“V” is for vegan and vegetarian wines

The rise of veganism globally (you only need to see how many vegan restaurants are on the High Street these days) has invariably led to much wider interest in what constitute vegan and vegetarian ‘friendly’ products.  While it is obvious meat or fish aren’t suitable, it’s a much greyer area with other products...take wine for example. When I was working for a wine merchant, one of the most popular questions fielded was from customers asking which of our wines…

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“U” is for Uruguay

When you think of South American wine, the two nations that come to mind are Argentina and Chile, and rightly so as these two are the well established ‘big players’ on the international wine scene.  However, Uruguay is coming up hot on their heels, not in terms of volume perhaps, but certainly in terms of quality potential. Before I go into the wines and producers to look for, I wanted to give a quick overview of the history and…

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“T” is for Txakoli

Phonetically pronounced “Chak-hul-ee”, apart from being hard to pronounce and worth a huge numbers of points in scrabble, the main thing to note is Txakoli (or Txakolina) is not a grape, but a wine style.  Never heard of it? I wouldn’t be surprised.   Even today many of these wines are made for, and consumed by, the local market with few wines being exported, but this is thankfully beginning to change. Where is Txakoli from? Spain.  As you may have…

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“S” is for Sangiovese

I suspect that the theme for this blog may be met with a nonchalant shrug by many. The name sounds vaguely familiar, you think it sounds Italian but aren’t really sure?  If, however, I was to say Chianti then I think the response would be more one of recognition.  Yes, Sangiovese is Italian, although creditable versions are now being made as far afield as Australia and Argentina, it remains pretty steadfastly Italian.  Hailing from Central Italy, its homeland is…

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“R” is for rosé

An A-Z of wine wouldn’t be complete without looking at rosé – for no other reason than to keep friends (who shall remain nameless and) who drink gallons of the stuff, happy! Rosé wines are made all over the world although it has for a long time been driven by the old world – France is a leading producer, particularly from the warmer southern reaches of the Languedoc, southern Rhone and Provence but not forgetting the Loire. It is…

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