OUR WINE CLUB IS OPEN TO MEMBERS!

Greece has a history of winemaking which goes back at least 5,000 years. Previous to the 21st Century, Greece’s vinous heyday was during the Golden Age of Ancient Greece (around 300-500BCE).

Two pieces of advice that we recommend you follow when deciding what to drink at Christmas are:

1. drink stuff that you enjoy

2. drink stuff that feels a bit special (after all, we all deserve a treat as we approach the end of 2020)

If you follow these two pieces of advice, you can’t go far wrong!

In a patriarchal world, it’s no surprise that the wine industry, like many other industries, has always been male-dominated. This androcentricity is perfectly illustrated by the name of the first Champagne House to be run by a woman when her husband died in 1805, ‘Veuve Cliquot’ or ‘Widow Cliquot’, defining Barbe-Nicole Clicquot Ponsardin by her relationship to her dead husband.

Question: What do you get if you take a country that stretches out over a thousand kilometres in length; that touches the Alps in the north and comes close to Africa in the south; that cultivates vines in every corner of the country; that has hundreds of indigenous grape varieties, some of which only grow in tiny areas; that doesn’t follow any single set of rules for labelling its wines and that is one of the two biggest producers of wine in the world with a vinous history stretching back thousands of years?

The image of sherry in the UK market is (or was) very much associated with grandparents and bottles of Harvey’s Bristol Cream that linger in the drinks cabinet from one Christmas to the next.

Viticulture in Argentina dates back to the middle of the sixteenth century, but it’s only since the 1990s that Argentinian wine has been exported abroad.

‘Biodynamic farming’ and ‘biodynamic wine’ are terms you may be hearing increasing regularly in recent times. But what is it all about?  As the name suggests, broadly it is all to do with ‘energising life’.

We all love a good dinner party: convivial company, several delicious food courses and of course, the wine. But when thinking about what food to serve up and what wine to go with it, are there really rules that must be obeyed?