Recent Posts
I often surf around the web just to see what kinds of wine related gifts there are out there for wine geeks (ahem, a certain Winesleuth is having a birthday soon, just saying). I recently came across this lovely website that features quirky but stylish wine-themed gifts. You can have a look at some of their offerings here. The aim...
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I spent most of last Autumn hanging out in Barcelona and while I was there, I discovered plenty of little tapas bars around the well worn tourist path. There are SO many crap tapas bars in Barcelona. I hope my little list will at least give you brief glimpse into what you can find if you scratch the surface and get away from the...
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I like to think that vin clair tasting is similar to Bordeaux en primeur in that it’s a tasting where you are given a glimpse of the wine to come. With vin clair though you have to use your imagination a lot more to envision how the final blend will turn out. Bear in mind also that it’s not 2 or even 10 vin clair that...
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I was on Day 2 of my natural, biodynamic and organic wine tasting trip in the Loire and today we were in the town of Saumur for the 16th annual Dive Bouteille tasting. The Dive tasting is the oldest and most important natural wine tasting around. It was originally started by producers who wanted to showcase their wines outside of...
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What is ‘natural’ wine, exactly? Is it wine that is made without intervention – and what exactly does that mean? Is it wine that only has sulfur added at bottling? Or wine that has no added sulfur whatsoever? Or is it wine that is organically/biodynamically grown? After spending the weekend in the Loire at two of...
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Everyone likes to talk about the grand marquees of Champagne, your Vueves and your Taittingers but the big houses are not the only players in Champagne. Like other regions, Champagne also has co-ops and one of the biggest in France is Nicolas Feuillatte. It is the largest co-op in Champagne with over 5,000 growers supplying grapes...
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Earlier this month I jetted off to Ontario, Canada to check out their Ice Wine Festival and while I was there, we visited one of the legendary wineries of Canada, Inniskillin. The winery was founded in Niagara-on-theLake over 35 years ago by Donald Ziraldo and Karl Kaiser. Their goal being to produce premium wine from the Niagara...
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There are some things in London that are hard to come by. One of those things is good ol’ American BBQ. Now, I’m not from any of the Southern states of the US but I do like a good BBQ so I was interested to see how a new BBQ place in Marylebone, of all places, would play out. Turns out, it’s pretty darn good. The...
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This past weekend I visited Ontario, Canada to learn a bit more about the delicious ice wines that they produce at their annual Niagara Ice Wine Festival as well as getting a great introduction to the region. The Niagara Ice Wine Festival has been going on since the 1990’s and is your chance to sample all that gorgeous golden...
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Yesterday I visited cava producer Vilarnau in Penedes, Spain (post here). After my tour of the grounds and winery, it was time for a tasting of their cavas. As we were walking through the cellar to the tasting room, we passed by a collection of clay vases that were sitting under a set of spotlights. Curious, I asked my guide,...
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