The Spirit World

Do you know your Chardonnay from your Chablis? Your Loire from your Mosel? If you don’t, or even if you do and want to increase your knowledge of wine at no cost, then check out the following three quizzes.
Test your general wine knowledge over at Tom Cannavan’s Wine Pages. There are 20 questions in each […]

Wine from South Africa does not get the recognition it deserves. They are the eighth largest producer of wine in the world yet I guarantee when the average person goes to the wine shelves they head straight for France, Italy or Australia. It’s a real shame as they produce a wide range of varietals and […]

Think of wines from Italy and what springs to mind? Chianti or Amarone maybe?, Lambrusco or Asti or maybe a Nero d’Avola from Sicily?. Having spent a week on holiday on Lake Garda in the north of the country names such as Chiaretto, Bardolino and Lugana are uppermost in my mind.
This area illustrates the complexity […]

Tuscany is known the world over for its wines, the most famous probably being Chianti. Chianti comes from within a strictly delimited zone within the region, with bottles of Chianti Classico being instantly recognisable as they bear the black rooster logo.
It is not sufficient simply for Chianti Classico wines to be produced within the Chianti […]

I attended a tasting recently which reminded me to keep an open mind when it comes to the wine world.
The Kiwis don’t have a monopoly when it comes to making great sauvignon blanc. Sauvignon from the Loire in France is often dismissed unless it has a Sancerre label. I tasted a wonderful 2006 Touraine sauvignon […]

I’ve recently discovered a wine related search engine. It is used the same way as you would use Yahoo or Google but, as it is wine specific, all you need to do is key in “Spain” rather than “Spanish wine” and you will get all relevant wine related results.
The developers say “We aim to be […]

I sent a bottle of wine back the other day as I thought it was faulty. It had a very slight musty smell to it in the glass and I wasn’t happy it was right. Now I’ve never sent wine back before in a restaurant so I was interested to see what reaction I got […]

Next time you open a bottle of wine, raise a glass and toast the hard working people who have made your enjoyment possible. Having just spent a day on a wine production course, I have a healthy respect for those who work in the vineyards and wineries and make it possible for us to enjoy […]

How do you keep up to date with the wine world these days? I’ve found out what works for me although I still suffer from information overload some times. My interests are as follows –

current hot topics such as closures, global warming, harvest expectations and so on
recommendations on wines to try and buy
educational material especially […]

The latest edition of Decanter (March) came out this week, and several articles caught my eye.  The first was entitled Start Your Own Wine Cellar. As I’m often torn between buying bottles to drink and those I think I may like to keep for a special occasion, I was drawn to the profiles of the […]