After the ’09 EWBC ended in Lisbon, myself and about 20 other winebloggers were invited to visit the Douro Valley by the Douro Boys. The Douro Boys are 5 Portuguese wine makers who have come together to make exciting still table wines from the Douro Valley and to show that there’s a lot more to Portugal than Port. The...
read moreI’m not really one to look back, I’m either daydreaming about the future or looking forward to tonight’s wine – more or less the same thing. But I saw one of Niamh’s tweets about her year-end round-up and it got me to reminiscing about my vinous adventures this past year. The great thing about a blog...
read moreBefore the EWBC ’09, I was speaking to a friend of mine, Miguel Leal of Casa Leal, importers of premium Portuguese wine to the UK, and he invited me to visit one of his favourite wineries in Portugal, the Quinta do Sanguinhal in the D.O.C. Obidos region. Situated about an hour north of Lisbon, Quinta do Sanguinhal was...
read moreAfter a huge Christmas feast you’d think I’d have no room for dessert and you’d be right. BUT I did have room for liquid dessert, namely a glass or 3 of Andresen 40 year old Tawny port. Andresen is one of the few family owned port houses remaining. Andresen was originally founded in 1845 by the Dutchman JH...
read moreThis has been a week of good wine drinking. First a visit to The Sampler with Sarah and now Christmas Day and a magnum of Ch. Grand Puy Lacoste 1986. My friend James had been dying to open this one up ever since he bought it and what better time than Christmas Day! Bordeaux is one of my favourites but I don’t get many chances...
read moreDon’t you just wish you could try every single wine before you buy it? I know I do. Sure the back label gives a mighty fine description (if it’s New World or none at all if it’s Old World, esp. France and Italy!) but oftentimes, unless you’ve had the wine before, you might have only a hazy idea of what...
read more“All the leaves are brown…and the sky is grey. I’ve been for a walk on a winter’s day….” Typical cold, drizzly, sun-goes-down-at-4pm-in-London-late November afternoon and I was walking to the Hoxton in Shoreditch for the Wine Institute of California’s first official bloggers meetup. We...
read moreI used to be a vegetarian. I know it’s hard to believe but I was almost a VEGAN!!! What insanity. Why was I a veggie? At first it was because I was travelling in India and there wasn’t much meat around and what there was, it was just plain disgusting, hanging in the hot sun, dessicated and smelling none to fresh. The...
read moreI was reading the new wine social media portal, Bibendum Times the other day and they had a great article on bicycling through the Mosel. Sure you get your exercise but even better are the pitstops along the way to sample all those wonderful Mosel rieslings. Readers of The Winesleuth will know that I absolutely adore riesling,...
read moreAfter the European Winebloggers Conference 2009, a number of us bloggers were driven what seemed like forever through windy, mountainous roads to get to the Douro Valley and visit the Douro Boys to taste all their fantastic wines. I’ve got loads of pix and I’ve made a couple of slide shows but I just wanted to devote a...
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