Women of Wine is holding its annual summer party at Vivat Bacchus in Farringdon, London, on 21 June. Both men and women can attend, with tickets priced at 20 for members and 30 for non-members.
Read more...Sounds simple enough. You're a wine producer, you want to break into the UK market and you're heartily fed up with the big, bad multiple retailer. He hogs all the margin while you practically have to mortgage your winery and sell your grandmother just to get a listing. Then fund a 2 price-off.
Read more...A Vergelegen Chardonnay from South Africa (9.49, Majestic) and a French Old Vines Grenache Noir from Marks & Spencer (5.49) are the top scorers and among the best buys in the Consumers' Association's Which? magazine On Test: Wines for Barbecues'.
Read more...When faced with the juggernaut that is Champagne - complete with the biggest marketing budgets in the wine world, ultra-slick PR teams and profit margins that would make most producers dance naked through their vineyards - it is easy to forget that more than half the fizz drunk in the UK doesn't hail from northeast France.
Read more...Last week, the debate over how best to promote Italian wines in the UK took a giant step forward.
Read more...This week, just two months after Russia imposed an outright ban on the importation of wines from neighbouring Georgia, the Prime Minister of Georgia, Zurab Nogaideli, was in London promoting his country's wines at a trade and press tasting held at Vinopolis.
Where did you first learn about wine?
My first job was at a fine Relais & Chateaux hotel in the West Country called Hunstrete House. It was owned by John and Thea Dupays, who also started the Bath Priory. We had hanging larders for game and served the best local produce. One of the things John loved most was wine, and at the time Hunstrete House had one of the ten best wine lists in the UK. It was a good grounding.
8 May-19 June
Sotheby's - Regional Wine Course Spring Term - 34 New Bond Street, London W1A 2AA. Contact Sotheby's Wine Department on 020 7293 6423.
MOTION
This House believes that what's on the outside of the bottle is more important than what's inside.'
THE PANEL
Chairman:
Christian Davis, editor, Harpers
Proposers:
Keith Lay, marketing director, Ehrmanns;
Kevin Shaw, Stranger & Stranger
Opposers:
Robin Kinahan MW, director, HwCg;
Nick Room, buyer, Waitrose
Statistician/independent witness:
Lulie Halstead, Wine Intelligence
Market analyst AC Nielsen has confirmed that off-trade wine sales have struggled since the turn of the year and have recently started to fall.
Jacob's Creek's chief winemaker Phil Laffer has revealed that the company's first vintage sparkling wine will be released in the UK by the end of the year.
Cockburn & Campbell, the wine and spirits subsidiary of London brewer Young's, and Havelock Wines, owned by Bedford brewer Charles Wells, are to merge as part of the creation of a new company to produce the two brewers' beers.
Read more...Harrods is promoting German wines for the first time in its history. With the World Cup just days away, one-third of the London store's wine shelf space will be devoted to German wine.
Spanish producer Castillo Perelada has announced details of a new 18 million winery.
After years of research, Spanish winemakers in Rioja and Ribera del Duero have claimed that Tempranillo, and all of its namesakes, such as Tinto Fino, Tinto de Toro and Tinta del Pais, are, in fact, different clones with their own flavour profiles.
Bob Rishworth, managing director of Chali Richards, the wine division of Halewood International, has been appointed chairman of the North West Wine and Spirit Association - a position he will hold for two years.
Read more...Alcohol, as it is elsewhere in the world, is a very hot topic here. Everybody's acutely aware that there's more of it in Australian red wines these days than there used to be.
Read more...Twenty-five German producers (all with winemakers under 35 years old) from various regions will showcase their wines - mainly Riesling, but also other regional grape varieties - at this event.
Read more...Israel is a New World' wine producer in one of the oldest wine regions on earth. In this country no bigger than Wales, there is a curious combination of the new, old and ancient worlds of winemaking.
Read more...The much-publicised 1976 Judgement of Paris' re-enactment - held simultaneously in London and Napa - once again came out heavily in favour of California's finest, which won the top five places, and generated widespread press coverage on both sides of the Atlantic.
