After the ‘09 EWBC ended in Lisbon, myself and about 20 other winebloggers were invited to visit the Douro Valley by the Douro Boys. The Douro Boys are 5 Portuguese wine makers who have come together to make exciting  still table wines from the Douro Valley and to show that there’s a lot more to [...]

Before the EWBC ‘09, I was speaking to a friend of mine, Miguel Leal of Casa Leal, importers of premium Portuguese wine to the UK, and he invited me to visit one of his favourite wineries in Portugal, the Quinta do Sanguinhal in the D.O.C. Obidos region. Situated about an hour north of Lisbon, Quinta [...]

I used to be a vegetarian. I know it’s hard to believe but I was almost a VEGAN!!! What insanity. Why was I a veggie? At first it was because I was travelling in India and there wasn’t much meat around and what there was, it was just plain disgusting, hanging in the hot sun, [...]

Bompass & Parr have done it again. Food architects  and jellymongers extra-ordinaire, B&P have teamed up with Courvoisier for the Architectual Punchbowl. Inspired by Admiral Edward Russell, who created a punchbowl back in 1694 that you could row across, Bompass & Parr have created their very own punchbowl using over a tonne of Courvoisier [...]

I’ve come to realize that I’ve got a love/hate relationship with Australian wine. Hate the cheap, supermarket stuff, love the premium vino. Well, can you blame me? Why couldn’t it be the other way around, love the cheap stuff, hate the expensive stuff – if only.
I was at the fashionable French restaurant, Roussillon for a food and [...]

Beaujolais. Such a jaunty sounding word. It just seems like a happy place, doesn’t it? Well, it does to me. My first encounter with beaujolais was beaujolais nouveau. Not impressive, something to drink when you’ve got nothing better to do as far as I’m concerned. But to be fair, the Beaujolaises (I’m not really sure [...]

Back before I really knew anything about wine, I do remember scanning the shelves of my local wine shop and the the striking yellow label. No, I’m not talking about Yellow Tail, I’m talking about the yellow label from Alsace, Hugel’s yellow label. The house of Hugel has been making wine in Alsace since 1639, [...]

Just a quick post today to remind all of you of the Blagger’s Banquet taking place this Sunday, Nov 15th at the Hawksmoor in Liverpool St. It’s for a great cause, Action Against Hunger and everything in the auction and for the dinner has been blagged by all of us food and wine bloggers. Niamh [...]

Another European Wineblggers Conference has come and gone….sigh…it just flew by! Before I knew it, I was back winging my way back to Heathrow. But in between landing and take off at Lisbon’s Portela Airport I met some of the nicest people, saw the most amazing scenery and had some pretty good wine to boot!
For [...]

From the press release: “Ever opened a bottle of delicious, premium wine one evening and gone back for a second glass a week later, only to find that the wine is past its best?”
No, that’s never happened to me (wine doesn’t have a fighting chance in my house) but I do know people who don’t [...]

The Winesleuth was volunteered for active duty in the Action Against Hunger benefit dinner and auction to be held Nov 15th. Action Against Hunger was founded in 1995 by an international group of chefs, restaurant owners and food writers who’s goal is to end child hunger around the world. But this isn’t any ol’dinner and auction. [...]

Note from the Winesleuth: I was looking thru my drafts folder,  found this post and realized it was never posted. Why? I don’t know but seeing as I’ m heading to Portugal next week and the Douro Valley the following week, here is a short post and video featuring a rosé made from varietals usually [...]

It’s amazing how easy it is to waste time on Twitter! As much as I love it, it can be a distraction. For example, I got up at noon today (really, I’m an early riser, well 9-ish most days but I’m still recovering from jet lag) all ready to finish off this here post and [...]

What if you were set loose on a trade tasting with 1000’s of wines to try and you had to pick just 10 to put on your winelist? How do you do it? You could go the old boring route and try all those wines or you could recruit a bunch of willing tasters to [...]

I’m not really one to look back, I’m either daydreaming about the future or looking forward to tonight’s wine – more or less the same thing. But I saw one of Niamh’s tweets about her year-end round-up and it got me to reminiscing about my vinous adventures this past  year. The great thing about a [...]

Back in February I had a guilty pleasures dinner at my house with some of my foodie blogger friends. We had so much fun that we decided to do it again. Bibendum Dan (aka The Boy) and I got to chatting about what wines we should bring along. At first we had visions of  Blue Nun and pricy [...]

Berry Brothers & Rudd, only the oldest wine merchant in the world, wine purveyor to The Queen, rumoured to have  labrynthine cellars that stretch from St. James to Buckingham Palace - Has joined the twitterati. Not only have they joined the twitterati @winematters , they even did a Twitter Taste live from said cellars last week.
The [...]

First of all, if you’re reading this before 23:00 (GMT) on Aug 26th, run over to here and vote for me and The Boy!! The Winesleuth and Bibendum Dan (aka The Boy) took part in a fabulous social media experiment hosted by the award winning Italian restaurant L’anima.
L’anima’s Head Sommelier, Gal Zohar, decided to  harnass the [...]

The Winesleuth usually GOES to events, not plans them, but for a change of pace I’ve teamed up with the London based Irish food blogger, Niamh of Eatlikeagirl to bring you smoked salmon and Bisol Prosecco.
Next Thursday, 6 Aug., Niamh and I are going to be running a food and drink stall in Covent Garden as [...]

I found one other video from the London International Wine Fair which I just have to post because I really liked the wine and Ricardo Arramberi Perez was such a lovely fellow.
It’s another tinta de toro. That’s tempranillo masquerading as yet another varietal from the west of Spain. I wrote about tinta de toro in a [...]