Many wine producers in southern France make wines labelled as Indication Géographique Protégée or IGP, which replaced Vin de Pays over ten years ago as part of a Europe-wide rationalisation of wine laws and 'trademarking' of specified wine areas. Hence in Italy, it's Indicazione Geografica Protetta or Indicación Geográfica Protegida in Spain, although confusingly they still also use the term Vino de la Tierra ('country wine') whereas the French have dropped Vin de Pays.
"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
24 April 2021
07 April 2021
Varietal wines of the moment (except Sauvignon blanc)
Finest Valle de Leyda Chardonnay 2020, Chile - Luis Felipe Edwards (13.5% abv): As soon as this delicious fruity Chardy was discovered among Tesco's large 'Finest' range, it went out of stock; hopefully just temporarily. Ripe peach and melon fruit with creamy tones then zestier citrus on its weighty but balanced finished. Oak is suggested in the blurb but it was hard to spot, perhaps adding to its rounded texture and cashew flavours. £8 Tesco. (Since then, a subsequent bottle did strangely taste oaky...)
Labels:
Chardonnay,
Chenin blanc,
Gewurztraminer,
Malbec,
Nero d'Avola,
organic wine,
Pinot Gris,
Pinotage,
Riesling,
Tempranillo,
Viognier
05 March 2021
Sicily: Ragusa and Agrigento
Aruci Aruci caffetteria, gelateria & Casa Siciliana Trattoria - Scicli, Ragusa province.
A few reminiscences, sightseeing tips, places to stay, photos and a little food and wine condensed from a lucky-break week spent in Sicily last September in between Covid restriction lockdowns. The plan was to avoid big towns and cities (so no Palermo or Catania this time unfortunately), hire a car, stay in the middle of nowhere and not tour around too much (pretty much the opposite of a 'normal' holiday), which part of the south of the gorgeous island provided a perfect backdrop for (Ragusa province and Agrigento a couple of hours up the coast).
24 February 2021
Zeitgeisty wines
Zeitgeisty is admittedly a little literary and pretentious, and I wasn't aware it was a word as such, in the adjective form with a 'y' ending, until I saw it recently in a one-line review on the back cover of a new book (quoting a well-known writer so it must be okay). Any road, this latest batch of wine buy tips kicks off with a handful of tasty drops of bubbly, which always has a certain 'spirit of the times' feel about it on any occasion and any time of year, especially to toast in winter drawing to a close sooner rather than later.
Labels:
Castelão,
Cava,
Chardonnay,
Chenin blanc,
Grenache,
Lisboa,
Oltrepò Pavese,
Pinot Noir,
Tinta Roriz,
Touriga Nacional,
Verdicchio,
Viognier,
Xarello
22 February 2021
'Noir, blanc or gris: Grenache is at home in the wild south' - The Wine Merchant magazine
Screenshot from the Feb. digital edition:
This short paragraph from an article in the February 2021 edition of The Wine Merchant magazine (UK business publication) is a taster of a few combined extracts from my book on the Roussillon region themed around the Grenache variety. Follow the link above to read the feature (full digital issue) or go to winemerchantmag.com to find out more and buy a printed copy.
Labels:
Grenache,
Roussillon,
The Wine Merchant magazine
20 January 2021
Red & rosé wines of trying times
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSpNPtVmUcHCKUYoDZ4rfSb1jF8edr_p6PQvmYot1VkXCX9XWcyMDpt_5zBUA73PXN3I9d4YHINPQWnmPGI2JOdh8hnyWbQbmrRmvzgyVR2zT7sZRb3wjFxjSekR0LhuRtZdXFWLLBe9I/w101-h320/WI101.jpg)
Labels:
Garnacha,
Grenache,
GSM,
Malbec,
Mourvèdre,
Pinot Noir,
Shiraz,
Syrah,
Tempranillo
15 January 2021
White wines of the cosmos
'Here we are in the ship of the imagination...' Remember that awe-inspiring space travel programme 'Cosmos' back in the 80s by Carl Sagan (paraphrasing one of his most cosmological lines)? Don't know why I thought of that though: stellar white wines of the split-atom millisecond perhaps? Sounds more out-there than international or global, especially as these words are usually stranded with media-nouns like crisis, conflict or pandemic; or similar marketing babble (e.g. brand, product).
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Photo from amazon.co.uk |
Labels:
Arinto,
Chardonnay,
Gewurztraminer,
Greco di Tufo,
Grenache blanc,
Grillo,
Muscat,
Pinot Grigio,
Riesling,
Roussanne,
Verdicchio,
Viognier
16 December 2020
Roussillon: top 100 red wines
Apart from another excuse to plug my new book on the Roussillon (links to previous post with details, or go straight to Amazon UK or USA or Barnes & Noble to buy it - other formats and countries' stores are also linked in the post above), here are some of my hot red wine tips from the region made by producers featured in the book. Many winemakers have just released their 2018 and 2019 reds, and I look forward to tasting more of these next year (?!) when we're able to travel safely to France again due to the ongoing Covid-19 nightmare.
27 October 2020
ROUSSILLON ‘French Catalonia’ Wild Wine Country by Richard Mark James
This detailed book on the Roussillon wine region in deepest south of France, or far western French Mediterranean to be more precise, is available to order on Amazon as a paperback (with colour photos) and eBook (Kindle). Follow the link below to your 'marketplace' to read the blurb, get swept away and purchase a copy!
Or buy it DIRECT FROM THE AUTHOR (UK and EU only):
02 June 2020
Lockdown bubbly of the moment
At first, I thought this dynamic duo were the usual Marks & Spencer Cavas with flashy new labels and a price rise, but they are additional to the range and definitely noticeably tastier and toastier quality-wise for the £10 price tag.
Labels:
Australia,
Catalonia,
Cava,
South Africa,
Spain,
sparkling wine
02 February 2020
Wines of the moment and other strange fruits
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Aconcagua vineyard from monteswines.com |
Virtually the only red I've been buying in recent times (I love Pinot's silkiness and aromatic yet savoury fruit), here are my top Pinots for under a tenner. Interesting to note that four of them are from cooler climate zones in Chile.
23 December 2019
Posh Armagnac, Calvados, Cognac, Marc de Champagne, Marc de Châteauneuf-du-Pape.
Armagnac - Château de Laubade
Château de Laubade is the largest estate in the Armagnac region (lying in deepest south-west France, south of Bordeaux and Bergerac, the main town is Auch) with 105 hectares of vineyards, which they claim allows them not to have to buy in any grapes or spirits from outside of the property. Laubade is considered the centrepiece of the Lesgourgues family business run by Arnaud and Denis Lesgourgues.
14 November 2019
Irish Craft beer: Kinnegar Brewing, Donegal
Originally set up in a farmhouse in Rathmullan Co. Donegal, the Kinnegar (named after a nearby beach apparently) operation moved into a new 'state-of-the-art' brewery in Letterkenny in 2017. The 'core range' comprises six beers (plus an intriguingly wide variety of seasonal 'specials'): pictured above is the absolutely delicious Rustbucket Rye Ale (5.1 % abv), very fruity and tangy and rather different.
Labels:
Co. Donegal,
craft beer
07 November 2019
New York State, Finger Lakes: Seneca and Cayuga
The cool-climate Finger Lakes wine region, although summers can be very warm, is named after this series of eleven beautiful glacial lakes found in central-northern New York State, which dramatically mark the landscape like long deep cuts running north-south(ish) about 50 miles inland from the southern (US) side of Lake Ontario. It's about a four and a half hour drive from New York City and two and a half hours from Niagara Falls (extremely touristy but unmissable by the way). Seneca and Cayuga lakes are the longest of them, and Seneca the deepest, which is where the greatest concentration of vineyards are planted along and around their sloping edges as the corresponding microclimate is much less severe in winter there. Not surprisingly, there are two well-organised wine routes (in fact Cayuga Lake wine folk claim to have 'America's first wine trail') linking up wineries, accommodation, restaurants, events and attractions.
Labels:
Finger Lakes,
New York,
Riesling
16 October 2019
Wine Education Service Belfast wine workshops, tastings and courses winter-spring 2020
You can now book these Wine Education Service NI wine workshops, tastings and courses online, scheduled to run from February to May 2020. All delivered with enthusiasm, insight and a sense of humour by wine tutor and blogger Richard Mark James, and held in Belfast city centre. Also available to buy as gift vouchers. Go to the WES Belfast web page for more details and online booking:
wine-education-service.co.uk/location/wine-tasting-belfast.
wine-education-service.co.uk/location/wine-tasting-belfast.
Labels:
Belfast,
wine course,
wine tasting,
wine weekend,
wine workshop
22 September 2019
Belgium and Netherlands: Bruges, Gent, Rotterdam, Haarlem; beer and eating...
Besides being one of the most awesome (and alas touristy) old cities in Europe, Bruges is home to three (according to belgium.beertourism.com) tasty breweries as well. The Bourgogne des Flandres brewery backs on to the Dijver river on the south side of the old centre. On the website, their beer is described as a 'red-brown ale' (the English translation obviously), although I remember it being fairly dark but not at all heavy - alcohol content is 5% - with a lovely tangy finish to the richer darker malty side.
Labels:
craft beer,
lambic,
real ale
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Header image: Château de Flandry, Limoux, Languedoc. Background: Vineyard near Terrats in Les Aspres, Roussillon.