SunburnSunshine is a vital ingredient in making great wine. As you are browsing the summer holiday destination this year seeking out that vital few weeks away, those weeks of trying to avoid being a lobster by slapping horrendously expensive emollients onto your skin, have you…
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FOOD AND WINE MATCHING - WHERE TO START Cooking is a balance of sweet, salty, acid, umami and fat. The trick is to maintain that balance and not choose a wine that will ruin the food (or vice versa). The idea is to increase the…
More detailsNatural Nonsense? The current vogue in the consumer world of wine is to be as eco-friendly as possible. This is a laudable aim. However, I am ever the cynic about what actually contrives to be ecological. I was reading a social media feed from a…
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Richard’s Christmas 2018 Ramblings
Champagne Cynic 2018 I started my wine journey many years before I could afford to buy anything that was famous. I think I had one bottle of Champagne my entire life before age 25 (it was Moet, needless to say). Champagne is probably the most…
More detailsWinter Wine fair 2017 – The Top 10
Another year, another festive Grog-laden extravarganza. 180 lovely customers braved the chill and came along to sample over 100 of our tastiest wines. 2.5 hours later, as they wandered away with a slight spring in their step, orders were placed for cases of lovlieness. So,…
More detailsThere is a little bit of a nip in the air in the mornings now. This is the first time in 11 years since Ben Nevis had no snow at the top, but it will be back soon enough. Some of us will switch back…
More detailsChile I was lucky enough to be invited on a trip to Chile and Argentina this month by a very nice vendor of South American wines. Having never been I thought it would be polite to accept the offer of an 11 day break in…
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Always happy when we get and retain a five star rating. We couldn't do it all without you. Thanks
More detailsDoes a Teaspoon keep your fizz fizzier longer?
errr, I don't think so mate. I understand that Carbon Dioxide comes out slower when cooler (that is why you chill your fizz to start with.) But,....a spoon cooling it to prevent bubbles coming out? That's not going to happen. Best to just finish the…
More details..and the results are in …Christmas Wine Fair 2016 Top 10
Another year brings another Great Grog Christmas Tasting Extravaganza. This year we showed 106 wines from the super thrifty mid week gluggers to our fantastic new range of burgundys. 180 thirsty customers tasted their way through and from the 68 mixed cases sold on the…
More detailsMalta Part 2 You may, or may not, have read an article by myself a few months ago about some Maltese tourists who got stuck in the mud in their VW transporter in Drumguish. The gist of the story was that the kindness of William…
More detailsIf you had a vineyard March 2016
It must be a daydream of many people in the UK to own a vineyard somewhere sunny, particularly when the rain is pelting down outside. The ideal of lounging around on the porch, watching the grapes slowly ripen in the fields around you. The occasional…
More detailsAs we came in to land into Milan Malpensa airport, the lights of the suburbs looked idyllic. The plane glided in nearly on schedule. Sadly the – presumably trainee - pilot forgot to cut the engines & we bounced onto, & then off, the runway.…
More detailsDeadly vine disease kills 90% of European vineyards.
Fortunately, this is a historic headline. It was the lurid title of newspapers all over the world in the late 19th century. The botanists of Kew Gardens in London have quite a lot to answer for. They went across to America and brought back cuttings…
More detailsIn the past 11 years bulk shipping of wine to bottling plants in the UK has exploded with an astonishing 50% of all wine sold in the UK now being bottled on British soil. Everyone is at it, even Marks and Spencer does it for…
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