The wine world is full of talking heads. Wine merchants and wine writers alike often slip into an arcane language when discussing the contents of a glass. Many descriptions often appear at best pretentious, at worse, downright laughable. Our attempts to describe a...
As the festival of over-indulgence draws close and our thoughts turn to panic buying of cream, icing sugar, sausage meat and baking foil, I like to think our household is coiled spring-like to deal with the family banquets ahead. The turkey is almost ordered, I have...
Some may say there are many perks of the wine merchant’s job, but for me the one that comes top of the list is travelling. By travelling I don’t mean the dreary hours spent in airports or the 4 a.m. starts in a mini-cab. No, it is the travel within the selected...
All food, through the decades, has travelled, whether it is Italian to New York, French to London or Thai cuisine to Amsterdam. Ironically one of the food cultures that has travelled furthest to reach our shores now plays more of a part of the fabric of our eating...
A brief and intensive trip to Spain last week, principally to follow one of the harvests through Rioja and check the newly released vintages. Having left a rather drizzle licked Luton at some ungodly hour in the morning, it was a welcome surprise some two hours later,...
