Tim Atkin MW is the world’s leading expert on South African wine, each year tasting his way through all their wines to write his South Africa Special Report. He has recently been exploring some classic and off the beaten track varietals from one of South Africa’s leading producers KWV. The Mentors is a range of limited production wines which focus […]
Castilla y León – Tim’s view on its impressive reds
Castilla y León is predominantly red wine country. With its continental Mediterranean climate, long, dry summers and warm autumns, how could it be otherwise? This doesn’t mean that whites are irrelevant, as those of you who attended our second virtual tasting will be aware. And yet, for the all the success of Rueda in particular, […]
Tim on Castilla y León Whites
It’s one of the great success stories of the modern wine world, every bit as remarkable in its way as the rise and rise of Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand. Established as recently as 1980 as a Denominación de Origen, Rueda has become Spain’s most popular white wine, accounting for 40% of national sales. […]
Argentinian Malbec speaking to Oz of its origins
I’ve been a fan of Argentine reds for a long time. I’ve enjoyed the punchy power of those Malbecs, their dark, juicy fruit, stewed in the vat with beefsteak, it often seemed, but I didn’t mind. And the splat of gaucho tannin that hurled itself against my gums… No, I didn’t really mind that either. But […]
Food & wine matching with Tom – Pinot Gris from Kent and Thai Soft Rolls
In 2020, as I am sure is the case for many of us, catch-up phone calls with friends have become more important than ever. We all have a fair amount of stress in our lives at the moment and these chats are buoyancy-aides of honest, open, human communication. I pepper my working day with them. […]
Love gin? You’ll love this!
If you love premium gin but haven’t discovered Wales’s finest spirits yet then you are missing out! There’s a great chance to put that right coming up soon when I join forces with the Three Wine Mn collective to host a virtual tasting of two top Welsh gins. Guests will also have two superb Welsh […]
Oz could have been a Sicilian
Sicily. Gosh. Talk of ‘might-have-beens’! I was nearly a Sicilian. I mean it! I was singing Leporello in the opera “Il Dissoluto Punito” at the Edinburgh Festival, and at the end of the show I got a message to go round to the Italian restaurant next door. So I did. And I was faced with […]
Castilla y León – Spain’s most diverse wine region
Undiscovered Castilla y León by Tim Atkin MW The Monty Python team once did a humorous sketch about an All-England Summarize Proust Competition, where contestants were required to capture the essence of A La Recherche du Temps Perdu, a notoriously long seven-volume French novel, in 15 seconds. They all fail. Summing up the wines of […]
Oz’ on Argentina
It’s awesome how quickly things can change in the world of wine. It isn’t that long ago that Argentina was a great two-toed sloth hanging forlornly off the bough of the flourishing, multicoloured tree that was ‘New World Wine’. Chile was a bouncy, fruitful branch, Uruguay was a promising sapling – and Argentina wasn’t even […]
Susy’s perfect match for the humble tomato
Like many gardeners I’ve suddenly got a glut of gorgeous homegrown tomatoes – nice problem to have! I’ll be making tomato salads, tomato pasta sauces and ratatouille with my tomatoes for the next couple of weeks. So, what to drink with this special fruit that we cook like a vegetable? Tomatoes have (or should have) […]
