Cellar Stories
ABC - Anything But Chardonnay
ABC. Just to clarify - we’re not going to reteach you the alphabet. But what we are going to do is attempt to unpick a topic that is at once deeply ingrained in our wine drinking culture and yet, at the same time, appears totally misunderstood. Perhaps the best place for us to start is at the beginning; what is Chardonnay? This myth-like creature is a white grape that hails from Burgundy. It is medium-bodied, has good acidity and despite what the haters may want to argue, is really quite neutral in flavour. It doesn’t sing and pop with aromatic...
Does size really matter?
The 75cl bottle really has become the ubiquitous size on wine lists and in shops around the world, and indeed was officialised throughout Europe in 1970 as the standard size for a bottle of wine. But how did we get to this? Some say that it is connected to the literal lung capacity of the glass blowers making these first bottles, whilst others argue that the 75cl bottle held enough wine for the average person to consume over supper. Maybe we will never really know the truth, but what we can tell you for sure, is that in a standard...
Alternatives to White Burgundy
You may have heard the whispers of savage shortages of Burgundy and of the terrible hand that Mother Nature has dealt in devastating almost entire villages’ crops year after year over the last decade(s). However, this has gone hand in hand with Burgundy’s meteoric ascent in popularity across the four corners of the world, amongst professionals and novices alike. As such, the price of a bottle of delectable Chardonnay or Pinot from this land-locked pocket of France has spiked an eye-watering amount, and this year alone has experienced jumps in value that the industry has never seen before. So whilst...
Sherry
Sherry is a tricky little bugger. It comes in so many different colours, flavours, and ages, as well as swinging from bone dry to syrupy sweet, that it seems trivial to simply call it a fortified wine. What makes sherry so unique is that it is more than just a tipple developed from winemaking traditions and the terroir of the region, it is also a creation of the region's importance in trading and international exploration. Whilst the Moors were already busy trading sherry with the English in the 12th century (apparently, we had highly coveted wool), it was the Age...
Recent articles