Wine sales, consultancy and education
The chances are if you ask the everyday wine drinker what their favourite red wine is, you will get one of two responses: Rioja or Shiraz. Very few would volunteer that Syrah is their favourite wine, yet Shiraz and Syrah are in fact one and the same. Many grapes have different names depending on where they are grown and originally Shiraz was the name coined by New World winemakers with Syrah (the grapes’ original name) used by the French…
Fed up with drinking Pinot Grigio or Sauvignon Blanc and fancy trying a white with a bit of a difference? If so, this Cretan wine (yes I said Cretan) made from 100% Dafni –an ancient indigenous variety found only on this Greek Island - is one to try. I first came across this wine during my studies and asked recently by a friend for an ‘unusual’ wine to take to a wine tasting I had no hesitation in recommending…
In the first part of this blog, I looked primarily at the ‘old world’ sparkling production of France, Spain and Italy, touching on the main production styles: • Traditional method (ie second fermentation in the bottle it is sold in) – ie Champagne, Cava, Franciacorta, Cremant • Tank method (aka Martinotti or Charmat), where the second fermentation occurs in a pressurized vat prior to bottling ie Prosecco, Lambrusco • as well as touching on the Asti method which is…
Everyone loves a glass of bubbles right? Actually, I’ve never been a huge fan, but having recently judged some Prestige Cuvée Champagnes (the best wines in a producer’s portfolio) I must admit some totally blew me away with their quality. There is a huge amount of sparkling wine out there to choose from and as it’s less than 12 weeks to Christmas (sorry but it’s true!!) it won’t be long before you start seeing all the pre-Xmas Sparkling wine…
Following on from a recent post on Chardonnay I thought it might be useful to do a quick overview of the classification system of Burgundy. As I touched on previously, the French do have a rather unhelpful way of labelling by appellation as opposed to grape variety which can make things rather confusing if you are not familiar with them. As a rule of thumb a red Burgundy is Pinot Noir and a white Burgundy is Chardonnay with Gamay…