Sparkling

Wondering what to match with your take away food whilst all this madness is happeniig?

Its not often that I see samples of imports, but a few weeks ago we sat down to what is probably the best known name in Rioja wine. Campo Viejo, Spain's Winery of the Year, (now fully imported by Pernod Ricard) has won its the sixth Winery of the Year award, cementing their place as the "go to" Rioja wine, the region best known for its Tempranillo. But its been at the cutting edge of wine-making since its inception. José Ortigüela founded Campo Viejo as a premium Rioja brand

With the year nearly over its time to look take a good hard look through the bottom of the empty glass at the year that was. There’s been a few noticeable trends this year, some of which have actually lined up with my predictions from the end of last year – that rosé will continue its steady rise and broaden its flavour profile to make wines that men will happily drink during summer, and that beer brewers would start to return to forgotten or uncool styles, Gose beer has sky

The warm weather signals two things ...Christmas is just around the corner, and the inevitable Battle of the Bubbles is about to hit its stride. It’s also the time when everyone starts to look at their budgets for the upcoming Christmas, and starts trying to work out how they can afford it after dropping all their cash at the nags during the spring racing season. Sparkling wine has always been seen as the celebration wine, but it’s much more than that. It’s a great aperitif

Over the last few months, especially over the Christmas and New Years break I’ve noticed something amongst our friends, it’s the idea of “forgotten labels”. And by that I simply mean the idea that there are some wine labels out there that some of us swerve past, as we’ve had a bad experience or that we somehow associate with being sub-par. Those labels that we say “geeze I used to drink that all the time”. Once I noticed that we do it, I became aware that I do it myself, ev