Syrah or Shiraz?
POSTED ON 26/06/2009Gather a group of wine writers together, or sponge as we of the species are collectively known, and you can be sure that one of the abiding topics of conversation, ourselves apart, is the awfulness of that form of low life known as the PR. Unless they’re inviting you to The Square or biking over a sample of Bollinger Rosé, and how often does that happen, all they’re seemingly good for is bolstering the fragile journalistic ego. Yet malign them as we like to, there are those whose professional spoonfeeding makes life a glass half full for us.
Basque in Glory: the Gascon south west
POSTED ON 19/06/2009A fortnight ago, I looked at the Quercy side of south-west France. This week it's the turn of Gascony, stretching west from Toulouse to the Atlantic and the Pyrenees. Gascony is home to the dark, tannat-based reds of Madiran, Saint Mont and, nestling in the Pyrenean foothills, the independent-minded Basque sub-region of Irouléguy. So goodbye for now to the malbec of Cahors and hello fer servadou – known as pinenc in Saint Mont – and the dark reds made from tannat grape, the variety found by Dr Roger Corder to be the richest in the anti-oxidant chemical procyanadin.
Monoparcel Champagne
POSTED ON 16/06/2009Narrow or Single-minded?
Anthony Rose introduces a tasting of
increasingly fashionable but still controversial and recherché
single-vineyard Champagnes, at which he was joined by
Essi Avellan MW and Michael Edwards
If the French belief in terroir is to be taken as gospel,
most Champagne should be considered not a vin de
terroir at all but a vin d’assemblage. The structure of the
Champagne vineyards, whose growers own 88 percent
of them, determines that the majority of négociant
and cooperative-produced Champagnes—Non-Vintage
Liquid Assets: summer cocktails
POSTED ON 12/06/2009From drinks inspired by Slumdog Millionaire to elegant and classic combinations, there's a cocktail to quench every thirst this summer...
1. Raspberry Collins
Squeeze and drop three lemon wedges into a cocktail shaker, add 15ml sugar syrup, 25ml of raspberry purée, 60ml of a good gin and top up with cubed ice; give the whole thing a big shake and strain into a Collins glass (a tall tumbler). Top up with soda and garnish with a lemon wedge and a couple of fresh raspberries.
Raspberry Collins
Cahors Blimey - France's South West part 1
POSTED ON 05/06/2009If the South of France has become known as the new New World of wine, the South West is its new old world. From the sunny foothills of the Pyrenees through Toulouse across to the spine of the Massif Central, the South West is a sprawling, diverse wine region on the brink of rediscovery. Bisected by the Garonne River, the Quercy side fans out east of Toulouse past gluggy Fronton to the long-lived wines of Cahors and sprightly Gaillacs and includes some of France’s most obscure appellations, among them Marcillac, Estaing and Entraygues et Le Fel.
