by Stuart George
At Vins Extraordinaires we offer fine wines by the glass. But what is “fine wine”? Supermarkets define fine wine by price: Anything and everything above £10 or so is on the shelving section labelled as “fine wines”, opposite the sub-£10 stuff. In my local supermarket it’s about 30 wines out of 650 in total, so about 4.6% of all wines sold here. The supermarket sells a well-known Marlborough sauvignon blanc brand at £21, ergo it is a fine wine. It has an “iconic” (= well-designed and eye-catching) label and, in its way, is an historic winery – it kick-started the Kiwi sauvignon industry. But it’s not, in our opinion, a fine wine. It’s made in vast quantities – but so are certain Champagne brands that are considered to be “fine”. Crucially, the quality is not t...
by Rob Jones
Wine is a sophisticated tipple usually enjoyed with dinner or in moderation with family and friends. Drinking games are usually quite the opposite, but wine and drinking games do not have to be mutually exclusive. The truth is that while wine might not be the first tipple you think of when playing drinking games, it can be the perfect accompaniment. In fact, drinking games with wine are nothing new. One of Italy’s most popular and historic drinking games had refreshingly simple rules. Participants would drink as much wine as possible before stopping at regular intervals to insult each other. To add a little jeopardy, each player was also armed with a knife, which did tend to keep things lively.
by Susanna Gaertner
Summer! The season of al fresco dining with grilled meats, pasta, potato salads, and all manner of BBQ. And, of course, chardonnay, the white wine of choice for so many Americans. A perennial favorite, chardonnay can be crisp and floral or buttery and brazen; it should be an adventure to find the type that appeals to you. A good place to begin is with a brace of J. Lohr chardonnays, as different from one another as they are each perfect in their expression of the grape. I must confess that I am not a chard lover—my white wine preferences run toward riesling and sauvignon blanc—but I can confidently report on these two dynamic chards from the J. Lohr vineyard series. Kristen Barnhisel I first tasted the Arroyo Vista in its 2014 iteration and was impressed by its balance of ...
by Morgan Franklin
Bordeaux, the Napa Valley, Montepulciano, the Cape Winelands – there are some corners of the world which are synonymous with wine, Bognor Regis, the Brecon Beacons and Exeter are not usually amongst them. In fact, there are no regions of the UK with a particular global pedigree for wine. But this could soon change... Home-grown sparkling wines have been enjoying an especial surge in popularity in the UK over the past decade, thanks to our warming climate and the chalky limestone soils of many parts of southern England. But it's not just bubbles which are being brewed up on British soil, regions including Surrey, Essex and Kent have been producing some very respectable still wines too. So is it high time that you wrapped your mouth around some fine British wine? We'd argue yes – here ...
by Sippin Somm
Tis the season for wine, who am I kidding...there is never NOT a season suited for wine. There's a wine for every season, occasion, day, hour, minute, etc. However, with warmer weather there are these wine crawls, ahem, I mean wine walks (keep it classy...this is wine after all), that start popping up in downtowns and city centers all over the place. What is a wine walk? In the general sense it is an event, usually held by a chamber of commerce or downtown association, that aims to expose local businesses, by way of fermented grape juice. There are usually different "stations" for wine, food, or sometimes both. Typically very popular, participants visit each station (or business) and, usually in exchange for tasting tickets, receive pours of wine. Events like these help build community a...
by Catherine E. Fallis Master Sommelier-planet Grape
Sauvignon blanc is a green-skinned grape variety which probably originates from the Bordeaux region of France. It is now planted in much of the world’s vineyards. Sauvignon Blanc, is, without a doubt, one of the most versatile of grapes. Sauvignon derives from “sauvage”, or “wild”, and is also the “mother” of Cabernet Sauvignon. In fact, old records list these two as Sauvignon Blanc, and Sauvignon. Sauvignon Blanc’s unique methoxypyrazines (flavor compounds) manifest themselves as grassy, herbaceous, even cat pee like aromas at their most pungent. The riper the grape, the more the flavors move into the melon/tree fruit spectrum. The wines at their best are zesty, zingy, vibrant, though quite often softened with toasty oak. Sauvignon was not considered a great wine until S...
by Sam Brown
Picking out the ideal wines for a wedding, and serving them in the most appropriate ways, is something that shouldn’t be overlooked when planning even a relatively casual celebration. Going in too early with the wrong sort of drink for the setting, for example, can certainly impact on how the rest of the event progresses. That isn’t to suggest that there are dozens of alarming pitfalls to avoid: too many people already fret unduly about getting wine ‘wrong’, when ultimately it all comes down to what you most enjoy and what you want your guests to experience. Besides, at no time should it be more about personal preference than on your own wedding day, right? So let’s be clear here: the wines you pick out are not going to make the difference between a dream day and a nightmare (w...
by Dame Liz Palmer
The Comité Interprofessionnel du Vin de Champagne released its sales and shipment results for the Champagne sector in 2016. Here is the list of the top markets for 2016, along with some findings: • Champagne exports continues to progress, especially outside Europe; • Consumers are diversifying their tastes and turning to rosé and prestige cuvées; • 2016 is the second record year (4.71 billion euros) after 2015 (4.74 billion euros); and • Many countries confirm their status as growth drivers: (+ 9.4% Canada), United States (+ 6.3%), (+12% Mexico), (+ 15.1% in South Africa), (+ 25.4% in New Zealand), and (+ 14.2% in South Korea). Liz Palmer Award Winning Author The Ultimate Guide To Champagne...
by Morgan Franklin
All wines and wine-tasting events – no matter how exclusive, casual or intimate – benefit enormously from being held against a backdrop of great company and sparkling chat. We often get deep into anecdote-swapping sessions about wines and their history over a glass or two; after all, with a history of cultural significance dating back thousands of years, there’s a lot of rich and varied information on the topic to soak up! For starters, here are just a handful of eye-opening wine facts and tales you might like to bring to the next party… 1. In terms of physical acreage, grape vines claim the largest total plantation area of any cultivated fruit crop on the planet (and they’re produced in almost every country of the world). It takes around 4-5 years for newly planted vines to ...
by Nick
Getting a story about your wine brand published in a trade publication is about more than just having a great story. That was the consensus opinion of four wine industry experts – W.R. Tish of Beverage Media Group, David Ransom of The Tasting Panel and The SOMM Journal, Gregg Glaser of Modern Distillery Age, and Felicity Carter of Meininger’s Wine Business International – who recently gathered for a media panel at the 2016 USA Trade Testing Conference. As Tish points out, it’s important to have your media assets ready at any time. That means, for example, if you have a portfolio of 12 products, you also have a portfolio of high-resolution and low-resolution images of these products. It also helps, he says, to personalize your pitch to the specific publication. If you know what t...
