Writing about the wines of Piemonte, Italy and France
As the old joke goes, you wait and wait for a bus to come along in London and then two come along at the same time! Only for me, the ‘buses’ have been vertical tastings of ageable wines. The first of these was Cantina Kurtatsch‘s Bordeaux variety wines, Cabernet Sauvignon Riserva Freienfeld and its Merlot
The Colli Euganei is one of Italy’s less well-known but distinctive wine regions. Situated close to Venice, between Padua and Vicenza, it is a series of hills of volcanic origin whose main attraction is the thermal springs. Abano Terme, close by, has endless spa hotels from the grand to the functional. If you can tear
Not all Prosecco is the same. The two most favoured regions are those in the hills. These are the better-known and original Prosecco, now called Valdobbiadene Conegliano Processo Superiore DOCG (Prosecco Superiore for short) and the nearby hills of Asolo DOCG. Altitude (and therefore better day-night temperature difference), poorer soils, steep slopes (better exposure to
Why the Judgment of Overton? Two of our tasting group decided to collect the wines to re-run the so-called Judgement of Paris. In short, this blind tasting in 1976 changed the world of wine. It demonstrated that Californian wines can be of the same quality level as the top wines of Bordeaux and Burgundy. Our
From humble beginnings I started this website as a humble blog on WordPress, back in 2009. I gradually built it up with the core feature of reports on wine regions which I had visited, personally. These were mostly in Italy and France, to which have been added in the last five years, Australia, New Zealand
As a small, gastronomic, diversion from the wines of Piemonte, I am marking the end of an era with the imminent closure of The Harrow, Little Bedwyn. For the last 21 years Roger and Sue Jones have run this brilliant and civilised restaurant with a great cellar. For many of those years it had a
Radda is probably my favourite Chianti Classico commune. With elevations up to 550m, sweeping slopes and dense forests, it is the coolest part of Chianti Classico. Historically, the challenge was to ripen grapes fully. Radda is also home to a number of great wineries, Montevertine, Volpaia and Monteraponi to name a few. The revived Castello
