Cellar Stories

When choosing a drink to define the Great British Summer, many will gravitate toward Pimms. Far be it from us to question the wisdom of such a selection. Half a million tennis enthusiasts inside The All England Club and on Murray Mound during Wimbledon cannot be wrong. All the same, we'd like to state a case for rosé. A fine rosé epitomises the gentle caress of the sun's rays on a relaxing day. With the right glass in your hand, anything seems possible and the summer seems endless. If there is a fault with rosé during the peak of the...

The art of choosing a bottle of wine is sacred for many of us. Selecting a vintage with the perfect blend of age and origin can be the difference between a reputation as a connoisseur and social suicide. Take a bottle of supermarket plonk to a dinner party and your invitation to the next may end up lost in the post! Once you have identified the ideal wine, however, it may be time to consider an upgrade in bottle size. A bottle is great – but a magnum is twice the fun. That's simple mathematics. Beyond the dimensions, however, what...

Champagne has long been considered the gold standard for celebratory drinks. Even its Italian counterpart Prosecco, whilst hugely growing in popularity, fails to enjoy quite the same reputation. How about English sparkling wines, however? Can homegrown products stand toe-to-toe with France's finest export? Believe it or not, English sparkling wine actually predates champagne. The French monk Dom Pierre Perignon invented the beverage that bears his name in 1697. Christopher Merrett, a British scientist that hailed from the Cotswolds, first coined the term 'sparkling' in relation to wine in 1662. Merrett was the first person to document secondary fermentation, or the...

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