Drinks Podcast

The UK Champagne market is, as we’ve said again and again, complex and crowded. Importers and makers need to fight prety hard to be noticed. One of the problems is the sheer number of brands and labels available. However what we, the consumers, often don’t realise is which Champagne is owned by which other Champagne […]

It’s spring, it must be Champagne! As the years roll by, I’m start to realise how short they’re becoming. Why, it seems only a couple of weeks ago that I was at the Champagne Bureau‘s annual tasting in the Banqueting House in Whitehall, London. As it happens, they DID hold the tasting the week before last, so that’s […]

The pub world is a fickle place – premises are closing all around us and, depending on whom you ask, the indutry is either in trouble or in crisis. In my own locality of Barnet in Hertfordshire (look me up, buy me a drink!) there are pubs boarded up, former pubs that are now private […]

The clothes you wear to a tasting are important – you want something that you don’t mind staining with red wine; hence there is a prevalence of scruffiness and flamboyance in the wine-writing fraternity. So imagine the consternation caused by being required to wear a suit and tie to a tasting! I only own one […]

Food and wine go together like … well … food and wine! There is a huge amount of snobishness over which wines to serve with which food – red with red meats, white with fish etc. That’s all well and good but with the myriad of wines available to us, where do you start to […]

Regular visitors to this podcast series will be delighted to know that The Kernel Brewery in Bermondsey was one of only 3 finalists in the 2012 BBC Food And Farming Awards – I spoke with them last year (see the podcast on Mircrobrewing earlier in this series) and we congratulate them on their success! Now: Christmastime […]

You may know the wines of Wolf Blass from the supermarket, where his Yellow Label wines sell pretty well. But Wolf began by making premium wines, characterised as Black Label, Grey Label and, more recently, Platinum Label. These high-end wines are much more about the individual character of the vineyards and are priced to match. […]

The Great British Beer Festival 2011 just ended at Earl’s Court in London. As a judge in the CAMRA beer festival, I have, on occasion, got to go along and taste beers entered into the competition to win a medal and, hopefully, the title Best Beer. In the midst of this arduous work, I have […]

Every area of work has its networks of colleagues, contacts and friends, and, in an ideal world, it’s difficult to tell them apart. The same is true of the fraternity and sorority of wine-writers. We meet and compete in the convivial atmosphere of tastings and presentations and develop a sense of closeness, of belonging … […]

While the grand wine houses boast of their age and ancient heritage and the newer wine-makers talk of creating a lasting presence in winemaking, there is a group of Londoners who are doing it the way it has always been done. The Urban Wine Company have been gathering the grapes of private growers around London […]

Some things are traditional and unchanging; or at least that’s the impression we have. It always rains at Wimbledon, the hats are huge at Ascot and Champagne will always be, well, Champagne. So, one might ask, what’s the point of the Champagne Bureau’s annual tasting in The Banqueting House, London if we’re going to get […]

Beer is possibly the oldest form of manufactured beverage; certainly, the earliest documented. Over the last century or so, it has gone from home- and pub-brewed ales, through the industrial-made horrors in the 60s/70s, and now it’s back among the small operators with an explosion of small and microbreweries around the country. These are sometimes […]

A new vintage of wine like CastelGiocondo Brunello di Montalcino is usually launched with a tasting and, occasionally, a party of some sort. These may be in highly prestigious city venues, in quirky Hoxton restaurants or at trade shows. While the tastings at the trade shows can justify themselves in a purely business sense, the […]

Shochu is the newest thing at the bar. It’s not a wine, it’s not really a spirit as we understand it. It is Japanese but it is not Sake, so what it is and is it worth the effort of finding out? The Saki Bar and Food Emporium held a tasting of Shochu to help […]

You will probably have heard of organic wine production but have you come across biodynamics? It’s the new kid in town, utilising homeopathy, astronomical charts and other practices that might seem odd at first sight. However, more and more growers are adopting biodynamic wine production methods in the belief that it is the best right […]

If you really want to stand out in the world of wine, one thing you can do is get yourself qualified as a Master of Wine. This title is administered by the Institute of Masters of Wine. It’s a difficult course to complete and MWs are generally respected and held in high esteem within the […]

Gin has been around since the mid 17th century. It has a chequered history and a huge influence on the social history of England and particularly on London. While I’ve been a fan of the stuff for many years, I realised I didn’t actually know all that much about it so, when an invitation arrived […]

Sake. Most people will have come across Sake as a body-temperature alcoholic drink served in Japanese restaurants, usually with Sushi. Most people know it’s made from rice and that it comes from Japan … and that’s usually where the knowledge ends. But Sake is carving out a clear niche among the wine cognoscenti as an […]

A stroll through the wine section of your local supermarket or wine retailer will show shelves with almost equal space given to new and old world wines, to Italian and French, Chilean and South African. This is unrecognisable from 20 years ago, when the French dominated fine wine drinking in the UK and top of […]

The 5th Champagne Louis Roederer International Wine Writers’ Awards ceremony took place in September 2009 in a glamorous event at the very top of The Gherkin in St Mary Axe in the City of London. A lucky few of the wine trade’s great and gathered to celebrate the finest writing on wine and to witness […]