Wine sales, consultancy and education
In a bit of a departure from my usual blogs, today I want to talk about a recent trip to Hungary and a fantastic little wine bar visited in Budapest called The Tasting Table Hungarian wine is undergoing something of a resurgence in the UK following LIDL’s decision to stock a range of Hungarian wines yet many people still when asked what they know of Hungarian wine will often hesitate before tentatively saying “Tokaji”? The truth is there is…
Ok, I probably ought to point out first up that I used to be a fully paid up member of the ‘ABC’ (Anything but Chardonnay) Club. Why? Chardonnay (particularly New World Chardonnay) had by the 1990's become a victim of its own success: the fashion being for rich, ripe and over-oaked wines and perhaps unfortunately for me, this was the era of my first exposure to the ‘wonders’ of chardonnay and I shall use the term loosely in these…
We’ve all done it, gone to a restaurant and treated the wine menu rather like a hot potato, passing it round and round the table – “you want to pick the wine”, “no, please you pick it”, or “I’m easy I’ll go with whatever you think”. Why do we do this? Is it because we’re never sure what pairs well with the food or is being faced with a wine list with nothing particularly recognizable you fall back on trying…
Possibly no grape divides opinion as much as Sauvignon Blanc – loved by consumers if not universally by the critics. Just what is it that makes this grape so divisive? Yes, it can be pungent: “Cats Pee on a Gooseberry bush” is just one descriptor often used! Yes, a generalisation is it’s a grape that doesn’t particularly take well to oak so automatically appears to lack the kudos other varieties can command, and yes, in many cases the wines…