France

Mixed emotions chez Woods this evening. At approximately 6pm, our hamster Smudge trotted off to the great trundle wheel in the sky. She seems to have gone out on a high after having had an energetic work out in her plastic orb in the company of five rather rowdy children. […]

Good cork, bad cork, bye-bye hamster

by
Just added notes on six sparkling wines to the First Taste pages here. Above is a pic of the corks from a couple of the Champagnes – you can tell that the Tsarine has had extra bottle age since disgorging (removing the yeast sediment left from the second fermentation in […]

Six fizzes

by
I’ve done posts in the last couple of months whose titles featured cricket and Leonard Cohen, and ended up with Twitter followers from devotees of those two rather different fields. So I thought I’d pack some more non-wine topics into the title of this one and see if the same […]

Keswick, anchovies and going into orbit

by
Oh my, what a tasty surprise from a bottle I pulled out in the search for something to partner crispy aromatic duck (I’m ashamed to say a yellow sticker purchase from Sainsbury’s). It worked a treat, but then, post dinner, went on to excel as a solo performer. There’s a […]

Domaine de la Haute Borne Vouvray Sec 2002

by
A couple of years ago, I was asked by someone to do a list of some of the more unusual aspects of Rhône Valley wines – here’s what I came up with… Hermitagé Wine from the hill of Hermitage was routinely shipped across France in the 18th and 19th century […]

10 things you didn’t know about the Rhône

by
For anyone in London looking to find out what was hot and what was not in southern France in the 1990s, the place to head was down Old Brompton Road to La Vigneronne. Liz & Mike Berry’s poky little shop excelled in other French regions, and stocked some of the […]

La Vigneronne Mark II

by