Archive for June, 2012:
Britain’s best bacchus, bubblies and more besides
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Judging at the English and Welsh Wine of the Year Competition, 2012 was a new and relished experience for me. I came away reinvigorated by the dynamism and freshness of the industry.
The mesmerising world of Didier Barral
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Didier Barral owns 33 hectares of Faugères, plus 20 hectares of land which is fallow for pasture, for his philosophy on the monoculture that is grape-growing and wine-making is that it is impossible to make organic wine in a monoculture.
Wachau Smaragd – a 25 year view
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A tasting in Vienna marked the 25th anniversary of the smaragd style of wine from Austria’s Wachau region.
Bodegas Terras Gauda
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Bodegas Terras Gauda, in north west Spain, are making some extraordinarily good wines from the local Rias Baixas grapes.
A dozen New Zealand pinot noirs
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The family of twelve New Zealand producers each showed a pinot noir at a recent London tasting, raising the subject once again of potential regionalisation of style in the country.
Sicily – a continent on one island
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A steep gradient, literally and thermally, exists from the cool, high slopes of Mount Etna in the east of Sicily to the basking west of the island, both Palermo and the island of Pantelleria, which is nearer Africa than Europe. Combine this with a bevy of well-adapted local grape varieties, and Sicily has an enviable paradigm on the cool-hot spectrum.
Sicily according to Winkler and MJT
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Sicily spreads across all five Winkler regions
Concours Mondial 2012
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More than 300 of the great, the good, the glamorous and the grubby, from 48 different countries, gathered in the Portuguese medieval town of Guimarães last month, for three days, to judge some 8,400 wines and spirits as part of the Concours Mondial de Bruxelles. Me included.
English bubbles in English wine week
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All the good news about English wine, and sparkling wine in particular, is fully deserved. Our producers are making world class bubblies that compete on their own merits on the international stage.
