Posted 19 June 2013
Today, I hosted my first wine tasting since moving jobs. The team volunteered me for the event, but I was very happy to oblige. They were happy to buy the wine for the tasting: the suggestion was for me to assign a country to them, then they bring an example wine along. However, because they wanted some “knowledge [...]
Net-A-Pinot
Posted 19 June 2013
Today, I hosted my first wine tasting since moving jobs. The team volunteered me for the event, but I was very happy to oblige. They were happy to buy the wine for the tasting: the suggestion was for me to assign a country to them, then they bring an example wine along. However, because they wanted some “knowledge [...]
Wine Owners
Published 14 June 2013
Do you use Zoopla to find out what your house is worth? Do you own any cases of wine? If you answered “yes” to these questions, then you are going to love Wine Owners.
Wine Owners describes itself as a full service asset management and trading exchange. Basically, it helps you track the value of wines you own, and acts [...]
My Bordeaux
Published 4 June 2013
I have a confession: until last month, I’d never been to Bordeaux. Sure, I’ve drunk lots of their wines, but I always thought of Bordeaux as big, imposing, inaccessible chateaux whose wines I couldn’t afford.
Happily, I can report that Bordeaux city is not like that. It has recently gone through a period of regeneration [...]
BoothsCheers
Published 28 May 2013
Every company is trying to “be social” these days; most fail horribly. My recent favourite is this apparently scheduled tweet from Tesco just after horsemeat had (allegedly) been found in some of their frozen meals:
(Courtesy of Business Insider)
So you could be forgiven for thinking that a relatively small, famil [...]
VINPIN
“Have you photographed this bottle? Can I throw it away now?” Not an uncommon question in the Bigpinots house as, like some sort of digital hoarder, I photograph and document every different bottle of wine we open. I try to document some at tastings too, but that’s often just too laborious.
I’ve struggled with tasting notes for years: full ta [...]
Sandeman Port 2011 Vintage
Published 1 May 2013
A guy wearing a polo shirt turned to me and declared “I bought more Port last year than the rest of London”. It was clear that I was in a room full of serious Port nuts.
The Sandeman logo
I’d eaten at The Don (in The City of London) a few times and was familiar with the mural of a Zorro-like figure that greeted visitors. [...]
The Milestone Hotel
Published 24 April 2013
“I’d come back just to eat the truffle butter again”. When a dinner starts off with statements like that, you know you’re in for a treat.
Having just worked on the rebuild of Red Carnation Hotel’s website, I knew quite a bit about their hotels – including the fact that they hold the top 3 spots on Trip Advisor for best [...]
By The Bottle
Published 16 April 2013
I grew up (in terms of wine education) with Decanter magazine. I have an enormous amount of respect for the contributors, consider the reviews thorough and think the articles on regions, personalities, markets, etc, to be of the highest standards. Decanter, to me, is like The Spectator, Time Magazine and National Geogr [...]
Time hungry? Fed up with throwing awa...
Published 23 March 2013
None of us has enough time and nobody likes waste. But what do you do when a recipe asks you to add four shavings of a unicorn horn, and Waitrose only sells whole horns? You buy it, then it sits at the back of a cupboard because you never see it mentioned in subsequent recipes. Juniper berries, mace, fenugreek … I’ve g [...]
Laithwaites’ Sips Nations
Published 15 March 2013
Laithwaite’s has taken the social tasting platform to another level by bringing out ‘Sips Nations’ to accompany the final of the Six Nations rugby this weekend. They asked famous rugby players from the Six Nations sides to name their favourite national dish, then match a wine to go with it.
The so cal [...]