“C” is for Châteauneuf-du-Pape

Before I really developed an interest in wine, there were always the “go-to“ wines that I would buy – not because I knew anything about them, but because I’d heard of them so assumed (rightly or wrongly), they must be good! Châteauneuf-du-Pape most definitely fell into that category and whenever I was over in France on the booze-cruise, I would fill up the basket with as much of the stuff as I could find, even on occasion grabbing the…

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“B” is for Biodynamic

You may or may not have heard this term, but trust me, it’s an ideal which is increasingly gaining momentum with winemakers globally as the concepts of sustainability and environmental conservation grow. Nicolas Joly, the esteemed Domaine de la Romanée-Conti in Burgundy and Champagne House Roederer are among producers to make the move into biodynamic viticulture. What does it mean? Based on the work of Rudolph Steiner way back in 1924, the movement pre-dates Organic farming, yet is arguably nowhere…

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“A” is for Acidity

Acids form one of the four key components of wine, along with Alcohol, Tannins and Sugars (Sweetness). The nirvana for a winemaker is getting all these components in balance, the result, is usually a great wine!  I should start by saying that technically speaking, all wines are acidic, by which I mean they have a natural pH between 2.5 and 4.5 (a pH of 7 is neutral), but some grapes are naturally more acidic than others, and all lose…

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Bored and looking for a short diversion? This A-Z of wine may be just the answer

In this time of enforced isolation and with only so many jobs that can be done around the house, I thought it would be a good opportunity to use the time to create some bite size wine related blogs that will literally take just a few minutes to read.  Starting tomorrow, for the next 26 days I will be posting an A-Z of wine: useful snippets of information, ranging from grape varieties to methods of production, winemaking terms to…

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Wine Label Terms – Explained

Apologies for the radio silence over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been busy attending various tasting events with a view to subjects for possible future blogs! For this latest piece I have decided to try and provide a useful guide to terminology you may come across on the wine label, what it means and more importantly what the implications are on the wine, as (usually!) there will be some. “Barrel Fermented” As the name suggests this describes a…

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