My Grape Escape

In one day Naked Wines customers raised £120K to fund the dream of a South African winemaker Carmen Stevens needed help. Despite being head winemaker at the super-premium Amani winery, and turning out amazing award-winning wines. Despite being the first black female to graduate from winemaking school in South Africa, rising to the top thanks [...]

The rain lashed down harder but we didn’t care. Why? Because we’d found a wine bar in the trenches of Glastonbury – a little patch of heaven in the mud and chaos of Worthy Farm. As the tunes pumped out. grown men hugged and danced to the tune of Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel (‘come [...]

It’s English wine week, so why not seize the chance to try something new? Less than an hour from weary Waterloo I found myself in the English countryside. Apart from the expected quaint villages, sunshine, hills, farms and orchards, there were fields containing long rows of grape vines. Seyval Blanc, Bacchus and Chardonnay amongst others [...]

If I had some chamomile, nettle or dandelion in a tea cup, I’d be deservedly beaten up. Put it in a cow horn and I’ll be either locked up with the crazies, or directed to the nearest biodynamic vineyard. I recently went along to the West London Wine School to find out more about biodynamics, [...]

A food match for 30 year old Grand Cru Burgundy? Why, fish n’ chips of course, with a generous dollop of mushy peas. The occasion was the 30th anniversary of Patriarche Wine Agencies, and the venue was Geales restaurant in Chelsea, London. Wine industry luminaries and legends and er, My Grape Escape were invited along [...]

My first encounter with Steven Spurrier, wine industry legend and architect of the infamous 1976 Judgement of Paris. “It’s either corked or the wine isn’t showing well today, it’s as simple as that”, Spurrier explained, very possibly peeved by me questioning this perfectly fine 2004 Chateau Haut-Batailley. He was about to give a masterclass on [...]

On the last day of my September 2010 trip to Burgundy (as kindly invited by Patriarche Wine Agencies) we headed for Patriarche Père et Fils‘ wonderful 17th century underground wine cellar for a special early-morning tasting. Amongst the wines we tasted was a flight of 2008 Premier Cru wines from three of the top appellations in [...]

The producers and members of l’Association de Grands Crus Classés de Saint-Emilion were in London last week to promote the wines of 2007 and 2008. With wine industry legends such as Stephen Spurrier, Gérard Basset and Jancis Robinson in the room, this was looking like a fairly serious tasting. Well, serious until I dribbled merlot [...]

I reflect on a year’s wine blogging and some important lessons learned about myself and others. Tuesday marked my one-year anniversary as a wine blogger, and what a decent year it has been! Some highlights included getting a snippet in Ireland’s Sunday Tribune, representing my country at the 2010 European Wine Bloggers Conference, celebrating the [...]