Take a trip to Provence
Stay in a 12th century Château in Haute-Provence
Northern Italy by way of Savoie Part 1
Savoie is one of those offbeat wine regions that even many French people only seem to have a vague idea of its location. Viticulture here seems like opportunism and local demand sucks up the thin, often acidic wines without discernment. Amongst the patchwork scattering of scrawny vineyards and tiny wineries there are but a few gems and serendipity alone would lead you to the ramshackle village of Ayze and Domaine Belluard
Northern Italy by way of Savoie Pt 2
Part 2 of ‘Northern Italy by way of Savoie’
Kate Thal’s Tuscan Adventure
Disgustingly early start - 3:50 wake up, for an early flight to Pisa. Jude and I plus Giselle and Kamila from Lordship Lane and Olly from Clapham as well as four young people from The Grove (one of the hotels I consult for) were off to Tuscany on the now annual trip with the biggest supplier to Green & Blue and one of the biggest to The Grove.
I often say, and it is completely true really, that if Eric Narioo’s company did not exist, then neither would Green & Blue. Although I was a few years in to my wine career before I really got to know them, they have in the last ten years or so, introduced me to the wines I love most in the world and quite apart from that, they are also an amazingly wonderful group of people. They seem to attract a certain type of person - those who are really passionate about wine without being even slightly precious, who also have an incredibly well developed sense of humour and more than a touch of eccentricity about them.
RETURN TO TERRAS GAUDA
Galicia, Santiago di Compostela apart, is slightly off the tourist radar. With the Mediterranean coast of Spain gradually metamorphosing into an endless succession of hideous hybrid-style crazy-paved villa developments and golf course complexes designed by the ubiquitous Jack Nicklaus, it is good to know that this raw, somewhat elemental part of the country rises above such frivolities. The weather is perhaps a deterrent to the sun-seeking expat � this is a green land where mists roll in off the Atlantic and where the cascading rain reminds one forcibly of other celtic regions.
BASQUET CASE - A Tale of One Txacoli
Verde que te quiero verde,
Verde viento. Verde ramas
Green I love you green. Green wind. Green branches.
Federico Garcia Lorca
People ask why Txacoli is so expensive and difficult to obtain outside the Basque country. After all it is the greenest of green wines, surely mere water off a Biscayan duck’s back. However, consider the tiny size of the average farm-holding; there are only a handful of producers who can lay claim to more than one hectare of vines and those vines teetering and straggling every which way on slopes, in dells and hollows, cheek-by-tendril with orchard trees and flower nurseries.