Recently I was lucky enough to spend a sun-kissed week in the beautiful town of Céret in the Languedoc-Roussillon region of France. Being only three miles from the Spanish border, we flew into Barcelona and drove the 110km to Céret but you could also fly into Perpignan which is about 45 mins drive away. At […]
I’m just going to put something out there… wine is confusing, right? Corks and screwcaps, the seemingly elusive dry German wines, French wine labels and not to mention vintages – should I really avoid 2013 in Bordeaux? Wine has many, many variables. It’s why so many of us stick to what we know. We find […]
Mr N whisked me away to Bordeaux, the City of Wine, for our anniversary this year. It was a very sweeping visit of just over 24 hours but that didn’t stop us cramming as much in as possible.We arrived in Bordeaux City (an hour and a half from Gatwick) at 5.30pm on Friday night. We […]
Happy New Year! I hope the festive period was good for you and that hangovers were scarce. The first few weeks of the new year can be a grim time. The festive fun is over, you’re back to work and it’s cold and dark. So, rather than think about all that, I thought I’d just […]
Fly into Bilbao and drive just over an hour and you will be in Haro – the self-proclaimed capital of Rioja. There has been red wine production in this area of Spain for hundreds of years but it wasn’t until the mid-19th Century that the Rioja we know and love today was being made. Along […]
Recently I spent three glorious weeks on the Caribbean island of Grenada. 35 degree temperatures, crystal blue seas and bright, bright sunshine. I’ve been to the Caribbean a few times before: Antigua, Barbados, Cuba and Jamaica and, each time, I’ve drunk rum. Rum punch, rum and pineapple, rum and coke, rum cocktails. It’s been a […]
I think I came to wine relatively late. I only started drinking the grape stuff in my early twenties. Before that, I had been raised on a (very dilute) Martini Rosso and Lemonade over Sunday lunch with my family and the inevitable university years of Bacardi Breezer and Purple Nasties (snakebite and black for those […]
Italian wines, like French wines, can be frustrating. Not varietally labelled (they don’t tell you what grape is in the bottle), in some cases head-spinningly pricey and with some being deceptively strong, Italian wines can be a bit of a mine field. With hundreds of local grape varieties in production as well, sometimes it’s just […]
Martin Codax, Marieta 2013Albarino, Rias Baixashttp://www.oddbins.com/marieta-albarino It’s amazing how you can remember some wines vividly. I think this one will stay with me forever. One of the (many) things I love about wine is what a social drink it is. Wine goes best with friends: over dinner, over catch ups, over celebrations, commiserations and just […]