This May we celebrate all things English with rich offerings from nature such as asparagus, new Jersey Royal potatoes, wild garlic, spring onions and the first strawberries of the season. So, what better way to enjoy the month and welcome the long-awaited warmer weather, than with an array of wines which evoke Spring, starting with delightful glass of sparkling English wine.
By Luisa Welch, AWE Argentina’s winemaking history Argentina is famed for its bold and fruity reds, and rightly so. With its sunny summers and the snow-capped Andes mountains providing not just a stunning backdrop, but also natural irrigation, Argentina has become one of the most dynamic winemaking countries. Today, Argentina produces some of the best…
By Luisa Welch, AWE The picturesque Loire Valley region is not only known for its historical castles and abbeys, delicious food and gastronomical specialities, but also for its excellent wines. Located in a special corner of France along the country’s longest river, and part of the UNESCO World Heritage, the Loire Valley is overflowing with…
By Luisa Welch, AWE It’s February, love is in the air – you need a wine to celebrate Valentine’s Day. Though any night you open a great bottle is a celebration, an excuse for splashing out on something special, and Valentine’s Day just happens to be an excellent excuse to indulge. There is nothing quite…
By Luisa Welch, AWE It’s January, it’s cold, and you might already be wavering about you New Year Resolutions. If one of your resolutions is to drink better wines, why not consider drinking healthier wines too? You may well ask if there is such a thing as ‘healthier’ wines: organic, vegetarian or vegan perhaps. January…
By Nick Adams As part of the series of looking at the people behind the wines I come to an example which could be argued to be the one of the most enduring and profound of all – Henschke, based in the Barossa South Australia. I also had the privilege to work with Henschke for…
By Nick Adams, Master of Wine What are International Varietals? It is estimated that there are potentially up to 10,000 different grape varieties in the world which technically can make wine. Of these the Grape & Wine Research Development Corporation records a database of 1,271 being actively used in creating and blending different styles of…
By Nick Adams, Master of Wine So often the dancing partner with Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot produces an array of wine styles at all prices. And to put this into context, paradoxically, it is the main grape behind the most expensive Bordeaux wines of the whole region. A grower’s favourite, but it has not always commanded…
By Nick Adams, Master of Wine Cabernet Sauvignon vies with Merlot as the most widely planted black grape in the world. It is also a variety which causes many wine drinkers to purr with expectation and deference. It is the bedrock of most of the left bank Bordeaux and anyone lucky enough to have tasted top…
By Nick Adams, Master of Wine. When Jancis Robinson mw wrote her seminal book on the grape varieties of the world – Vines, Grapes & Wine – she noted then, that in 1986, Viognier was recorded as only being planted in around 32 hectares in the whole world. In effect it was close to viticultural…
The recent blog on Châteauneuf-du-Pape https://winetrust.co.uk/chateauneuf-du-pape-home-to-one-of-the-worlds-greatest-red-wines-and-ufos/ set me thinking about how the main grape behind this world famous wine is arguably the least known of all the great international varieties planted around the world. Grenache is at the centre of an amazing range and styles of wine, but it also tends to hide itself from…
This blog almost feels like an antidote to the previous one on Chardonnay – in that I wanted to look at a grape which has all the qualities of one of the world’s greatest white wines, but has been poorly understood (until recently), falsely maligned and unfairly targeted. To try and put this into context,…
