months. Naked are a relatively new online retailer with a novel concept – you can join up as a “angel”, pay £20 a month and then get Naked’s exclusive wines at a considerable discount (33% or more) when they’re released. Naked use the money
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A Balkan take on Burgundy – Matošević Alba Barrique 2008 (Obscure white grapes, Part 3)
It’s not every day you get the opportunity to try a Croatian white wine, without troubling the budget airlines. There is no shortage of high quality wine to be found throughout Dalmatia and Istria, but close to nothing reaches the UK. Therefore, when I saw the Matošević Alba Barrique 2008 on sale at Cartwright Brothers