Wine

You know what makes sweet wine so fascinating? The way it is produced. Take ice wine, for example. The grapes are frozen while still on the vine which means the sugars don't freeze but the water does, allowing for a more concentrated grape juice to develop. Port wine vines in the Douro Valley endure an incredibly harsh environment to produce the intense flavours they do, and survive only because the gravel soaks up the heat through the day and releases...

So Valentine's Day has arrived and you've booked your other half into a luxurious hotel with spa treatments and rose-covered bed sheets. Or, more likely, you have left it until the last minute and pitched a romantic night at home under the guise of saving money for the summer holiday? Either way your luck is in, for what better way of recreating a spa night than to drink a wine grown in the grounds of the renowned Château de Berne? The...

January can be a rather dull month all told, which is why the brains in the booze business came up with Tryanuary in order to do-away with its sober counterpart. Initially aimed at the beer market, Tryanuary was created to encourage ale fans to support independent breweries, pubs, bars and other retailers during what can be a challenging month for the industry. Since its inception in 2015, the campaign has garnered huge support, and has now been adapted across the piste to...

January has arrived and the nation's mood has switched from chestnuts roasting on an open fire to wet socks drying on an exposed radiator. With the nights still long and the weather unremittingly miserable we pick at life's little pleasures to see out the worst of the winter, and what better place to start than with a warming, full bodied bottle of red. La Bohème, Act Four is a fine wine shipped from the famed Yarra Valley in Australia. Like its...

A fish and chip shop have shunned traditional fizzy pop in exchange for a more upmarket taste - Britain's best English wine list. Olley's Fish Experience stock nine separate English wines from the south coast including bottles from Sussex, Kent, Hampshire and Dorset. The bottles made from English grapes and produced entirely in Britain, have been matched with fish dishes. Owner Harry Niazi, 55, has run the takeaway and restaurant for 30 years but only began stocking the native wines...

What is the secret to making a good wine? Ask the French and they'll say they'll say its the terroir. Ask any New World grower and their more likely to say its the human input that really makes the difference. But ask the Leaf Plucker vineyard on the Western Cape of South Africa and they'll put it down to one rather unusual factor: sheep. Winner of the Gold badge at the Quality Drink Awards for Best White Wine Under £7, Leaf Plucker is a lovely example...

By Katherine Dart, Master of Wine and Buyer at Berry Bros. & Rudd Unbeknown to many, the UK wine industry makes a significant contribution to the UK economy, generating £9.1bn in total contribution to the public purse, employing 170,000 directly and a further 100,000 in the supply chain. And this isn’t a new phenomenon; globally, the UK has played a central – but often overlooked - role in the world’s wine industry from as far back as the Middle Ages, with...

One of the best wine scenes I've ever come across - other than the classic "I'm not drinking f*cking Merlot" line in Sideways - is the last supper in Of Gods and Men. The monks share red wine to the accompaniment of Tchaikovsky's Grand Theme from Swan Lake, playing on an old tape machine in the corner. Xavier Beauvois's camera does nothing but pan slowly around the table while this happens, minutely watching these men's careworn faces as they absorb the mystery...

Last year something remarkable happened in the wine industry. For the first time an elite group of Parisian experts judged English sparkling to be better than champagne in a blind tasting, with many even saying they were convinced that some of the UK-produced fizz was from their own country. It was the first of many signs that a cross-channel wine war has commenced. English wine has been making a significant ascent for several decades now, and thanks to a warmer climate...