Writing about the wines of Piemonte, Italy and France
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
Colli Euganei: Bordeaux blends on volcanic soils Read More »
Thanks to the generosity of Maison Albert Bichot, Beaune, a group of wine students have the chance to taste several flights of white Burgundy. What is special about the range of wine is that the producer is the same and within the two main flights the wines are from the same vintages. So we have
Albert Bichot’s white Burgundy Read More »
This year’s European Wine Bloggers Conference was held in Logroño, Rioja, in late October. The most exciting part of it for me was the chance to visit some great regions which are all new to me. In the course of three days, and thanks largely to the sponsorship of Araex, a group of independent Spanish
Lighting tour of Northern Spain Read More »
Mystery and suspense currently surround the village of Bugarach. Situated 75 kilometres from the Mediterranean and 110 from the Spanish border, it lies at 460m above sea level but is completely overshadowed by the Pic de Bugarach, a mountain in the foothills of the Pyrenees, which rises to 1230m. The first mystery is the weather
Mysterious Bugarach Read More »
At the beginning of a trip, there is always the travel day – the early start, the wait at the airport, the anxiety of the unknown. But then there is the arriving in which Puglia did us proud. We touched down at 12.30 pm and by the time we had got through the simple passport
Arriving in Puglia Read More »
Sancerre, Chablis and Champagne – the top glasses At the end of a wine tour, it’s good to stand back, review the experience as a whole and pick a few favourite glasses. There were 89 to choose from by my count. Of course one wouldn’t want to give the impression it was all tasting and
Coach travel is all very well. Within northern France from the UK, it is tolerable – quite fast, better ecologically than flying short distances, secure, uneventful. But it still takes quite a while to get from London (7.45 am) to Sancerre (6 pm French time), central France. The specialist wine travel company, Arblaster and Clarke,
Arriving at Sancerre Read More »
When you are in a wine zone it makes sense to concentrate on the wines of the region itself. But of course, there are interesting wines to be tasted or drunk from adjacent zones or indeed from completely different parts of the world. Here are a few from our stay in Massa Marittima, Southern Tuscany.
From Napa to Massa Read More »
A second wine which suffers at the hands of its reputation is the Tuscan indigenous white, Vernaccia di San Gimignano. If I had a pound for every average bottle sold to tourists in this spectacular town under its medieval towers, I would be … well, you can finish the sentence. But it is potentially a
Vinitaly 3: a towering Vernaccia Read More »
Visiting Vinitaly, the annual five-day Italian wine fair in Verona, is in many ways a microcosm of the Italian wine scene – massive in scale, seemingly infinite in possibilities, by turns exhilarating and exasperating. The sheer scale of it is quite intimidating – 13 huge pavilions and 4200 producers. If the producers bring five wines
Vinitaly 1: the Italian wine city Read More »