Useful Links
If you think we should include any other links from this page, please
let
us know.
Accessories
Wild Grapes Bespoke wine
cellars, wine storage solutions and elegant wine accessories. All useful stuff!
Clubs
Wine on the Web provides a fairly
extensive listing of wine clubs around the UK
Education
Neil Courtier is an experienced wine
educator based near Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk. He runs courses in wine
appreciation in East Anglia so if you live in the region and want to increase
your technical understanding of wine (other than just enjoying a good glass or
several), Neil is well qualified to teach you. Amongst other things he has the
WSET Diploma and is an active member of the Association of Wine Educators.
 |
The Wine & Spirit Education Trust (WSET) was founded in 1969
to provide high quality education and training in wines and spirits. Since
then, WSET has grown into the foremost international body in the field of
wines and spirits education, with a suite of sought-after qualifications
both for the professional and wine enthusiast. |
Investment
Invest
Drinks is Jim Budd's highly acclaimed site (winner of the Prix Champagne Lanson 2001 Ivory Award) dedicated to showing the dangers of drinks investment
and, in particular, to pointing out the dodgy deals. Very useful if you are
thinking about investing in wine!
Magazines,
blogs and other useful stuff
Decanter is the UK's biggest (in terms of circulation) wine
magazine, Decanter. The magazine itself offers features on regions, estates,
wine personalities etc as well as reviews of themed tastings. The new web-site
purports to offer much more, including the Bordeaux Index of auction prices of
over 250 top wines. This enables you to compare the growth in value of your own
wines (assuming your cellar overlaps with Decanter's listings). The subscription
charges are quite high and, unless you are a serious investor, we would not
recommend subscribing to this service (£160 for 12 months of UK auction data;
£240 for UK and US data).
Drink
Rhône is the online presence of the UK's leading Rhône commentator, John
Livingstone-Learmonth. Free overviews of recent vintages but subscription
required to see reviews of specific wines. Useful information about local goings
on, places to eat and stay etc.
Fine Wine Diary comes
across as a more extensive version of my blog - that is to say it is tasting
notes organised by date of tasting. A little difficult to find what you are
looking for but some useful (and interesting) reviews.
An
useful wine resources site with some fun stuff too including a wine quiz which
goes from being impossibly easy to infuriating.
The most highly respected wine journalist this side of the Atlantic?
Matching Food & Wine
seems like a good idea and Decanter columnist Fiona Beckett has the extremely
enviable task of trying to come up with perfect answers. There is a subscription
side to things but the free stuff is quite useful on its own.
Wine
picks, articles and humour from Natalie MacLean, recently named the World's Best
Drink Writer at the World Food Media Awards in Australia.
The Wine Advocate is
Robert Parker's bi-monthly review of wines. For around £50 per year you can
receive six copies (see
www.erobertparker.com),
each issue containing over 50 pages of reviews listed alphabetically within
their category. All wines are tasted blind either by Parker or by his associate,
Pierre-Antoine Rovani, and scored, according to fairly strict criteria out of
100. Parker periodically produces books which are essentially compendiums of his
magazine but it is essential to ensure that these have been recently compiled if
you are using them to assist your purchases.
Wine
Anorak is London-based Jamie
Goode's excellent on-line wine magazine.
Wine
Doctor - independent fine wine tasting, recommendations and advice from
Chris Kissack.
Wine-Journal was the site that
brought Neal Martin to Robert Parker's attention. Neal came to a recent tasting
and we chatted about holidays, music and even wine. Definitely one of the good
guys and his columns are always entertaining to read.
Wine Pages is Tom Cannavan's extensive and informative on-line magazine with
articles, polls, discussions etc - certainly the UK's main wine forum for anyone
wanting a chat. Easy to spend a lot of time here!
Winesearcher
is probably one of the most useful
tools on the web - but only if you are prepared to pay the small subscription
(around £15 a year). Type in the name of the wine you want to buy and it gives
you a list of who stocks it in whichever country you want to buy it. The free
version only lists "sponsors" - companies that pay them around £3,000 a year -
whereas the "Pro" version includes all the little guys like me. Believe me, you
can save the subscription twice over on your first purchase.
Wine
Spectator is Parker's main rival in the
States and another extremely influential publication. In format, it is more
similar to UK magazines Wine and Decanter but with an inevitably more American
perspective. Wines are tasted blind by a small panel of the magazines editors
and wines scoring less than 70 (out of 100) are re-tasted. Reviews are included
in the "Buying Guide" section which lists wines in descending order
according to their ratings. One particularly good thing about Wine Spectator
(unlike any of its competitors) is that all wines tasted are
reviewed so readers can discover which wines to avoid as well as those to seek
out. Magazine subscriptions apply.
Merchants
A growing band of small independent
merchants set to take the world by storm? Let's hope so. With around 20 members, ASDW was
established as a forum to query the new licensing laws. It is hoped that
eventually consumers will be presented with one portal for
all that is good about wine in the UK and that supermarket shopping for wine
will become a thing of the past. OK so that's not entirely realistic but
you get the idea.
Several members got together in
London in early June 2006 to put on a tasting aimed primarily at the press. See our
news page and a
follow up article in the
Independent on Sunday dedicated to the organisation.
Since then, more tastings have followed and diverse write-ups too.
Champers
offers personally branded Champagnes.
Restaurants
etc
By
Appointment must by one of the country's quirkiest restaurants,
certainly the most off-the-wall place in Norwich. The entrance is through the
kitchen so you can decide what you want to eat even before you see the menu.
Except that you don't get to see the menu; instead you are given a personal
presentation by Maître d', Robert, of what chef, Tim has prepared. One thing is
guaranteed: you will have an unforgettable
experience.
Fredrick's Fine Foods in
Diss, south Norfolk, offers top quality food to serve at home, made by
award-winning celebrity chef, Freddie Jones.
Morello's is the home of fine dining in Newmarket. Fresh and
reassuringly simple food and a friendly atmosphere - it all helps the
appreciation of the wines!
The
Waffle House is the perfect lunch venue in Norwich. Bustling with shoppers, this is
the place in Norwich for extremely high quality (almost exclusively organic
ingredients) food and a glass of straight-talking wine. Enthusiastic and
friendly staff go a long way to making this a fun place to grab a bite.
Wineries
(note: Click on the winery name to go to its website or "Click here" to go to
our producer profile page)
Domaine des Anges is one of the most highly-regarded estates in the
Côtes du Ventoux appellation in the Southern Rhône Valley. Additionally, there
are gîtes to stay in offering superb views across the region.
Click
here for more information.
Chateau de
Beaucastel is probably the Southern Rhône's greatest estate with the
longest-lived Châteauneuf of all and an excellent Côtes du Rhône from the
Coudoulet lieu-dit.
Click
here for more information about Beaucastel and its negociant arm,
Domaines Perrin.
Domaine
Brusset is one of the very
best estates in Gigondas and Cairanne, a long-time favourite of ours.
Click
here for more information.
Colonial
Wine Companyis the Australian estate owned by Jonathan Maltus of
Château Teyssier. Excellent old-vine Shiraz leads the way here.
Click
here for more information.
Mas de
Daumas Gassac is the Languedoc's greatest wine and the Guibert family
complement this wit a range of excellent varietals and blends typical of
southern France.
Click
here for more information about Daumas Gassac and Moulin de Gassac.
Poderi Luigi Einaudi is rightly regarded as
one of the very best producers of Dolcetto but we were smitten by their Barbera
and Barolo wines. Click here for more information.
Domaine Grand Veneur
is a rising star in Châteauneuf-du-Pape.
Click here for more
information.
Champagne
Liebart-Regnier rightly has a string of awards for its wines.
Click here for more information.
Domaine
de la Madone is certainly one of the very best producers in the
Beaujolais and is magnificently situated by the chapel of the Madonna -
accommodation available! Click here for
more information.
Domaine des Malandes produces consistently high quality Chablis that is often
cited by the critics for its purity and excellence.
Click here for more information.
Marco Maci
produces a huge range of excellent value wines in the Puglian region of southern
Italy. Click here for more information.
Il
Molino di Grace is one of the rising stars of Chianti Classico -
since its inception in 2000 it has scooped numerous awards from the Italian wine
press and is fast gaining an international reputation as an estate to be
reckoned with. Click
here for more information.
Tenuta Monte Rosola is the new venture of
German businessman and wine afficionado, Gottfried Schmitt and his wife
Carmen Vieytes. Two hectares of Tuscan soil are home to the vines which
currently produce only around 5,000 bottles per year. Perfection has never come
so reasonably priced as this!
Click here for more information.
Domaine de Mourchon has become the leading estate in the wonderfully
picturesque village of Séguret since Walter McKinlay took over in 1998. The
wines take two to three years to knit together but are well worth this small
amount of patience. Click here for
more information
Domaines
Perrin are best known for the wines from their estate, Château de
Beaucastel, the greatest and longest-lived Châteauneuf-du-Pape of all. They
also produce an excellent range under their negociant label, Domaines Perrin.
Click
here for more information about Beaucastel and Domaines Perrin.
Château
du Seuil is an up-and-coming estate in the Southern Graves region of
Bordeaux producing an excellent Graves red and white as well as a delicious
botrytised Sauternes-style wine from Cérons. Welsh proprietor Bob Watts bought
the estate in 1988, having retired from his career as a barrister.
Click
here for more information.
Château
Teyssier makes some of St-Emilion's best-value Grand cru wines (tipped
for elevation in 2006) as well as some excellent generic Bordeaux Supérieurs
(red and white) under the Château Lacroix label for everyday drinking.
Click
here for more information about Château
Teyssier and here for information about
Château Lacroix.
Raymond
Usseglio has for some time been one of our favourite producers of
Châteauneuf-du-Pape. His wines manage to combine what so many others don't:
elegance with power. Click here for
more information
Xavier Vignon is one of our top selling winemakers: he not only produces
a range of fabulous wines under his own label but he is consultant for many top
producers in the region - that means many of our other estates!
Click here for more information.
