"Order my book on the Roussillon wine region (colour paperback) DIRECT FROM ME SAVING £4/€4 (UK & EU only), or Kindle eBook on Amazon UK. Available in the USA from Barnes & Noble in hardcover, paperback or eBook; or Amazon.com. For other countries, tap here." Richard Mark James

14 July 2007

Caliterra sponsors Allotment of the Year

In a cunningly original sponsorship deal to infiltrate the very core of things peculiarly British, Chilean wine brand Caliterra has lent its name (and a few bottles presumably) to this most serious of competitions. Run by the National Allotment Gardens Trust, the winners will be announced during National Allotment Week, August 13th to 19th. Being a bit slow in reacting to this news, it's actually now too late to enter so my apologies for that! However, these are the five earth-moving categories:
Best Shed - looking for "the ultimate UK shed, the English allotmenteer’s supreme bolthole."
Best Allotment in the Country - "recognising the most beautiful, individually held plot in the country."
Best Newcomer - "for the person who has been allotment-gardening for less than three years."
Best Community Project - "everything from communal orchards to wild gardens used by special needs groups, an inclusive-minded Eden."
Best Allotment Site - "...in terms of maintenance, cleanliness and organic waste disposal."
With a new British film just out about life on the allotment, 'Grow Your Own', and the UKTV Gardens series, 'Dig For Victory'; this appears to be something that'll run and run. All goes to show you don't need an excuse to have a sit down in your veg garden after a hard day's digging, with a nice glass of wine of course. By the way, I'd stick to spuds and courgettes if I were you: Cabernet vines might be a bit tricky even in these global warming times. Posted 13/07/07. More Caliterra and Chilean wines to follow (see "Chile" page on the right).

13 July 2007

Champagne with potato chips?

"...Zinfandel with your Tex-Mex? Not a problem," says Natalie MacLean, author and sommelier,  who claims to offer no less than 360,000 "daring food and wine matches" in a new feature on her website Nat Decants. So click here www.nataliemaclean.com/matcher and have a bit of fun playing around with it. There's quite a lot of superior rubbish written about which wines should go with what; or, worse still, you know that kind of useless back label stating 'ideal with red meat or cheese.' What I like about Natalie's thing is the depth of options she's included: for example, put in 'pasta' and you'll get a long list of different sauces and ingredients, much more helpful and important when attempting to pair flavours and textures. You might not agree with every suggestion but at least she's spent time thinking it through, and probably done a fair bit of cooking and complementary tasting too! Another good site on this theme is Fiona Beckett’s www.matchingfoodandwine.com.

10 July 2007

Northern Rhône: 'Touring Crozes-Hermitage country..'

"Crozes-Hermitage literally stands in the imposing shadow of the Hermitage hillside vineyard, but do the wines lag far behind in its awesome wake? The busy little town of Tain l’Hermitage, on the Rhone’s right bank north of Valence, forms the heart of the appellation (AOC) and where the eponymous hill starts to rise steeply, immediately behind the station, adorned with placards carrying those oh-so famous names (Chapoutier, Jaboulet…) and the landmark Chapelle revered by wine lovers around the globe..."
Featuring these wineries: Chapoutier, Cave de Tain, Jaboulet, Yann Chave, Laurent Combier, Delas Frères, Alain Graillot, Rémizières-Desmeure, Gilles Robin, Chasselvin-Chomarat, Cave Fayolle, Hauts Chassis; and some touristy stuff such as Valrhona choc factory and the magnificently bizarre Palais Idéal... Part of this feature was originally written for the website winetourisminfrance.com (summer 2007).
CLICK HERE TO READ THIS ARTICLE (in my archive pages).

01 July 2007

Wine Women Awards 2007

Another competition, I hear you say! But this one's a bit different and celebrates leading women in the wine business and related fields, including an 'amateur' category this year. The contest itself takes place in Paris in mid June, where the finalists will be grilled by judges holding €4000 prize-money in their wallets/purses. Closing date to enter is 20th April, so 'sisters get doin' it for yourselves.' Full details on the WWA website: www.winewomenawards.com. Posted 5/3/07.
Update July 07: and the winners were Veronique Rivest, a 41 year-old Canadian sommelier, educator and columnist in the 'professional category'; and, in
the 'amateur category', Aurélie Degoul, 23 year-old from France who's in charge of a wine tourism project in Sauternes (sounds pretty 'professional' to me).

22 June 2007

Reader offer on Wine Travel Guides...com

This new and original site launched by wine writer and educator Wink Lorch is very good; although I'm biased as I compiled all the Languedoc-Roussillon sections, or 'micro-regions' as we like to call them. Wink had the bright idea of breaking up all of France's wine and administrative regions in a less traditional and more logical way (for English speakers at least). Hence there are 40 downloadable micro-region guides each including a dozen personally recommended wineries to visit, good restaurants and hotels, wine and tourist events and attractions and much more besides. All neatly brought together in a downloadable compact PDF format along with location maps and suggested itineraries for the 'busy independent traveller'.
Unsubtle plugging and humour aside, these guides are all compiled by specialist writers who live in the area or visit it very regularly:
Jane Anson, Liz Berry MW, Jacqueline Friedrich, Elizabeth Gabay MW, Rosemary George MW, Jean-Pierre Renard, Tom Stevenson, Paul Strang, Sue Style, Wink herself and yours truly. Wink explains further: "The Guides are available by annual subscription with several options. For Gold subscribers they include not only the Michelin Green Guides for extra tourist information, but also interactive Michelin maps, which provide precise locations for all the recommendations. The design is crisp, fresh and professional and there is no advertising to get in the way of the wealth of information. Registration on the site allows access to a free sample Guide available as a PDF download or to view on-line." Here's the deal for winewriting.com readers:
Introductory offer for subscriptions on www.winetravelguides.com. Enter the code D1CTR07 into the ‘Subscribe’ Page to receive a discounted subscription of: £6.50 Bronze (instead of £7.50), £17 Silver (instead of £19.50) and £39 Gold (instead of £49). Valid until 30th September 2007. So check it out today! Posted 22 June 07.
Latest March 2008: there are now 46 downloadable mini-guides to France's wine regions, all recently updated and revised. Click on the link above to check it out.
UPDATE June 2008 As I've said before, I'm a contributor to these guides so have an interest in seeing the site succeed. So, I'll let creator Wink Lorch do the talking: "At Wine Travel Guides we are marking one year on-line and are delighted at how the website has been received. As an example, a recent subscriber wrote: "My son and I are doing a food/wine trip in the Rhône and the level of detailed local insight you give on growers, restaurants and hotels isn't equalled by any other source I've found." To celebrate, we have changed the free sample guide on the site to the enticing Inland Provence Guide by local resident Elizabeth Gabay MW. As a registered user, you can view the Guide on-line or download the PDF guide right away once you've logged in. (Your login is your email address; if you've forgotten your password just click on the link and it will be re-sent to you)."
SPECIAL SUBSCRIPTION OFFER for winewriting.com readers
"There's no better time to subscribe to a Gold subscription with our very special June offer (nearly 30% off) which will give you a whole year of access to all the Guides, with interactive Michelin maps and tourist guides too. Generous discounts are available too for the Silver and Bronze PDF subscription options. Go to the 'subscribe' page, enter the promotional code D2REG0608 and click 'Apply promotion'. This offer is only valid until 30 June 2008: Gold £35 (instead of £49)
, Silver £15.50 (instead of £19.50) and Bronze £6.00 (instead of £7.50). The approximate € or US$ rates prevailing at the time will appear in brackets."
Developments in the pipeline include adding GPS coordinates to all recommended wine producers, places to stay, eat and shop etc. By popular demand, WTG will be extending the choice of guides into major wine regions elsewhere in Europe including Italy, Spain and Portugal. These new guides will come on stream over the year. Other plans include a general wine travel resource section and blog. And for fans of the Loire Valley, serious-moustached & loud-shirted wine writer Jim Budd (click here to go to his Loire blog), an authority on the region's wines, will now be covering this section (currently five guides). Posted 30/5/08.

20 May 2007

Wine and tourism course Perpignan 15-27 July 2007

Perpignan University (in the Roussillon, about 200 km north of Barcelona) is laying on an intensive 60-hour wine and tourism diploma course, as well as a more laid-back cultural stay program. The former includes lectures, tasting tuition and winery visits; the latter a bit of wine combined with historical stuff etc. The diploma costs €800 and the culture trip €360, both excluding accommodation which can be booked at the same time for a reasonable price. More info and booking on-line on the University of Perpignan website. Oh, make sure you bring "some sort of hat" as it can be rather hot in July.

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Header image: Château de Flandry, Limoux, Languedoc. Background: Vineyard near Terrats in Les Aspres, Roussillon.