English Wine Week (almost)

And not forgetting Welsh of course... Oops, meant to post something about this a week ago, as it's all over on Sunday 6th! Anyway, never mind, the important thing is to get adventurous and go out and buy a bottle of English wine (try your local independent wine store, a good supermarket like Waitrose or wine bar like Artisan & Vine in southwest London: click on link to their site below, right hand column for more details). My tip would be to try one of the several really quite fine sparkling wines being made by wineries such as Ridgeview, Nyetimber (both in W. Sussex) or Camel Vineyards (Cornwall). Better still, why not go and visit a wine estate near you and have a tasting in situ; much more fun. Lots of info on what to try, buy, do and where: englishwineweek.co.uk

Wines of the moment 2005 - 2010

"Updated regularly or occasionally as fits the mood, these everyday wines, new releases or sporadic superstars caught my attention for one reason or another. Not exactly a wine of the week or month but could be: hopefully more spontaneous than that."

All these wines first appeared on the previous incarnation of WineWriting.com: from June 2010 onwards, any 'wines of the moment' have been posted individually on this blog including French Med specials featured on 'French Mediterranean Wine' as and when back in the day...

Good Mornington, Peninsula... by tractor

There's a new Oz winery profile on Yabby Lake Vineyard on WineWriting "the site" (click here if that appeals), who are making some great Pinot Noir and Chardy like several others (although often expensive) in this very maritime climate on that sticking-out bit directly south of Melbourne. e.g. Stonier, Kooyong and "best winery name at the last Wine Australia London tasting" winner: Ten Minutes by Tractor. Although logical enough according to the explanation found on their site: "we grow Pinot Noir and Chardonnay on all three of our home vineyards, each of which are ten minutes by tractor apart." What was that about "does what is says on the label?" Pic: "must be that famous tractor then," pinched from tenminutesbytractor.com.au

From France, with love

Amidst enormous PR fanfare, and no doubt piles of EU €€€, www.vindefrance.org has been launched to illustrate this new, and admittedly potentially exciting wine "category," to use the lovely marketing-babble. Well, fine, they've tried to make the site kinda fun, young, funky, wine & foody and "accessible"; but could at least have paid for a native speaker to do the English version. Have a look and you'll see what I mean... tant pis, hein!

High as a kite summer rosé

Found this not so long ago for £5 at Tesco (UK): 2009 Storks' Tower Tempranillo/Shiraz rosado from Castilla y Léon in Spain (12.5%) - spirited tasty dryish rosé with lots of nice juicy raspberry and other red fruits, spicy and tangy with crisp vs creamy finish. 83-85

More "wines of the moment" here (takes you to a surprisingly good Moroccan red on my other site).