I’ve been going on for years in this column about how enjoying wine is more than a question of how it looks and tastes. Find out something about where it comes from, how it’s made and by whom, and you add an extra dimension of enjoyment and understanding. So far, however, I’ve avoided the question of how best to do this. I remember, as a young man, turning up in Bordeaux, bewildered by the rather uniform dull landscape and the identical closed iron gates in front of the chateaux. I came away not much the wiser. Now, in Bordeaux, it’s much easier with a Visitors’ Centre that introduces you to the area. But I also want to recommend a different approach, more suited to the lesser known winemaking areas: attend the annual Wine Fair. Continue reading Location, Location, Location
Tag Archives: Faugères
Special wine supermarket prices
We say thank you and goodbye to Philip Reddaway and hello to Andrew Polmear who is going to write a regular column about his love of wine
Supermarket wine has come a long way since those early days, the 1960s, when Sainsbury’s first introduced Vin de Pays de l’Herault and Minervois to their shelves for the same price that we used to pay for a Liebfraumilch or Bull’s Blood. I remember the excitement then – we felt we were drinking real wine that seemed to taste of the soil of those sun-baked parts of France rather than a factory product. Things have come a long way since then but there is still a dilemma when you are trying to buy a bottle of wine for under £10: do you buy a full-bodied wine from a reliable area that produces a lot of wine for the supermarket buyers, or do you seek out a wine that has something unique? A wine made with the carmenere grape from the central valley of Chile is always going to be full and fruity, but, in the end, unmemorable. A wine made by a single producer that has come from a small well-defined area with its unique blend of rock, soil and sun can stop a meal in its tracks, and transport you to that part of Italy, France or Spain where it was made.
Continue reading Special wine supermarket prices
The Whistler 