Cracking bottles and eggs
White wine is to a winemaker what the egg, one of the most finicky but essential staples of cooking, is to a chef: a telling gauge of ability and skill. Making white wine is easy but hard to master. Requiring a delicate touch, an exact sense of timing and an almost intuitive feel, many winemakers […]
Chardonnay for Christmas
What if you could choose only one wine to go with your traditional Christmas meal: which one would you pick? I’d say let’s hear it for rich, ripe and rounded whites and, as I remind myself each year, Chardonnay is really all you need. Often ignored at Christmas time, Chardonnay can be such an enchanting […]
Great whites to fall for
Autumn is making itself felt at the table and in the glass. The fresh produce and ingredients of the season are beckoning; the cooking goes into a higher gear and the cooler evenings bring with them an appetite for hearty, flavoursome wines. On rainy days we might crave uncorking reds but most of the time […]
Marrying wine and sweet delights
Now that the nip is still in the air, taste buds crave something intense and there’s nothing quite as comforting as a nice glass of sweet wine with a scrumptious dessert. Finding the right combination isn’t too difficult as long as you follow a few basic directions or, easier still, heed the sommelier’s recommendation when […]
Defining vegan-friendly wine
Choosing a bottle of wine is great fun but not easy if you are following a vegan diet that not only excludes all nourishment that is animal-derived but even other food and drink because it has been processed making use of animal substances. The reason that not all wines are vegan-friendly has to do with […]
