On a blazing hot day in June, myself and some friends headed to White Castle Vineyard in Abergavenny, Wales and, to our surprise, not only found some glorious sunshine but some incredibly wonderful wines! If you have any preconceptions about Welsh wine, please put them to one side and read on….. I had been at the WineGB event in […]
Ah Hambledon. “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate.” Never have Shakespeare’s words been more true! Hambledon is my favourite English Sparkling wine – I have shown a Hambledon at many a wine tasting, I served it at Christmas, I take it to parties and, hopefully, if […]
In the UK, we consume around 1.6 billion bottles of wine per year. One point six billion! That’s one hell of a lot of grapes. Many are collected using a grape harvesting machine but this isn’t possible in small production vineyards and in those vineyards which are high up or on steep slopes – in […]
I recently went to Crete on a trip with the wine-drinking bestie. After visiting the island once in my pre-university days (circa 1998), I knew this visit would probably be a little different to the late night booze-fest of my late teenage years.I’ve come a long way since those days and, it would appear, so […]
Hattingley Valley is in a quite ‘out-of-the-way’ spot in deepest, darkest Hampshire. Near to Alresford, the vineyard is accessible only by car and through some beautiful winding country roads. Quintessentially English, it’s only a few miles from Jane Austen’s house and one could, very easily, picture the Bennett girls having a wander across the landscape. […]
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 […]
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 […]