In for a Tweet
POSTED ON 20/03/2010Having neither a blogger nor a twitterer been, it was only last year that I succumbed to the wine twitterverse and blogosphere. Howard Jacobson rails against the twitterati because the participants are ‘too angry, often too incoherent and inarticulate’. Twitter does have its fair share of social misfits and bores tweeting ad nauseam in the ‘need more cake’ vein. Or the ones who end up saying more than intended, like the wine PR who recently blathered she’d sent 10 times as many personal as work emails that day (she left soon after).
Australia's Great White Hope
POSTED ON 13/03/2010It was billed as World Class Chardonnay. At this year’s annual Australian wine tasting shindig, the organizers put on a tasting of 50 ‘World Class’ chardonnays, blind, only telling us only that not all of them were Australian, so that we could make our own judgment as to how Australian chardonnay showed against the rest of the world. Why? For one thing, Australian chardonnay is big business. Of the top 10 top selling chardonnays in the UK, the top four are Australian, Hardy's VR Chardonnay, Private Label Chardonnay? Jacobs Creek Chardonnay, Lindemans Sydney Cove Chardonnay.
Amarone - Verona's Very Own
POSTED ON 06/03/2010A red sky at night in Verona spells amarone delight but it's not just the sky that's amarone-infused. Pastissada, the city's famous horse stew, Monte Veronese cheese and risotto all' amarone are all gastronomic testament to this north-Italian speciality. You might even just drink it on its own because amarone was born as a vino da meditazione, a powerful red designed for thought and conversation. It's been all change in the past 10 years, though, as popular demand has soared and production quadrupled. Amarone today has become a food-friendly wine.
